{"id":4859,"date":"2025-11-21T09:19:48","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T09:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/animateandmore.com\/demos\/bikelegal\/?p=4859"},"modified":"2026-04-30T14:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:06:08","slug":"new-york-city-bike-lanes-infrastructure-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/animateandmore.com\/demos\/bikelegal\/new-york-city-bike-lanes-infrastructure-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"How New York City Transformed Its Streets: Bike Lanes, Safety, and the Power of Advocacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New York City\u2019s streets are changing in ways that would have seemed impossible twenty years ago. Protected bike lanes, safer intersections, and the work of long-standing advocacy groups are reshaping how millions move through the city each day. On my return after two decades, I saw how infrastructure, policy, and community effort are moving New York toward a safer, more connected future for cyclists and pedestrians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Table Of Contents<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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  1. An Ex-New Yorker Returns to NYC, Discovering Modern Bike Lanes, and the City\u2019s Best Bagels<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. New York City in the 1990s: A City Built for Cars, Not People<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. How New York City Has Transformed Since the Early 2000s<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Brooklyn Leads the Nation in Bicycle Safety: PeopleForBikes City Ratings<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. The Current State of Bicycle Safety in New York City<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. The Movement Behind the Change: Transportation Alternatives<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Attending the Transportation Alternatives Advocacy Awards & Member Mixer<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. New York City vs. Los Angeles Transportation: Why Their Streets Evolved Differently<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. The Future of New York City Streets Under Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. But What About That Bagel?<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  11. Reflections on a City That Continues to Evolve<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  12. Bike Legal: Here for You While Advocating for Bicycle Safety and Cyclists\u2019 Rights<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    An Ex-New Yorker Returns to NYC, Discovering Modern Bike Lanes, and the City\u2019s Best Bagels<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    \ufeffReturning to New York City in 2025 wasn\u2019t just a visit. It was a homecoming with purpose. I came back to the city I love for three reasons<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    First, for me: to reconnect with the place where I went to college, launched my career, and got married.  A city that shaped me in ways no other place ever could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Second, as a mom: to show my son, an aspiring young chef, the neighborhoods, restaurants, and culinary world that might become his future home as he interviews for jobs, explores culinary programs, and takes in a city completely unlike the Southern California life he grew up in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Third, as Bike Legal\u2019s bicycle advocate and blog writer: to understand firsthand how New York\u2019s bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure has evolved, and to meet the people and advocacy groups behind the transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Meanwhile, my son and I were doing what so many visitors and locals do best. We were eating our way through Manhattan and Brooklyn. From authentic neighborhood bagel shops to the kind of slice you can only find in New York, our trip doubled as a culinary adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    With 12,000 to 20,000 steps a day, we walked nearly every block we could and took in the unique mix of smells, sounds, and energy that only New York delivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Favorite Pizzerias:<\/strong>  L\u2019industrie<\/a> in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, and Joe\u2019s Pizza<\/a> in Greenwich Village<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Favorite slices:<\/strong> The Spicy Salami, the Burrata, and the Fig Jam & Bacon slice, and classic pepperoni<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Three<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Much of the city felt the same including that familiar, chaotic sensory overload I remembered so well. The steam rising from subway grates, the nonstop honking of taxis, the skyscrapers towering so high they swallow sound and light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    But two things had changed<\/strong> in ways I couldn\u2019t ignore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    First, the skyline. When I lived here, the World Trade Center anchored lower Manhattan and served as my compass. These twin towers were the landmark I used to orient myself and the building where I landed my internship and first real job. That skyline is now marked by an absence that still aches, and by the soaring Freedom Tower that rose in its place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Second, the sheer number of e-bikes and micromobility. They are everywhere now.  Amazon e-cargo bikes, delivery carts, DoorDash delivery, commuters, teenagers, older adults, and families, all moving through the city in a way that simply didn\u2019t exist when I lived here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    New York evolves constantly, but somehow, it always manages to feel unmistakably like New York. To really understand how far it has come, I had to go back to what the city felt like when I first called it home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    New York City in the 1990s: A City Built for Cars, Not People<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    When I lived in New York from 1989 to 2000, I was a college kid in Brooklyn and later a young professional in Manhattan who got around exactly the way every broke New Yorker did: with subway tokens or MetroCard, tired feet, and the kind of street intuition you can\u2019t teach in a classroom. Owning a car was impractical. Parking garages were unaffordable, and finding street parking was like winning the lottery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A Pedestrian\u2019s Nightmare<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Crossing the street back then was not for the faint of heart. You didn\u2019t \u201center\u201d the crosswalk; you stepped off the curb with hope and a Hail Mary of making it across unscathed. Cars ruled the streets, and everyone knew it. Drivers didn\u2019t slow down, pedestrians learned to speed up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When I moved to Laguna Beach, CA, in 2000, I was stunned watching Californians stroll into a crosswalk expecting traffic to stop for them, and the traffic did. It felt like watching an alternate universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My Prized 1983 Schwinn in a City With Zero Bike Infrastructure<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    On weekends, I pulled my beloved 1983 Schwinn 10-speed off the wall rack of my tiny apartment for adventures in the great outdoors. I would ride from my Fort Greene neighborhood to Far Rockaway Beach, or over the Brooklyn Bridge through the streets of Manhattan to Central Park. If time were an issue, laps around my local Prospect Park would suffice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I participated in the NYC Five Borough Bike Tour<\/a> which opened my eyes to what riding 40 miles in the city without vehicle danger would be like, for a day at least. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Riding my bike through New York was my freedom and ability to explore, in a city that offered cyclists zero safety in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n