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In Portland, we have many reasons to be proud of our Bureau of Transportation. They’re moving forward with new bikeway facilities that re-envision our roadways and give bike traffic the treatment it deserves.
But New York City is going beyond re-striping roads and demonstration projects. They’re aggressively remaking their city for non-motorized transportation (and let’s not forget, they installed a separated bikeway (a.k.a. cycletrack) two years before we did).
With their visionary, gutsy, and bike-intelligent Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan — whose “take back the streets” attitude has just been noticed by Forbes Magazine — NYC continues to push the envelope. Take this most recent example forwarded to us from our friends at Streetfilms — it’s a two-way, center-median, completely protected bikeway in the middle of a major street:
Here’s what Streetfilms has to say about it:
“Frankly, the facility is a perfect solution to counter the dangers posed by a tangle of roads and highway on-ramps that burden the area. Dramatic before and afters [which you can see in the video] tell the delicious story.”
The most amazing thing about this is what we heard about this from one of our sources in the bike advocacy scene in NYC: “I can’t believe they came up with that idea. They are thinking SO outside the box, I wouldn’t have even proposed that!”