Residents are calling the bike lanes along Southern Boulevard in Belmont a traffic nightmare.<\/p>\n
Members of Bronx Community Board 6 are urging the city Department of Transportation to reevaluate and change the traffic pattern between Fordham Road and East 182nd Street, saying the redesign has made the area more dangerous instead of safer.<\/p>\n
At several bus stops, riders must step directly into the bike lane to board, creating a risk of collisions if cyclists or pedestrians are not paying attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bike lanes coincide with this,\u201d said Lisa Sanchez, of Community Board 6. \u201cThere is no division of where people should cross their bikes, and there\u2019s no division of where people have to get on the bus.\u201d<\/p>\n
In some sections, cyclists avoid the bike lane altogether and ride on the sidewalk. <\/p>\n
Board members say damaged pavement, raised tiles and orange cones blocking broken areas make the lanes unsafe to use.<\/p>\n
The board says the project, implemented as part of the city\u2019s Vision Zero initiative, has failed to improve safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere aren\u2019t any signs to direct traffic for the bikes,\u201d said Magdamary Marcano, of Community Board 6. \u201cWhen kids get off the bus, there\u2019s nothing that says stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
That lack of signage, board members say, makes it difficult and dangerous for children crossing the bike lane on their way to the Bronx Zoo.<\/p>\n
The bike lane has also eliminated dozens of parking spaces, leading some drivers to double-park or stop in the lane.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are using that lane as a parking spot in front of the school bus,\u201d Marcano said.<\/p>\n
The result, the board says, is traffic congestion and an unintentional merge that reduces two traffic lanes into one.<\/p>\n
Community Board 6 said it rejected the bike lane proposal three times before it was built nearly six years ago and now believes the problems are worse than originally anticipated. <\/p>\n
Board members say they raised similar concerns during meetings in 2019 but were ignored.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community board has been following up with the Department of Transportation to ask if this has resolved the issues DOT said it would resolve,\u201d said Rafael Moure-Punnett, of Community Board 6. \u201cIt\u2019s been almost six years, and we can\u2019t get an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
While waiting for a response from the city, board members say they hope no one is injured before the area is redesigned to better meet the community\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents are calling the bike lanes along Southern Boulevard in Belmont a traffic nightmare. Members of Bronx Community…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[2465,13929,13930,128,5459,9,24,1310,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-95299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-belmont","tag-bike-lane","tag-bike-lanes","tag-bronx","tag-department-of-transportation","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-department-of-transportation","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}