Image Credit: NYC DOT
New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez today unveiled a new street design tool to better protect pedestrians and cyclists by helping improve visibility and reduce conflicts at intersections, where roughly half of all traffic fatalities occur. The new design serves as the most recent example of how NYC DOT is leading the nation in innovating safe street infrastructure. The agency plans to roll out the treatment at a limited number of specific high-crash intersections along new and existing conventional bike lanes across the city starting in 2025.
“Redesigning our streets under Vision Zero has helped us reduce traffic deaths to historic lows—but we are always looking for new ways to keep people safe,” said NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. “Using barriers to clear space at the intersection will help ensure pedestrians, cyclists and turning vehicles can see each other and enhance safety. We look forward to rolling out the design at high-crash locations starting this year.”
NYC DOT will install this treatment at a few locations based on several criteria, including in Tier 1 and Tier 2 Priority Investment Areas as defined by the Streets Plan, which are neighborhoods that have seen historic underinvestment in safe street infrastructure; new or existing conventional bike lanes with a history of turning crashes; locations with a high number of truck turns; as improvements to locations where NYC DOT has previously implemented turn calming designs. The treatment will be context-specific and has limitations based on the layout of the intersection. The agency will focus on identifying locations with the highest crash risks that meet its criteria.
Initial 2025 locations include:
Ocean Avenue at Church Avenue
Ocean Avenue at Avenue J
Ocean Avenue at Cortelyou Road
>Ocean Avenue at Foster Avenue
Avenue J at Bedford Avenue
Rugby Road and Foster Avenue
Hardened Daylighting
Hardened daylighting is the practice of improving visibility at the intersection using barriers, granite blocks, planters and other items to prevent parking nearest the corner. While NYC DOT installs hardened daylighting at hundreds of intersections each year, this new daylighting design is specifically tailored for conventional bike lane routes. Conventional bike lanes dedicate space for cyclists using street markings and are typically next to a vehicle parking lane on the street.
NYC DOT’s recently published, first-of-its-kind daylighting study showed safety benefits tied to hardened daylighting, though the agency will monitor installations for efficacy and safety.
Record-High Bike Lane Mileage
The new design tool compliments NYC DOT’s efforts to expand safe bicycle infrastructure at a record pace—as cycling ridership in the city continues to soar. NYC DOT has installed 87.5 miles of protected bike over the past three years—more mileage than any prior three-year period. At the same time, more and more New Yorkers are taking up cycling, with more than 600,000 cycling trips taken each day—a 158 percent increase from 2008, when 240,000 daily cycling trips were taken in the city.
At the same time, NYC DOT has been working to update its bicycle lane designs to enhance safety and better support a wide variety of legal devices that can use bike lanes, including e-bikes and stand-up e-scooters. In addition to the new intersection design, the agency has begun installing wider bike lanes to create a more comfortable riding experience and has hardened more than 20 miles of existing bike lanes with sturdier materials, like jersey barriers, to keep vehicles from illegally parking in the lanes.
