As winter loosens its grip on Rochester, I’m eager to get outside and enjoy the sunlight of longer days. Many of my cherished fair-weather memories share a common thread: the terrace and the plaza. Internationally, outdoor drinking and dining are cultural institutions. Town squares and city streets around the world are packed with tables. The air is filled with the sounds of conversation and the smell of fresh food. City planners and community members are intentional about creating safe, calm oases within the urban context to eat, drink, walk, and socialize.
Sadly, this experience is not the norm in our city. With so much of our public realm surrendered to travel lanes and parking spaces, there is little space left for people. Even downtown and in entertainment districts like Park Ave, cars are prioritized while humans are pushed to the margins. Where outdoor seating is available at all, it often encroaches onto already too-narrow sidewalks, creating conflicts between diners and pedestrians. And if you can find outdoor seating, it is frequently located within just a few feet of high-speed car traffic, with all the accompanying noise and fumes.
While I see this situation as a tragedy, defenders of the status quo insist that allocating valuable urban space for outdoor dining and recreation is pointless in a city like Rochester which is gripped by snow and ice for 3-4 months of the year. While on the surface this argument sounds logical, our neighbors to the north see things differently.
City streets around the world are packed with tables. The air is filled with the sounds of conversation and the smell of fresh food…in our city if you can find outdoor seating, it is frequently located within just a few feet of high-speed car traffic with all the accompanying noise and fumes.
Every year during the winter months, the city of Montreal, Quebec is pummeled by an average of 83 inches of snow, with average temperatures below 20 degrees Fahrenheit. To put it in perspective, that is almost as much snow as we get in Rochester with a lower average temperature! But rather than basing decisions about urban space for the whole year on the coldest three months, Montreal has a different philosophy. Every summer, they open up some of their most vibrant city streets for walking, biking, and outdoor dining. Local artists and community members are called in to beautify their thoroughfares with planters, murals, and street furniture.
Despite our smaller population, I think this is something we could emulate in Rochester; perhaps from the beginning of the Jazz Festival in June to the end of the Fringe Festival in September. Partnerships could be created with these festivals, as well as other events and local businesses, to active the newly available public space. Here are my nominations for Rochester Open Streets.
Gibbs Street between Main Street and East Ave:
Located directly in the middle of the Eastman School of Music campus, this is area is the closest thing that the prestigious college has to a “quad.” A pedestrianized Gibbs Street would act as an extension of the existing pocket park on the corner of Main and create enough space for small outdoor concerts. It would also allow expanded outdoor seating for Java’s Café, Ludwig’s Center Stage Café, and Max Chophouse; all of which front onto this section of Gibbs.
Elm Street and Cortland Street at Parcel 5:
Parcel 5 has been growing in popularity as a venue for events and public gatherings; however, Elm and Cortland currently separate it from the nearby pedestrianized areas of Midtown Commons and The Grove to the southeast. Pedestrianizing these two streets would connect existing assets into a proper public square with the capacity for larger community events. It would also provide additional outdoor dining capacity for Branca, Patron Saint, and the food trucks that frequently set up shop in the area.
Park Avenue from Berkeley Street to Culver Road:
This stretch of Park Ave is home to many beloved restaurants and cafes. While I would love to see the entire length of Park Ave receive the Open Streets treatment, this section is the most obvious and least disruptive. RTS service could be shifted to East Ave during the window. Alternatively, a 12-foot span in the center of the roadway could be left unobstructed to create a temporary transit mall. This intervention would truly bring the corridor to life during some of its most vibrant months.
Which of these locations would you most like to see receive an Open Streets treatment? Is there another location in the City of Rochester you would like to see temporarily or permanently pedestrianized? Let us know!
After weeks of collectively feeling underwhelmed by the City’s snow management, we welcome the time of year when Rochesterians bundle up for early spring walks and rides! Up until last week, a lot of our public right of way was icy and unrideable, but kudos to everyone (City and private property owners) who cleared their paths and sidewalks to make the melt go faster.
Below are a few highlights from the last few weeks in our Advocacy Team’s work!
We held our second community conversation of 2026 with Carter Lavin, author of If You Want to Win, You’ve Got to Fight. If you missed it, watch the recording here and buy Carter’s book! We also launched the Reconnect Rochester Road Project Advocacy Toolkit, outlining some of the most useful things we’ve learned while doing road project advocacy. Take a look and give us your feedback so we can improve the usefulness of the information.
Better Buses for Rochester
Transit Awareness Month in February saw a flurry of activity. We mobilized a joint letter with RMAPI, Climate Solutions Accelerator and Healthi Kids on transit funding, attended a legislative breakfast in Albany with the State Legislature Transportation Chairs, met with lawmakers to share support for DMV Surcharge, and put out the third edition of the Voices of Transit series. To better understand RTS’s funding crunch, read the Beacon’s great overview.
Supporting Crash Victims
As a follow up, we installed a Ghost Bike in 2025 for Jerome Blocker and his family members have been active advocates with Reconnect since then. The driver of the vehicle that struck and killed Blocker, then left the scene, was sentenced this week.
Coming up next:
Reconnect Rochester is getting ready to fly to DC for the League of American Bicyclists Summit and we will be lobbying on capital hill for funding to multimodal transportation projects in the next transportation reauthorization bill!
