Eyes on the Street: An Early Look at the Lafayette Protected Bike Lane

Crews have been making good progress on the Lafayette Street redesign [PDF], the first protected bike lane project installed by the de Blasio administration. As of yesterday, the striping work had progressed from Spring Street up past 4th Street, where Philip Winn of Project for Public Spaces snapped these photos.

The Lafayette Street project will convert the northbound buffered bike lane into a protected lane from Prince to 12th Street. Some intersections will get pedestrian islands between the bike lane and motor vehicle lanes. DOT is really knocking this one out fast — Community Board 2 voted in favor of it less than a month ago. The redesign isn’t complete but people are already making good use of it:

You can tell in the top photo that this project is going to bring some order to what used to be a wide-open expanse of asphalt. From 2007 to 2011, 12 people were severely injured on this stretch of Lafayette, according to DOT. Here’s a look at the old Lafayette with very faded bike lane markings: