You Told Us is a regular feature highlighting comments from users in the communities DNAinfo covers.
UPPER EAST SIDE — The city's plan to redesign Second Avenue in time for the opening of the new subway line has hit a nerve among readers.
The Department of Transportation unveiled its redesign plan earlier this month to add a bus lane, dedicated left-turn lanes and a protected bike lane for a stretch of the avenue, from East 68th to 105th streets.
Readers took to Neighborhood Square to sound off on the plans, with many concerned that taking away vehicle lanes would add to congestion on the avenue and make it unsafe for those using the roadway.
► "IDIOTIC!!!!!! Taking more of the street away from vehicles is not going to help anyone. Second Ave. at present is a traffic nightmare, and will get much worse under the new plan," one Neighborhood Square user said.
► "People who design the bike lanes have likely never ridden a bike in NYC. There are walkers, bikers going wrong way, cars turning into the bike lane. Best way is to simply have the bike lane be next to the curb no parked cars in between not rocket science. No million $ studies wasting taxpayer money needed," another wrote.
► "These are all 'green' ideas, the proponents of which believe cars are one of the great evils of civilization. As such, they are going to punish drivers by making traffic so unbearable that they will end up keeping some drivers away. However all the people who work in NYC and need cars and trucks suffer horribly with staggering traffic, wasting a decent percentage of their lives stuck in place. Bikes are incapable of carrying much of anything and yet they are given priority because greens think they know better than the working classes," one user said.
► "Traffic is worse than ever, squeezed into one to two lanes, bike riders going any which way anywhere they want. The streets are utter chaos. And our meatball mayor really doesn't care. Come November of 2017, after the election, maybe he'll realize he was wrong. But by then, he'll be out of office. Worst mayor ever. He makes Lindsay and Dinkins look good," one reader said.
► "EXPONENTIAL OBSTRUCTION - One of the worst ideas the city has ever come up. The buses don't use the bus lanes because they are always blocked by construction or another vehicle often dropping passengers from the 2nd lane, the bikes ignore the lights and make that lane a danger zone, if you drive a delivery truck you are parked in the 3rd lane over and dangerously unloading from the side in the middle of the street. It often brings traffic down to only 1 lane and causes twice as much congestion and pollution. A truly terrible design," another user said.
► "Bike and bus lanes have made First Avenue a crowded and occasionally dangerous mess, with too much vehicular traffic crammed into too few lanes, bicyclists enfranchised to run over pedestrians, and cabs forced to disgorge passengers in the middle of the street. At the same, Second Avenue has been left out almost completely, with only the disruption of several years of ceaseless construction there to endanger and confuse motorists and passers-by alike. Now at last the two thoroughfares can be brought into harmony, each as bad as the other," another user said.
Only one reader was more optimistic about the plans, saying the avenue is in need of improvements.
► "This is a great plan. The problem is the NYPD doesn't enforce the bus lane. It should be treated like a rail line with nothing obstructing it ever," one Neighborhood Square user said.