The City of Rochester installed its first raised cycle track on Lake Avenue in 2016 beside St. Bernard’s Seminary and the Holy Sepulchre/Riverside Cemeteries. Since then, raised cycle tracks and doublewide sidewalk “trails” such as the Eastman Trail along Ridgeway, have become the City’s go-to protected bike infrastructure. Raised cycle tracks and “trails” like Eastman are separated from the street and “above” the curb next to the sidewalk. Our friend The Urban Phoenix has done a great job examining these and his thoughts are a great complement to what follows.
Bike and scooter riders of all ages and abilities tend to be comfortable on those cycle tracks and this is great! Reconnect Rochester’s historical preference for most City streets, however, hasbeen for protected bike lanes in the street – the gold standard we see in great cycling communities who really grow their ridership. Well-designed raised cycle tracks have their place in some settings, especially for suburban higher speed roads, which we’ll get into in a future blog post.
Rochester’s Union Street cycle track (“above” & outside the street at sidewalk level)
If Rochester’s ideal Bike Spine Network is composed primarily of cycle tracks constructed during very rare, very expensive Reconstruction projects, we won’t have the Bike Spine Network in 100 years.
Rochester installed some protected bike lanes with bollards/posts on Broad Street and Chestnut ~2017. The bike community was excited, expecting those to be the forerunners of many. But the bollards/posts went missing, we never saw any more protected bike lanes and started seeing a regular dose of raised cycle tracks next to the sidewalk instead. There are 8 recently completed or in-design projects with cycle tracks. Some cyclists have grown concerned that City Hall has developed a raised-cycle-tracks-or-nothing philosophy when it comes to protected bike infrastructure. Fortunately, that seems to be changing. More on that in a bit.
The primary drawback of raised cycle tracks is cost: They’re typically only feasible during rare Reconstruction projects, which come along (if you’re lucky) once a lifetime to a given stretch of road. If Rochester’s ideal Bike Spine Network is composed primarily of cycle tracks constructed during very rare, very expensive Reconstruction projects, we won’t have the Bike Spine Network in 100 years. This goes against the recommendations and spirit of the City’s 2023 Active Transportation Plan, which urges concentrating political will on achieving that Bike Spine Network in the near term.
Luckily there is a cheaper way to build the bike spine: The lower hanging fruit when it comes to bike infrastructure is cheaper, routine preventative maintenance (resurfacing) projects, which roll along every few years and allow for space reallocation between curbs. This is where protected in-street bike lanes become possible, provided the design allocates the space to the bike lane.
This is also where things get thorny: We’d contend that there’s often room for protected bike lanes on many roads. But there’s often not room for both protected bike lanes and on-street parking. This trade-off and elephant in the room can’t be ignored. Along those proposed spines, the safety and comfort of vulnerable road users must override free on-street parking, especially in light of safety initiatives like ROC Vision Zero. If a City reconstruction project comes along to widen a road and enable both on-street parking and protected bike infrastructure, great. Safety above all in the meantime.
For the above reasons, these two tenets hold true:
Sidewalk level cycle tracks don’t require confronting bad driver behavior and take more money and time.
Protected bike space in the street confronts driver habits (like illegal parking and speeding) and is cheaper and faster to implement.
Other concerns about raised cycle tracks
Cycle tracks might subtly convey to motorists that cyclists shouldn’t ride in the road. Raise your hand if you’ve been yelled at by a motorist to “get out of the street” and “ride on the sidewalk.” Cycle tracks feed this thinking and are seen by some as bowing to car-dominance. Great cycling cities challenge that car-dominance.
So many cyclist crashes in Rochester involve sidewalk-riding cyclists. Raised cycle tracks are not much different than sidewalk-riding and they open riders up to some very common motorist mistakes, especially locally. Motorists pulling out of driveways and parking lots tend to pull right into the sidewalk/cycle track area as they wait for a break in traffic. (They’re required by law to come to a complete stop *before* the sidewalk and only creep up for a better view once they know it’s clear. Very few drivers do this). Bike riders in protected bike lanes are more visible and predictable in the street than they are outside the street.
Raise your hand if you’ve been yelled at by a motorist to “get out of the street” and “ride on the sidewalk.” Cycle tracks feed this thinking and are seen by some as bowing to car-dominance.
The line between sidewalk and cycle track have blurred in recent Rochester projects, which is concerning. See the new doublewide sidewalk on University, the shared path on State Street by MCC and the way cyclists are supposed to go up on the Culver sidewalk now over 490.
Cycle tracks, especially bidirectional ones on one side of the street, often create awkward, unintuitive, inconvenient, sometimes scary transitions when they end abruptly or switch sides of the road. See Elmwood/East Drive or Union/University for examples. (When regular bike lanes end, you just keep going straight).
Though this has gotten better, Rochester has a less-than-stellar record when it comes to curb cuts and smooth transitions for raised cycle tracks. Constant curb cut riding isn’t required when riding in the road.
As the cycle track on East Main Street has taught us, if a resident has multiple cars parked in their driveway, the cycle track is blocked and unusable. Garbage cans, hot dog stands, anything really – can make cycle tracks unusable.
