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Yay.

(Advance file photo)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - The last thing Staten Island needs is more bike lanes.

I know that Mayor Bill de Blasio and Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg disagree.

And I know that there's little that I can say that will change their minds. They've pretty much tuned out all opposition to bike lanes and their other Vision Zero initiatives. And I can't blame them. This is their time to put in place the things that they believe in. They won't be in office forever.

But I'll give it a try anyway.

The latest plan calls for installation of bike lanes on St. Paul's Avenue and Van Duzer Street in Stapleton and on other North Shore streets in the area.

The city would like there to be a continuous bikeway all the way to the St. George Ferry Terminal. An admirable goal, I guess.

I keep waiting to see the throngs of cyclists taking advantage of the bike lanes that the city has already installed. Let's just say you don't need more than two hands to keep track of all the bike traffic you're likely to see during an average drive around town. But maybe that will change. These things take time. We'll keep an eye out when the weather turns more reliably warm.

St. Paul's Avenue and Van Duzer Street are pretty much two of the worst roads you can pick for bike lanes. They're already plenty narrow, even in those spots when Van Duzer is two lanes. Losing a couple of feet of roadway so the city can install bike lanes doesn't make a lot of sense.

This is in response to complaints from area residents that people are speeding on these roads. Do people drive above the speed limit in the area? Sure. In some cases, it's hard not to drive above the speed limit. But is there dangerous speeding going on? If there is, I don't see it very often, and I live in the community and drive these roads all the time. There is a difference between driving above the speed limit and driving dangerously.

Bike lanes aren't about cyclists anyway. It's about "calming traffic." Which means making you drive more slowly. Or discouraging you from driving at all. So who cares if actual cyclists use the bike lanes or not?

And DOT is doing all this while requests for a right-turn-on-red at St. Paul's and Cebra Avenue fall on deaf ears. Throw us a bone, Polly.

Not that the DOT is totally wrong in some of the improvements that the agency is making on the North Shore. The agency is attacking some troublesome intersections and making them better for pedestrians. This is long overdue in some spots.

Allow us to suggest another area where pedestrians face some tough sledding: Forest Avenue between Victory Boulevard and Bard Avenue. Good luck trying to cross, particularly during the morning and school-dismissal rush.

In another head-scratcher, DOT is also beginning its project to install traffic circles on Greeley Avenue in Midland Beach. This is also in response to community complaints. There have been a lot of accidents on Greeley over the years. It's a long straightaway with no stop signs or traffic lights.

So residents and elected officials suggested maybe putting up some stop signs. Or a traffic light. Or a speed bump. Couldn't be done. So the city is installing traffic circles. It's going to be the first time the city has ever installed traffic circles on the Island.

I guess it would make us proud if it didn't seem like so much overkill. Stop signs we can't do, but traffic circles we can? It hardly makes sense. Thanks for including us in yet another grand traffic experiment.

Can't wait for the next round.