2007-10-08 - Bike Friendly NY - Daily News

New York Daily News
October 8th 2007
Info from Associated Press

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/10/08/2007-10-08_new_york_honored_as_one_of_nations_most_.html

It may surprise some cyclists, but New York City has been honored as one of the nation's most bike-friendly cities.

New York rode away with a bronze medal from the League of American Bicyclists, which recently put the city on par with the college town of Davis, Calif.

The nod comes as Mayor Bloomberg works to promote cycling - installing 400 to 500 bike racks a year, and setting aside 400 miles of bike lanes and paths by 2009.

A seven-block length of Manhattan's Ninth Ave. is being remade with a bike lane separated from car traffic by a paved buffer zone and a lane of parked cars.

Bloomberg also is pushing legislation to require commercial buildings to provide bicycle parking.

It was the city's commitment to study bike crashes and prevent them that persuaded the Washington-based bike group to bestow its bronze medal.

A study conducted last year found that 3,500 cyclists were injured by cars between 1996 and 2003, and 225 were killed.