Though Rochester doesn’t clear its bike lanes of snow (they’ve got a plan for (studying) that), at least the responsibility for keeping roadway travel space is clear: the owner of the road. With cycle tracks, it’s ambiguous who should clear the snow. Property owners are responsible for clearing sidewalks of snow, but not the cycle track right next to the sidewalk.
In sum, Reconnect Rochester would love to see more in-street protected bike lanes. They really drive up ridership, create less conflicts, and it’s the cheaper, faster way to realize the City’s vision. We’re excited for the City’s upcoming Protected Bicycle Lanes Demonstration Project, which will “trial a number of semi-permanent barriers…that can be left out during the winter season. These barriers will be evaluated on cost, their ability to create safe cycling infrastructure, their resilience to snow plowing, and their ease of maintenance.” These demo protected bike lanes are expected in 2027 on St Paul, State Street, Ford Street and East Avenue.
For a taste of what’s in store, check out the new protected bike lane segments on West Main Street! This seasonal barrier should be reinstalled in April.
People power this movement for more transportation options and a vibrant community – through riding, walking and raising your voice. Your voice can make a difference speaking to your municipal, county, state and federal leaders to get improvements made to your street, bike lanes and sidewalks in your community.
This toolkit is a compilation of everything we’ve found useful and important in understanding different road projects, national trends and local plans to enhance our multimodal transportation network! It contains links to other partner resources that go deep into all aspects of safe road designs for all users – from kids to seniors and every ability in between.
Why is this important to Reconnect?
All of us on staff are residents and advocates. None of us have degrees in urban planning or traffic engineering. We’re self-taught and we have lived experiences riding the bus, a bike, and walking. We all decided at a certain point that this was a topic we wanted to learn more about, and joined with others to identify a project we wanted to fight for.
In advocacy, there’s a ladder of engagement and we want more residents to be engaged, knowledgeable and powerful in advocating for their neighborhood’s needs. That means having access to the same information, resources and frameworks that we have. It’s fine if you want to trust us and copy the talking points from Mobility Action Alerts, but we also think it’s important to share the knowledge and inspiration while we advocate.
We want to hear your perspectives
Whether you spend time with this guide or not, we always want to hear from you about local projects. Send your thoughts and ideas to our email. Our input to the City, County, State and Federal partners should always be grounded in your feedback.
An invitation
Our blog and social media are great ways to share an idea you’ve had for your community. Write up a 300-500 word post with original pictures and share them with Reconnect and we’ll work with you to get your idea out there. We’ve previously featured ideas about High Falls that might get real treatments in upcoming projects, visions of Bus Rapid Transit on Lake Ave, and proposals for a mixed-use trail on the east side of Irondequoit.
The Advocacy Team has kicked off 2026 with a slate of meetings with our local leaders to advocate for the things you care about: safer streets, more bike infrastructure, and places that feel safe to walk in.
City of Rochester Mayor Evans & New Vision Zero Report
We should lower the speed limit to 25 MPH in the City of Rochester as soon as possible. The Mayor confirmed the City is moving forward with this change, as reflected in the ROC Vision Zero report.
The City can establish more quick-build mechanisms to quickly respond to traffic safety concerns, build confidence in ROC Vision Zero, and try new approaches to multimodal safety.
We are committed to working together with the City’s Vision Zero task force to help bring national examples from Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento and even small municipalities like Keyport, NJ to the table.
We also followed up with Mayor Evans about the building of the Intermodal Station Bus Terminal Phase 2, which NYSDOT has funds to build and Amtrak has responsibility to operate. We understand they are working behind the scenes on several issues, but we are also advocating to NYSDOT in Albany to press forward on the design of the station.
Last week, the City also released its first ROC Vision Zero report to the community. It contains a ton of useful information about what the City, partners and community stakeholders, including Reconnect Rochester, have been doing on the initiative over the past year. We’re excited about the year ahead because the report outlines several tangible projects that residents will start to see in their communities, like protected bike lanes, pedestrian enhancements, new bus amenities, and slower speeds. Driver accountability will also take center stage this spring with more public engagement around how drivers who break the law speeding or running red lights should be held accountable.
County Executive Bello Check-In
Monroe County government has been leading the charge to encourage Active Transportation Planning, expanding how community members can report traffic concerns, and to plan for sustainability. During our meeting with CE Bello, we emphasized that now we need to amp up implementation of active transportation. Towns and Villages in Monroe County have some local roads, some county roads and some state roads, and the county maintains 664 centerline miles of roads. The CATP calls for building out a network of bike lanes, but the county budget only envisions 4 miles of bike lanes per year and 10 miles of shoulder widening to make it more suitable for biking and walking per year. At that rate, we won’t have a connected network for a very very long time! Some of the town roads are state roads, which is why we’ve put so much emphasis on building a movement for safer state roads.
For example, upcoming projects like Monroe Avenue in Brighton are state projects, and so we need those to also include active transportation features…speaking of which!
