Last weekend I biked the entire length of the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. There are a mix of different bicycle facility treatments, some more effective than others. In the southern part of the Grand Concourse NYCDOT designed the bike lane next to the median in towards the center of the outer roadway. I did notice a number of double parked cars, but generally they didn't block the bike lane.
As you can see from the video, cars are double parked but generally they are not blocking the bike lane. This video was shot right near the the Cross-Bronx Expressway on Grand Concourse.
Farther north, near in the 180s, NYCDOT decided to raise the bike lane a with a curb. Drivers in this area seemed to think this was a parking lane. Instead of double parking drivers decided to park directly in the bike lane.
In the above photo, there is a bus stop to the right, but it's not an excuse to park in the bike lane.
In other areas, people just seemed to think parking in the bike lane was OK. I was frustrated biking in this area.
In the above photo, the bike lane starts flat with the street, but then is raised about 6 inches with a 45 degree curb farther up past the vehicle. While I understand the concept is to make the bike lane feel like its on a different level than the cars, this solution is not effective for a few reasons. Without a protected lane, cars can easily enter the bike lane and park. In fact, they seemed to do this much more with the raised bike lane than the flat bike lane. Second, when a car parks in the bike lane the cyclist has to exit the lane, and then go up the curb to get back into the lane, annoying. To execute this maneuver I had to hit the curb at a sharp angle so my wheels would go up the curb safely. Not fun.
Furthermore, the NYPD 46th precinct seemed to also think the bike lane was for car storage.
Why would a driver obey the law if they observed cops breaking the law? This sucked, and I was very disappointed to see this. I did not feel safe here especially because I had to turn my neck back to make sure no one was speeding through the driving lane as I kept swerving in and out of the bike lane. Notice here there is no space for drivers drive around if cyclist is in front of them! A flaw of this design is you cannot bike in the area with the raised curb so it's lost space.
Farther up on Grand Concourse, I felt much safer biking. This is an area where there had been no major capital projects and only paint had been put down!
Why did I feel safer biking here than in areas farther to the south? While there was just paint, there was enough space for cars and bicycles to maneuver around each other. In the above photo, the bike lane has a nice buffer, and to the left is a yellow area where cars can get around bikes or double parked cars.
For example, in the below photo a car double parked in the bike lane. I was able to easily get around the double parked car, and there was plenty of room to spare if a car wanted to pass me on the left in the yellow area.
It seemed counterintuitive that less bike infrastructure felt safer, but that was my experience. In the areas with the landscaped median and the raised curb there was much less room to maneuver. I was surprised to see that in the areas where the city spent more money the biking experience felt less safe and crowded feeling.