Reclaiming our village streets with bike lanes

We just need to give cyclists and pedestrians a fighting chance at reclaiming their share of the road. Key in that fight is the bike lane.”

It’s no surprise Valley Stream, like most of the country, has a strong, cherished car culture. The village’s annual car show attracts a wide crowd of car enthusiasts and residents alike.

Cars have served us well as a society, propelling our ease of transportation forward. But experts note the ubiquity of these gas-powered, moving tons of metal on our roadways is imposing a growing toll on our environment and jeopardizing our safety, quality of life, and peace of mind.

Valley Stream is far from immune from this. Car congestion on busy traffic corridors has long been a source of concern. Consider schools like Shaw Avenue or Memorial Junior High, where parents routinely weave through its traffic-snarled streets simply to get their kids dropped off or picked up.

It’s also no secret cars wield a lethal capability to injure pedestrians and cyclists. Inattentiveness by those on and off the road creates harrowing safety situations for everyone involved. Not to mention every inch of street space we offer up for vehicular traffic robs precious inches of public space designed for us to walk, gather and play as a community. 

The solution, however, isn’t to get cars off the streets through needless penalties or travel restrictions at designated hours. We just need to give cyclists and pedestrians a fighting chance at reclaiming their share of the road. Key in that fight is the bike lane.

Elissa Kyle, placemaking director at Vision LI, says many of Valley Stream’s narrow roadways — whose construction pre-date the advent of automobiles — are ripe to give bike lanes a home. Narrower roadways consciously force drivers to slow down and be more aware of their surroundings, giving cyclists a measure of protection.

With respect to making Valley Stream more pedestrian and bike-friendly, the village already has a ball in motion. With transit-oriented apartments and current funding to making walking paths through Cahill Park, bike lanes should naturally serve to bolster these initiatives.

But, how much would all this cost? Bike lanes are priced at anywhere between $5,000 to upwards of $50,000 per mile. The question of price hinges on factors like the roadway’s conditions, traffic priorities and safety needs.

For narrow road strips with low speed limits, for example, all you might really need is a strip of paint and the symbol of a bicycle stenciled on pavement. But for bike lanes on dicey intersections, added protections — from new signage to safety buffers aimed at shielding cyclists from oncoming traffic — will inevitably inflate the price.

But this might not pose as big of a challenge as one might think. Low-cost, creative workarounds — known as “quick build-outs,” such as using simple signs or planters and tree medians to divert traffic — have been used by cities and towns elsewhere to make bike paths possible.

Why not Valley Stream?

Plus, when it comes to devising bike routes for the village, Kyle says it’s OK to start slow. Valley Stream, and Long Island in general, isn’t exactly known for its cycling culture. Drivers will need time to acclimate to the presence of more cyclists on the road, and learn how to share their road with non-motorists.

Kyle also notes the importance of public education and community input. Planners should take stock of how community and motorist behavior will change, for better or worse, if a bike lane is added on any given street.

It’s OK to keep things simple at the start, noted Kyle, just by seeing road spots that could stand to have some of its space shaved off for bike lanes. Nevertheless, have an eye for dreaming big, whether it’s linking the village’s parks together via bike lanes, or placing bike routes for students around school zones. There’s no limit to how bike lanes can redefine our streetscapes for the better, so long as the routes have a destination.

The worst thing you can do is have a bike lane ending at a busy intersection without anywhere else to go, Kyle noted. Our public spaces and streets should be for everyone, and everyone should feel safe and free within them.

Let’s collectively take on the initiative to risk going that extra mile to make bicycle routes a reality in Valley Stream, one bike lane at a time.