Monroe Avenue Public Meeting and Follow-up
Finally, we mobilized advocates to speak up at the Monroe Avenue project public meeting on Jan. 20th. NYSDOT officials heard from Reconnecters who are Britonians and everyone else who just likes to visit Brighton’s businesses by bike, by bus or on foot. As a follow-up to that meeting, we are calling on our advocates to send Action Network emails to the NYSDOT project managers to keep up the pressure. We have a meeting with the new Regional Director of NYSDOT Region 4 in early February where we’ll keep echoing our call for safer state roads.
Coming up next:
We’re launching Voices of Transit soon with a push for transit equity and state funding to RTS
Cody Donahue didn’t grow up with freedom of movement. His childhood stretched along a thin ribbon of rural highway in Oregon’s Willamette Valley — a Walmart, a decimated downtown, and three miles of empty road between home and anything else. “I didn’t have much transportation freedom in my youth,” he says. Bikes came late. Driving later. Independence arrived only in fragments.
He carried that mindset into adulthood: When work calls, a car is the simpler solution. He believed that for years” with “for years, the car was the only option to get around in rural Oregon.”
Then he moved abroad, first to France for study abroad and then to West Africa to work for a nonprofit.
In Dakar, he discovered a city humming without car dominance. People moved through dense streets by foot, bike, taxis, and informal buses called “Ndiaga Ndiayes”, an ecosystem built on proximity rather than horsepower. “Only the very rich had their own car. You could get anywhere by other means. It was a different way of moving,” he recalls.
That realization reshaped his sense of what mobility could be.
Today, as Co-Executive Director of Reconnect Rochester, Donahue channels that revelation into the city he now calls home. He chains errands, bikes to work, hops the 17 bus when the weather turns. Simplicity is the point. Connection is the ethos.
Rethinking the Urban Core
Ask Donahue what Rochester could look like without political or financial constraints, and he doesn’t leap into fantasy. He points to a real project already unfolding: the Inner Loop North redesign.
“We’re actually getting the opportunity to do this,” he says. “The project will replace a sunken, underutilized highway that disconnects neighborhoods with a neighborhood scale street grid. We’re not advocating to eliminate roads — but to create spaces where people can feel comfortable walking and biking with their families. ”
The plan envisions creating 22 acres of new development parcels in the heart of the city, with calm, tree-lined neighborhood streets, restored parks, integrated walking and cycling infrastructure, and connections to the future High Falls State Park. Each section of the 1.5 mile stretch can be somewhat different, but Donahue is excited about the possibility for mixed-use, dense development, and ground-floor businesses around our transit hubs. “We can build up around our Intermodal Station while also expanding its footprint to be the hub for intercity buses,” said Donahue of a project that has state funding and will run in parallel to the Inner Loop North redevelopment.
“This whole area is going to be a lot more vibrant and connected,” Donahue says. “The uncomfortable truth about the Inner Loop is that it was designed to bring people from the suburbs to work and then back home. It wasn’t built for city residents. This project corrects that.”
The state has already secured $100 million for construction. While timelines may shift, bidding is set for September 2027, construction begins in April 2028, and completion is projected for October 2030. Parcel development will follow over the subsequent years, reshaping not just infrastructure but the way people live and move in Rochester.
The Hidden Curriculum of Movement
“Reconnect Rochester now offers everything from ‘Getting Back on Your Bike’ workshops to school safety lessons, winter cycling training, commuter programs, and hands-on Smart Cycling classes,” Donahue says. As he scales that range — from fifth graders to downtown workers — patterns emerge.
“We’re really invested in bike education because kids should have it,” he says. “When they don’t, they develop unsafe habits and carry them into adulthood. That contributes to crashes.” Nearly half the time, the cyclist triggers the crash — not necessarily because they’re reckless, but because no one ever taught them the proper way to ride.
That lack of training intersects with a fragmented bike map.
“We have cycling infrastructure gaps we’re trying to close. The bike lane map looks like someone threw spaghetti at a wall,” he says. “Our Mind the Gap competition helps identify the highest priority connections for the city and the county to make for a comfortable bike network.”
Residents want comfort, predictability, and physical protection. That requires real design: barriers in the street, well-placed cycle tracks, infrastructure that doesn’t force riders onto sidewalks.
Culture plays a role too. Donahue and his team work with employers to add bike parking, secure racks through the city, or negotiate indoor, secure bike storage with landlords. A new downtown lunchtime learning series reaches commuters who may have never imagined biking to work. They hope to reach downtown companies with lunch and learns next year to show downtown workers just how fast and easy it is to bike to work in the Central Business District of Rochester. In May, Reconnect will again host bike to work day to reach new commuters.
Then, there is the matter of our snowy winters. “The world doesn’t shut down in the winter,” Donahue says. “I drive more, but I also take the bus more. Some fat tire bikes handle snow better. And we continue to push the city to clear main bike routes. The City has committed to studying enhanced winter maintenance, so we’re making progress.”
True cultural change, though, requires leadership.
“We’d like to see more of a culture of property owners taking responsibility for clearing sidewalks,” he says. “Madison, Wisconsin has a great approach. It’s just a different civic culture when it comes to tending to the snow.”
A Concerning Trend and an Urgent Response
The national context is grim. Pedestrian fatalities in the U.S. have risen 75% since 2010. Locally, Monroe County averages 12 walking or biking deaths per year, and 2025 has already exceeded this average at 13 as of December.
