New York City Bikeways and Walkways

In addition to the sidewalk, pedestrians can walk on the street where a wide walkway is installed. To the right of the walkway is a Citi Bike island and a protected bike lane.

Having read about New York City's Street Wars, I was curious to see for myself the battle for space on NYC streets. So, on a recent trip to visit my daughter who lives there, I tried all modes of transportation -- walking, biking, and driving. Here are my findings.

I was impressed by NYC's avant-garde bikeways and walkways. I saw many 2-way bikeways down 1-way carways. That's one benefit of being on a bike - you get to go down a street both ways while cars are constrained to go one way down the same street.  On the Brooklyn Bridge, the full upper level is dedicated for pedestrians to enjoy the Manhattan skyline. Cars cross on the lower level and cyclists have a protected 2-way bikeway next to the cars.  I saw a parking-protected 2-way bikeway. I walked on the High Line, which is a rail trail that was elevated to prevent collisions between trains and pedestrians last century, but now converted to a walkway for people to enjoy as a linear park.  There are so many pedestrians in NYC that, in at least one location I saw, the city dedicated street space for an extra wide walkway parallel to the sidewalk.  I saw a restauranteur claim street space for dinner guests by putting out planter boxes down the middle of the street.  They do a quick build and then a quick unbuild at the end of every day.

Buffered 2-way bikeway on a 1-way carway.

The author documenting a 2-way protected bikeway leading to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Parking-protected 2-way bikeway.

The High Line is an elevated rail trail repurposed into a linear city park.

A daily quick build using planter boxes to cordone off a dining area.

Despite all these avant-garde bike and walk facilities, NYC is still distinctly dangerous to bike and walk in.  People in all modes of transportation break traffic rules right and left, causing constant unexpected movements and near misses.  Pedestrians step off the curb even if they don't have a green light.  Cyclists run red lights whenever they can. Drivers aggressively claim their turn to move, even if pedestrians or cyclists are in their way. Whatever mode of transportation you're using, you'd better look out for conflicting traffic moving out of turn.  Driving back from the Catskills into Manhattan one evening, I unintentionally cut off cyclists as I tried to make a turn. In retrospect, I'm not sure how I was supposed to legally make that turn across the constantly buzzing bike lane with a traffic light that didn't give me a chance to cross, but the shouts from the cyclists I inconvenienced indicated I didn't follow the rules. Driving down a street with sharrows, I was confused whether the sharrows meant a bike-only lane that I wasn't supposed to drive on or a travel lane I was supposed to share with bikes. Luckily, I snuck through that street without encountering a cyclist. On another occasion, I rented one of NYC's many bike sharing Citi Bikes and biked on a separated bikeway down the West Side. I dared not cycle off this bikeway for fear of being caught in a sea of cars. My daughter said biking in Manhattan is generally terrifying, and I was not about to go check out what she meant. 

Pedestrian and cyclist deaths in NYC are pretty high. In 1990, a pedestrian was hit and killed by a car just about every day. In 2014, NYC became the first US city to adopt Vision Zero.  Safety has improved for pedestrians: now, a pedestrian is killed by a car about every 3 days instead of every day.  For cyclists, NYC sees around 25-30 cyclist deaths per year, and that figure is climbing, thanks to a growing number of cyclists using Citi Bikes and e-bikes.  Although NYC has done a lot to make streets safe, their work is far from complete. 

In June of this year, NYC was set to launch a Congestion Pricing Program that was a first-in-the-nation scheme to charge vehicles for entering the congested central business district in Lower Manhattan. The culmination of a century of proposals to reduce vehicular traffic, this program would charge a $15 toll for an average vehicle, with variations for vehicle size and time of day. The program was a win-win-win-win-win: it would reduce vehicle traffic by 15%-20%, raise $1B/year for much needed mass transit upgrades, reduce CO2, improve air quality, and increase road safety. But, at the last moment, NY Governor Hochul made a unilateral political decision to halt the program, to the great dismay of many. Years of work and $500M spent on congestion pricing equipment were wasted. Governor Hochul is now scrambling to re-instate the Congestion Pricing Program before Trump takes office. The program, if implemented, will collect $9 per vehicle instead of $15.

Sunnyvale could learn from NYC's experience. Sunnyvale is not NYC, but we will face similar traffic challenges as our population grows steeply over the next couple of decades. Moffett Park, where most of the growth will be, is mostly bounded by freeways and the Bay and accessible only through a few roads, just as Manhattan is bounded by waterways and accessible only through a few bridges. If we embrace Smart Growth by providing alternate forms of transportation early on, we may be able to avert the worst of street wars in Sunnyvale.

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About the Author

Sharlene Liu is Founder and Chair of Sunnyvale Safe Streets. Her daughter who grew up biking and walking in Sunnyvale now lives in NYC and takes the subway.