Bikeways
Most cycling is in the same lanes as motor traffic, since most streets provide no separate facilities for bicycles. However, bikeways connect most neighborhoods. Those in parks are Greenways, segregated from traffic. The Hudson River Greenway is so heavily used that it requires separation of the bikeway from pedestrians. Other parts of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway and the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway are less continuously segregated. A Greenway runs through Pelham Bay Park and across the Bronx along Mosholu Parkway to Van Cortlandt Park where it connects to the South County Trailway. Others include foreshoreways along the north shore of Jamaica Bay, the south shores of Little Neck Bay and Flushing Bay and other locations.
As of February 2009, about 170 miles (260 km) of painted lanes run in streets, and the network is growing. Most street bike lanes are simply marked with paint and signage, and lie between a parking lane and a traffic lane. They are often blocked by trucks unloading and by double parked cars. A few, as in Tillary Street, Brooklyn, replace the parking lane and are separated from motor traffic by concrete barriers. The 8th and 9th Avenue bike lanes in Chelsea, Manhattan were rebuilt in late 2008 to lie between the curb and a new parking lane, and are expected to provide more safety. Similar layouts were used on 1st and 2d Avenues in 2010, and on Columbus Avenue in 2011.
On three Saturdays in August 2008, a route on the East Side of Manhattan from Brooklyn Bridge to 72nd Street along Lafayette Street, Park Avenue and other streets was cleared of motor traffic to allow easy non-motorised use as an experiment called "Summerstreets". It was repeated in 2009 and became an annual event, including August 6, 13 and 20, 2011.
From mid-August 2008, two lanes of Broadway between 42nd Street and Herald Square were transformed into a pedestrian plaza and bike path. In late May 2012, four one-way pairs of crosstown bike lanes in Midtown received preliminary approval.
Appreciation of the new bike lanes in streets was not unanimous. A group in Park Slope sued in March 2011 to remove a new bike lane and in November the City Council voted to slow the installation of new lanes and pedestrian plazas. However, an August 2012 survey found two thirds of New Yorkers in favor of bike lanes.
A proposed "Queensway" rail trail conversion of the former Rockway Beach Branch has also met controversy.
Read more about this topic: Cycling In New York City