“We must do better,” Donahue says. “These are preventable losses.”
To shift that trajectory, on-street demonstration projects matter. In 2025, Reconnect Rochester launched Downtown SmART Streets, inspired by Washington, D.C. ‘s Arts in the Right of Way program. Seasonal curb-extension murals function as both art and traffic-calming infrastructure, beautifying streets while protecting people.
The 25 MPH Shift and the Politics Around It
Rochester has embraced ambitious mobility goals, Vision Zero, safer arterials, expanded bike networks, but serious injuries and deaths continue to rise.
Donahue is clear about the most actionable fix: lower the citywide speed limit to 25 miles per hour.
A municipal lawyer working with Reconnect Rochester produced a comparative analysis: Boston and Seattle implemented the reduction; Providence did not. Even without added enforcement, the cities that lowered the limit saw reductions in speeds, crash rates, and fatalities. Albany is now seeing monthly declines as well.
“The bottom line is that these programs reduce fatalities,” Donahue says. “This is our guiding star. Slower speeds save people walking to the bus, cyclists, kids — everyone.”
He insists that driver accountability must be part of the solution.
“We can stop those who have no regard for people,” he says. New York State is considering legislation to require the worst repeat speeders to drive with speed governors — devices that physically prevent them from exceeding safe limits. “These policies work.”
And the stakes are bigger than traffic engineering. “We’ve backed ourselves into a societal corner where parents don’t feel comfortable letting their kids walk down the street.”
Where Expertise Lives: Complete Streets in Action
The Avenue D & Hollenbeck Complete Streets Makeover crystallized a principle Donahue now calls non-negotiable: lived experience is expertise.
“It was our fifth complete street makeover — what we call the quadfecta, one in each quadrant before returning to the Northeast,” he says. “We sourced nominations citywide. One thing we learned from the Arnett Boulevard project is that some roads are classified by the state to prioritize vehicular traffic. So our makeovers are now looking at the most local road you can get to reduce the restrictions on what we can do.”
The neighborhood’s R-Center staff had been clamoring for improvements. Their knowledge shaped the project’s design: temporary installations, seasonal centerline flex posts, and monitored interventions. “All summer and fall, not one post needed to be replaced due to damage,” Donahue notes. “We’re conducting a traffic study on speed and turning to evaluate the effectiveness. We plan on doing new installations in new locations over the next three years.”
Complementing these interventions is a design rendering prize, offering a professionally engineered visualization to a neighborhood free of charge. Monroe Avenue in Brighton received one in 2019, now actively used in state-level advocacy to enhance safety and create more vibrant public space.
Downtown, the SmART Streets initiative extends this philosophy: seasonal curb-extension murals at East Main and Gibbs, Broad and Fitzhugh, with more to come, reinforcing walkability through public art. The work demonstrates how neighborhood input and tactical design combine to reduce risk and foster a safer, more inviting urban environment.
Influence, Advocacy, and Evolving Beliefs
Donahue’s campaigns- Intermodal Station expansion, suburban walk audits-highlight a key lesson about New York transportation politics: advocacy matters.
“I would point to a common thread: resident voices,” he says. Promoting density and mixed-use development brings daily amenities closer to homes, reducing car dependence and improving safety.
“The NIMBY contingent is usually a vocal minority,” Donahue notes. “We’re trying to promote YIMBY: yes in my backyard. Call your local officials. Tell them you want sidewalks, bike lanes, transit, more mixed use neighborhood amenities.”
A recent candidate questionnaire across several towns showed majority support for safer streets. Those elected embraced these changes. “We want people showing up to public meetings,” Donahue says. “It makes a difference.”
Reflecting on his early advocacy, he admits a lesson learned: “Early in my career, I thought there was one right way to do things. But there isn’t. It’s important to realize we can reach the same conclusions through different methods. Live the experience of the people you’re making policies about. If you’re making bus policies, take the bus for a month. We become extremely fragmented in our lived experiences. It’s not obvious we’ll reach the same conclusion, but you have to identify your values and fight for them.”
A City Rewoven
Donahue’s path arcs from a rural upbringing to a global awakening to a Rochester in transition. Throughout, one conviction anchors him: every person deserves to move safely, freely, and with dignity.
He thinks of Dakar, where movement was communal. He thinks of Highway 20 in Oregon, where mobility required horsepower. And he looks at Rochester — slowly, collaboratively reimagining itself.
Rochester is being reweaved. Not just the roads. The relationships.
And for a city once carved apart to speed commuters, that may be the most transformative redesign of all.
At Reconnect Rochester we love getting out into the community to talk about our work. This summer we gave presentations, tabled all over Monroe County, and held hundreds of conversations about mobility with supporters, skeptics, and everything in between. Among the skeptics there were a few topics that came up so often we thought it would be helpful to list them out in a blog post along with our perspective.
People on bicycles make everyone less safe.
When a cyclist is riding recklessly they are overwhelmingly just a danger to themselves. Yet the 47 deaths and more than 5,000 injuries that happen on our streets every year in Monroe County always involve cars. It is all of our responsibility to keep each other safe, but drivers have a bigger responsibility given their capacity to do harm to people and property. This is why we advocate for and implement complete streets designs on our roadways to slow down cars.
