I agree - I also find it safer in NYC to just ride with traffic. I have had several collisions with pedestrians who decided they would just step out right in front of me into my “lane” and nearly door’d on a couple of other occasions
The other day I stopped behind a cyclist at a red light on a major avenue in NYC. He was in the left lane and the bike lane is simply one more lane over.
When the light turned green he took forever to get going and even after 20 seconds he was still going dangerously slow so I honked him and felt like a jerk. I did not understand why he simply didn't use the bike lane.
The cross streets are a different story. The bike lanes there are basically non-existent and I have no problem sharing the road with cyclists there.
I would like to point out that honking at cyclists is really annoying as a cyclist and can even be quite dangerous. From inside your car, it doesn't sound so bad but, on the outside -- particularly when you are as close as bike lanes often are -- it's pretty extreme noise pollution and borderline deafening.
Drivers in NYC are constantly honking for no good reason other than their own self gratification. (And how good can it even feel?) It's completely normalised socially but is clearly a useless and negative act in almost all cases. I find it extremely selfish for people to choose to take up so much space and so much noise at the expense of others. If you really must choose to drive rather than bike/walk/subway, at least choose not to fill the air with more noise than needs to be there.
> When the light turned green he took forever to get going and even after 20 seconds he was still going dangerously slow so I honked him and felt like a jerk. I did not understand why he simply didn't use the bike lane.
Cyclist here. My experience suggests that when a cyclist takes the lane, they're doing so because they decided it was the best option for them. I wish more drivers would give them the benefit of the doubt.
There are many reasons not to use the bike lane: debris, drivers turning into the bike lane without looking, pedestrians walking into the bike lane without looking, cars illegally blocking the bike lane, needing to make a left turn (it's typically illegal to make a left turn from the far right), a cyclist keeping up with traffic, etc.
I concur the cyclist must have chosen that lane for a reason which is why I felt in the wrong but none of the reasons listed seem applicable in this case.
Also, are pedestrians walking into bike lanes a valid reason not to use bike lanes? For every pedestrian blindly walking into bike lanes staring at their phone I see an equal number of cyclists going at high speeds through pedestrian crossings (9 times out of 10 when they don't have the right of way). As a pedestrian I've almost been hit by cyclists four times (twice in Queens and twice in Manhattan). The one case in Queens was really bad as it was one of those powered food delivery bicycles and I was pushing a baby in a stroller.
> Also, are pedestrians walking into bike lanes a valid reason not to use bike lanes?
Depends on the location. Some places have high concentrations of bad pedestrians. In Austin there's one bike lane in particular where cyclists need to pay close attention to pedestrians, who often treat the bike lane there as an extension of the sidewalk.
> For every pedestrian blindly walking into bike lanes staring at their phone I see an equal number of cyclists going at high speeds through pedestrian crossings
Some cyclists are awful too. If the cyclists are bad enough then I might avoid the bike lane myself...
On a city street that's essentially an oxymoron. You have to deal with stopped and slow traffic, turning traffic, etc. A slow cyclist should not be any different.
The avenues in Manhattan actually flow really well and the lights are very well timed. You can get from downtown to uptown almost without stopping. Personally I don't think cyclists should be mixed with cars in Manhattan especially when there's already dedicated bike lanes. But I'll probably change my opinion once I start commuting via bike :)
The problem is that many of those bike lanes present significant problems to cyclists using them (illegally parked vehicles, lack of room to avoid bad surface conditions, intersection conflicts, dooring hazards caused by door zone bike lanes, etc.
