You know, I was beginning to second guess myself. Maybe the nimbys know something I don’t? After all, nimby rights matter too! I don’t live in Astoria or run a business, I only travel and shop there. Maybe their safety concerns have merit?

We had our group ride of support, and I have now personally seen the two-block section where the repainting work was already completed, before the court injunction took effect, (and where car parkers actually obey the new parking markings), and it is marvelous. The bike lane is comfortable and with great visibility of street and sidewalk, much better than the slalom course it was before. There are two parking spaces between each pair of columns that can fit two cars with ample room or an extra long delivery truck. With a couple extra physical improvements, like flying island bus stops and extra-wide sidewalk cutouts at intersections with ramps for curb-level bike path crossings, Astoria 31st Street redesign could become a reference model for all the other elevated track streets in the city. Having seen it, the design just makes sense and impossible to imagine going back the way it was.

As a person who spends inordinate amount of time thinking about street lane width allocation and reading DOT engineering proposals, I can now confidently say that the nimbys were complete shitheads all along, as they always are, all the time, and I should have never doubted myself. And if you had any doubts too - don’t.