Bicycle education is a cornerstone of our work at Reconnect Rochester via our On Bike Smart Cycling Classes, Bike Education Programs, and Our Weekly Rides. Many school districts do not provide bike safety classes despite the state requirements. This leads to many kids who don’t learn the safe and legal way to ride. We aim to teach riders how to safely interact with traffic and be predictable in order to make all of us safer. A study found that nearly every road user will admit to breaking the law, though with cyclists it is often to keep themselves safe while drivers will be more likely to break the law to save time.
RTS isn’t safe.
There are millions of RTS bus trips every year in Monroe County. Less than a half percent of reported crimes take place on an RTS bus or at the Transit Center. As Misha Manjuran Oberoi wrote recently for the Democrat and Chronicle, “that’s fewer than the number of crimes reported at both schools, hospitals, bars and more.”
If risk factor is your main concern, you’re much more likely to be involved in one of the 14,000+ vehicle crashes that happen every year than you are to be in danger on the RTS buses. RTS is a great community resource and we encourage everyone to try to incorporate it into their lives when possible. The more of us who use RTS, the more it will be prioritized in transportation funding which will improve frequency and make it a more convenient option.
What about people with disabilities? How are they supposed to get around without a car?
There are many disabilities that make biking or taking the bus challenging or even impossible. At the same time, many people have disabilities that prevent them from driving but still allow them to live independently. We want to ensure that anyone who cannot drive (or anyone who just doesn’t want to) is able to move freely throughout our community. Our board member, Steve Roll, shared a powerful story about this in a blog post. After a seizure left him unable to drive for six months, biking and public transit became essential tools for maintaining his independence.
Furthermore, we have encountered many people in wheelchairs who appreciate our focus on safe streets. Our current car-centric infrastructure that relegates pedestrians to cramped sidewalks with heaved segments and poorly placed curb cuts is challenging for anyone to navigate. It is especially difficult if you are vision impaired, use a walker or rollator, or are in a wheelchair. We actually had someone put one of our Bicycle License Plates on the back of his wheelchair so he could feel safer when he is somewhere without a sidewalk (which, sadly, is true for too many of our roads). And—disabled or not—parents pushing strollers encounter the very same struggles! When we design streets for pedestrians, everyone benefits.
Why can’t you help me get a protected bike lane on my street? It’s just one street!
Many roads fall under different jurisdictions and require approval at the county or even state level to change. We encourage you to sign up for our Mobility Action Alerts to keep you informed on upcoming street projects and receive talking points to advocate for safe streets. We really need support at public meetings! This is where most of the changes happen.
Lastly, while protected bike lanes are great, there isn’t always space for them without drastic redesigns which aren’t always a viable option. Check out our ROC Easy Bike Map and utilize Rochester’s Bicycle Boulevard network when looking for low stress bike routes that minimize your interaction with cars.
You need to control those Veo e-scooters and you need to get them out of the middle of the sidewalk.
We support expanding transportation options for everyone, and Veo is a great choice for short trips around the city. You can grab one, ride to your destination, park it, and move on with your day unencumbered. More mobility options mean more freedom. We showcase Veo to educate people on their mobility options but we aren’t affiliated with the company and have no ability to modify their system.
Unfortunately we agree there are too many unsafe behaviors on Veo e-scooters, we have been advocating to the city and Veo to require safety education in their onboarding.
We also advise users to follow Veo’s parking rules which means out of pedestrian walkways with the kickstand engaged. We have encouraged Veo to go to a model which prevents users from parking in the middle of the sidewalk.
What’s the point of bike lanes if no one bikes in the winter?
No one is making you drive! Stop trying to make things harder for drivers just trying to get around.
It is worth noting that we are not anti-car. Cars are an effective tool for the right job but not every trip for every individual. Our work is focused on ensuring there are options for Monroe County residents beyond driving. Transportation options mean freedom. Freedom to choose the way you move through your day and shape the life you want to live. We deserve a transportation system with safe, connected bike routes, frequent bus service, AND roads that work for those who choose to drive.
Many people are not aware of the amount of subsidies that go into road construction and maintenance as well as gas prices; not to mention the amount of valuable public space we have ceded to storing private vehicles in the form of ample free parking. Our institutions do a lot to encourage driving and very little to encourage other modes of transportation despite the evidence that it’s cheaper to maintain road infrastructure and can improve congestion.
We are not necessarily trying to make things harder for drivers. We are pushing our leaders to consider options beyond the car when designing our communities going forward. The fact that many neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks, many roads don’t have bike lanes, and our buses only run once an hour on weekends make alternatives to driving very challenging for the 26% of city households and 12% of county households without access to a personal vehicle. When we make it easier to get around without a car, we can remove congestion, reduce collisions, and make travel easier for everyone including drivers.
You only care about bikes. What about us bus riders?
Reconnect Rochester is a multimodal advocacy organization – we have members who ride the bus every day. Transit is a big part of Reconnect’s history, including the ROC Transit Day celebration and a lot of advocacy around Reimagine RTS. We are involved in the city’s bus stop improvement project to improve amenities at hundreds of bus stops around the city. This summer we rallied RTS on-demand riders to push back on the service changes. Regrettably we were largely unsuccessful, but we will continue to advocate for better service and amenities for RTS riders at every opportunity.
