I’m a Queens native, and a cyclist. I’m greatly appreciative of the existing bike infrastructure in Queens, but the frequency of obstruction and lack of enforcement within bike lanes are frustrating and life-threatening. It should not be the case that cyclists are risking their life when riding their bike even with dedicated lanes. NYC has a 311 reporting system to report violations, which the NYPD enforces.
However, recent studies have shown the NYPD are doing an inadequate job with only 2% of service requests receiving summons compared to 16% of other similar complaints. In 2021, Streetblogs did an investigative report highlighting the sharp increase of NYPD unrealistic response time of less than five minutes as shown in the graph below. Finally, in 2024, there was a surveillance study using AI to empirically verify the lack of police enforcement, and false reporting in the service 311 records.
This exploratory report reviews 311 service request data for Blocked Bike Lane violations within the last two years (starting January, 1st, 2023) to provide baseline insight, highlight inequities, and provide the tools for community members to take action. I’ve created an INTERACTIVE data dashboard to monitor progress and hold local enforcement. I provide some recommendations at the end to address this issue, including my interest to build a civic-tech app that crowds-source validation to increase transparency and hold NYPD accountable.
Why does adequate enforcement of blocked bike lanes incidents matter?
How does NYPD prioritize blocked bike lanes requests?
The dataset, 311 Service Requests from 2010 to Present was obtained from NYC Open Data Portal. The report covers data from January 1st, 2023 to December 6th, 2024. Each record is a 311 blocked bike lane service request, which is handled by the NYPD. The NYPD is expected to investigate the request, and can give the violator a warning, summon (i.e. ticket), or take no-action. Once a resolution is made, the request is closed and registered in 311. The police response time is the time elapsed between the opening & closing of the request.
Here is the list of resolution, frequency, and classification for the last two years:
Is there variation of biking infrastructure in NYC?
Is the data reliable?
How were the 311 service requests made?
Data Prep Decisions:
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The inaction rate is simply the rate that NYPD took no action (i.e. Miss or No-Action). HOVER for more details including hotspot.
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