New York City’s ambitious rollout of more than 250 miles of new bike lanes since 2007 has been fraught with controversy, to put it mildly. Now a group of eleven graduate students from the Urban Affairs and Planning Program at Hunter College have produced a 145 page report called “Beyond the Backlash: Equity and Participation in Bicycle Planning” that suggests one way to cool tensions: Build more bike lines. And fast.

The recent expansion of bike lanes has been part of the New York City Department of Transportation’s Bike Master Plan to build 1,800 miles of bike lanes in the five boroughs by 2030. Currently the majority of the lanes are in central Manhattan and northwest Brooklyn, which also happen to be the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. Starting the citywide bike lane plan in these neighborhoods has helped fuel the unfortunate stereotype that urban cycling is an elitist act practiced only by yuppies, hipsters, and, god forbid, the French. It also raises the issue of transportation justice, which the students define as “the concept that transportation infrastructure should aim to equally and equitably address the needs of all people, regardless of economic class, race, sex, age, ability or any other kind of social distinguisher.” The students recommend that the city’s next phase of bike lanes should be concentrated in the low-income neighborhoods of Queens, the Bronx and outer Brooklyn where many residents do not have adequate access to mass transit. This goes against the city’s current plan for expansion, in which new lanes are built off of existing lanes so as to create a citywide network. Under that plan, many of these underserved neighborhoods would not receive bike lanes for many years, despite having a greater need for them.

This doesn’t mean the DOT should just rush into Jackson Heights with a can of green paint and start slapping down bike lanes this weekend; the report also states that the DOT needs to do a better job of working with cyclists and community boards in each neighborhood before the bike lanes are constructed. Although New York City’s community boards are staffed by volunteers and hold no official power, they play a crucial role in influencing public perception within each neighborhood. Not adequately involving community boards throughout the process just gives bike lane opponents the leeway to pull everyone’s favorite stock criticism of government: that the bike lanes are being “jammed down our throats.” In regards to the cyclists themselves, the students urged the city to track cyclists’ habits and routes in underserved neighborhoods to help determine where the bike lanes should be.

If you’d like to read the whole report, Streetsblog has uploaded it as a PDF on their site. Planning on printing it out? Maybe you could print out an extra copy and mail it to the DOT. They could use some help in tamping down the growing bike lane backlash.