A lot of transit advocacy is directed to the state and federal government so that they fund our system. On a state level our Voices of Transit program (email us at info@reconnectrochester.org if you want to participate!) tells the human stories of RTS riders to our legislators to encourage transit funding beyond car infrastructure. We are part of the New Yorkers for Transportation Equity statewide coalition, advocating for increased transit funding to improve RTS bus frequency and coverage.
We hope these answers shed light on any questions you may have about Reconnect Rochester and our work. We welcome community voice and dialogue and it’s important to us that we continue to push for change that benefits all of us! If you like what we do, we encourage you to subscribe to our email list, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Bluesky, attend one of our engagement breakfast events, and donate to support the cause!
Hello Reconnect Advocates! We’re entering December with a renewed energy to start planning our 2026 activities at Reconnect Rochester and reflecting on our 2025 work. We’ve heard from you that you’d like more frequent updates about the issues we asked you to advocate on. Below are some happenings from the summer and early fall around key issues that Reconnect is following:
Rochester Intermodal Station Phase II Project to add bus amenities
It’s been about 18 months since your advocacy led to Rochester being awarded $18 million in the state budget to build the bus station addition to the current train station. The project is somewhat complicated – Amtrak owns the facility, but NYSDOT built it originally and NYSDOT was given the funds. At the same time, the city is undertaking a massive Inner Loop North project across the street from the facility with a lot of changes planned to the road network. We have been in touch with Amtrak & NYSDOT to urge the kickoff of this project and to keep local stakeholders involved in the planning process so we can fully realize the vision of the intermodal station. In the meantime, we are also working with the bus companies to explore ways to improve the experience of waiting for the bus in Rochester. We successfully advocated for the city to install a simmie seat and we’re trying to get additional seating at the stop.
Keep Us Safe on State Roads Campaign
You showed up to ride to Parcel 5 to call on New York State officials to keep us safe on state roads and since then we’ve been busy continuing this advocacy. For those of you who couldn’t attend, the NYS Department of Transportation sent this statement for us to read at the event, which unfortunately didn’t give them the opportunity to see the mass of cyclists who came out to push for safer state roads. Since the event, 311 people signed a letter calling on start officials to invest in safe state road infrastructure for people walking and biking and taking transit! Behind the scenes, we’ve continued to advocate for multimodal changes to Empire Boulevard, Monroe Avenue, West Henrietta Rd. and Lake Avenue. Brighton’s Town Supervisor highlighted the strong prospect that Monroe Avenue would get a road diet, and with the right lane configuration, we could even get 5’ bike lanes on both sides. We need to keep encouraging this kind of thinking for the future.
The broader effort around 25 MPH communities applies to all the suburban towns and villages that are eligible to lower their speed limits to 25 MPH on locally-controlled roads. GTC held a regional traffic safety summit during which we exposed local leaders to the 25 MPH local law and examples in our own region that have made the switch. If you live in a suburban town or village, reach out to your decision makers to tell them you support this!
Federal Headwinds – Transportation Reauthorization
Finally, federal headwinds have continued to be strong all year, but they’re about to heat up for transportation. The surface transportation bill is up for reauthorization and will have a huge impact on local projects. Genesee St, for example, was reconstructed this past year with funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the current transportation bill. Just over the past 3 weeks, we’ve heard reports from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that “walking and biking infrastructure” are not important federal priorities and there was a threat (later backtracked) to zero out public transportation funding. The Chair, Rep. Graves (R-Mo) gave an interview in which he said:
It’s going to be a traditional highway bill. That means building roads and bridges, laying asphalt, pouring concrete. We’re not going to be spending money on murals and train stations or bike paths or walking paths. We’re going to spend money on traditional infrastructure — that’s roads and bridges.
Street project meetings slowed down in the fall. Since August, we’ve submitted inputs on Seneca Ave, Broadway/S. Union, and N. Clinton. We previously submitted comments on Bull’s Head, which is getting finalized soon.
Reconnect Rochester felt it was time to answer a few frequently asked bike questions and put some disparate information in one place. Some of the rules for bicycle riders in New York are well-reasoned and straightforward; others are nonsensical. The good news: Laws can be and are updated regularly. Be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. 😉
First off, let’s get this misconception out of the way: There is no statewide ban on sidewalk riding.
From our analysis of crash reports, it’s evident that some law enforcement don’t know this.
As this State DOT FAQ lays out, municipalities can choose to ban sidewalk riding. New York City and Buffalo prohibit it. As do the villages of Brockport and Scottsville locally. As we previously explored, Rochester’s ban on sidewalk riding was taken away in 1958.
Riders in Monroe County, therefore, often have a choice:They can ride in the road following motorists’ rules, or if they don’t feel safe, they have the option of riding on the sidewalk where the law treats them more or less*** as pedestrians. Sidewalk-riding cyclists have to yield to pedestrians. In other words, pedestrians don’t have to get out of cyclists’ way on the sidewalk.
