Vanishing Bike Lanes A Threat On NYC's Streets, Cyclists Say

NEW YORK — It's a dangerous disappearing act. Bike lane markings are vanishing from roads around New York City, a phenomenon that riders say compromises the safety of the cycling network.

Lines on the street marking bike lanes get worn down over time as cars roll over them, cyclists say. Some markings are barely visible while others have disappeared entirely.

Indiscernible lanes give drivers one less visual cue to look out for bikes, making it even easier for cars to invade their space, according to cyclists.

"This is a dangerous situation," said Boerum Hill cyclist Patrick Schnell, who frequently rides a deteriorated bike lane on Bond Street. "... People continually reference how many miles of bike lanes we have in New York City, but it doesn’t reflect the reality because these bike lanes are just on paper in many cases."

Bond Street is one of many roads with fading bike lanes. Markings are faint or missing altogether on a stretch of Driggs Avenue that runs through Williamsburg's McCarren Park. Another section near Metropolitan Avenue has a painted icon of a bicyclist but no white line dividing bikes from cars.

The stripe two blocks west on Berry Street had also disappeared until the city's Department of Transportation replaced the markings in May.

A blurry line separates bikes from traffic on a busy stretch of Adams Street near a Marriott hotel in Downtown Brooklyn. Same goes for Avenue C between Eighth and Ninth streets in the East Village.

Yellow construction plates appear to have supplanted the bike lane altogether about a block north on that avenue. And arrows directing cyclists to share the road with cars are nearly gone on 59th Street in Woodside, Queens.

The worn-down markings are an "extensive" problem across the city's more than 1,200 miles of bike lanes that is likely worsening as more lanes are installed, said Jon Orcutt, a spokesperson for the cycling nonprofit Bike New York.

"It just really increases the temptation for drivers to simply cross that (line) and drive on the bike lane, which they do anyway," Schnell said.

"They just get another excuse to ignore the bike lane and endanger cyclists," he added.

The Department of Transportation aims to shore up the city's bike infrastructure as part of its "Green Wave" cycling safety plan, a response to a recent spike in biking deaths. Eighteen cyclists have been killed in crashes so far this year, up from 10 in all of 2018.

The DOT plans to make fixing markings a priority by increasing inspections of bike infrastructure and adding capacity to address the lines, according to the plan released last month. The department will also examine the faded lanes in images that Patch provided, DOT spokesperson Alana Morales said.

The thermoplastic markings last for about three years, depending on the volume of cars, according to Morales. "We do refurbishments after, making sure they don’t conflict with roadway or Capital work," she said in an email.

But the DOT's current maintenance system relies on complaints from New Yorkers, resulting in uneven fixes, Orcutt said.

"They generally won’t inspect them and then go back and re-mark unless there’s a complaint, and the problem with the complaint-driven process is only certain places have people watchdogging," Orcutt said.

After Schnell complained last month about the lane on Bond Street between Third and Atlantic avenues, the DOT told him new markings would be installed when the road is resurfaced, according to an email he shared with Patch. That could mean a fix to the bike lane is months away, Schnell said.

Bike New York wants the DOT to bring on bike lane inspectors who can catalog faded markings and other problems with cycling infrastructure, Orcutt said. The DOT does plan to explore the idea of having inspectors on bikes check on conditions in construction zones, according to the Green Wave plan.

"There’s nobody whose job it really is to take care of the bike lanes once they’re built," Orcutt said.