As we’ve stated before, in general: sidewalk-riding isn’t as safe as many assume and riding in the road, on the right side, isn’t as dangerous as many assume. But Reconnect Rochester has nuance: We’ll admit there are circumstances where the sidewalk is the safest place to ride.
Sidewalk riding downtown is discouraged. For many years, it was explicitly prohibited. But in 2019, the City Council updated the code. There’s wiggle room now: A cyclist can ride on downtown sidewalks if they feel imperiled (“if reasonably necessary to avoid unsafe conditions” in the road).
It should be noted that in the City of Rochester, kids under the age of 13 can’t ride in the road unless accompanied by an adult. Experts tell us that peripheral vision and the ability to judge how fast an approaching vehicle will be in your space just isn’t developed in youngsters. So young riders must stick to the sidewalk when riding without an adult. Here are other tips for youngsters.
A sticky point that’s become a contentious issue with law enforcement: When cyclists ride in the roadway, we acknowledge they’re required to ride on the right side with the flow of traffic. Because New York State does not define sidewalks as part of the roadway, cyclists can technically ride in each direction on the sidewalk, just as pedestrians can walk each way on the sidewalk, when sidewalk-riding isn’t prohibited. (Though it’s far safer, bicyclists don’t have to ride on the sidewalk on the right side of the road in their direction of travel).
We’ve seen Police Reports where the Officer reprimands a cyclist for riding on the sidewalk on the left side of the road, even if there is no sidewalk on the right side. Cyclists do have the right, though riding on the left sidewalk opens them up to this common motorist mistake.
Just because riding on the sidewalk is allowed, doesn’t mean it’s beneficial [in every circumstance]. We only recommend it for brief, finite maneuvers when the cyclist can use it to their advantage.
When there’s a dedicated bike facility and it’s usable and unobstructed, it’s state law for the cyclist to use it (except to come out to prepare for a turn). A bicyclist could be ticketed, for example, for riding on Union Street itself rather than the raised cycle track running alongside Union Street.
When it “legalized” e-bikes in 2020, New York State blanketly banned e-bikes (and e-scooters) from sidewalks. But municipalities have the option of allowing them on sidewalks. Rochester was one of the first to do so.
There’s a whole book devoted to New York’s weird e-bike laws. Since it’s becoming an issue, we’ll point out that you have to be 16+up to ride an e-bike. Crashes involving riders younger than 16 are spiking up, which could have wider repercussions…
This comes as a surprise to many: Monroe County doesn’t allow bikes on trails or paths in County Parks with the exception of Tryon, Irondequoit Bay West, Genesee Valley Park, the Lehigh Valley Trail, and that short section of Highland Park South (Biekrich Park) where the Highland Crossing Trail is. However, folks can bike on any paved road in the park system that is open to cars.
The following Towns also don’t allow biking on footpaths and trails in their parks:
Brighton
Brockport
Ogden
Penfield
Riga
Webster
Our understanding is that trails throughout New York that are open to bicycles are not automatically open to e-bikes. The entity that has jurisdiction over the trail can choose to allow them. The only local trails that we know allow e-bikes are the Erie Canal and Genesee Riverway Trails. City Trails such as the El Camino Trail are technically not yet open to e-bikes. If you come across any information that contradicts this or any more local trails that allow it, let us know.
New York State law permits cyclists to ride two abreast if sufficient space is available. But the following municipalities require riders to be single file at all times:
Brighton
Ogden
Penfield
Webster
Fairport
Finally, as many riders know, bicycle riding is prohibited on the Erie Canal towpath between the Main Street bridge and the State Street Bridge in the Village of Pittsford, and dismounting of bicycles on the towpath in that area is required.
As promised, we wanted to follow up our March blog examining the most common cyclist crash in Monroe County with further analysis. A huge component of safety is knowing what those common crash scenarios are and what we can do to significantly diminish the likelihood of our involvement in them. Though this article focuses more on road user behavior and errors, know up front that Reconnect Rochester spends most of our time focusing on better street design (engineering!) as the best solution.
Kobe Bryant used to say as he analyzed opponents’ games and habits, “If [something is] predictable, it’s preventable.” In his phenomenal book Killed By A Traffic Engineer, Wes Marshall argues that Kobe’s point also goes for traffic: Some of the errors motorists make are so predictable and, therefore, engineers can adjust road designs accordingly.
Because I know the mistakes Monroe County motorists often make and maintain awareness as I ride, there’s times my well-honed Spider-Sense goes off: “Ooo boy, if there was gonna be a crash, it would be precisely this scenario right here…” I slow down, don’t stress, and make sure everyone around me sees me to ensure my safety. We hope you can do the same. Let’s examine the other common crash scenarios in Monroe County involving bicyclists.
Yes, we know not all bike crashes are reported. Even if the info we receive isn’t everything, we’d still contend that what we receive gives us a pretty good glimpse at what’s transpiring out there. The findings are still instructive.
First off. A major takeaway:
Monroe County motorists make a lot of mistakes interacting with sidewalk riders. Riding in the street, following the rules, is safer than many think.
Most Common CYCLIST Error – running a red light/stop sign or biking through crosswalk during Don’t Walk phase
Reconnect Rochester annually champions the Idaho Stop in New York State. Passage would allow bicyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs. Many intersection signals don’t detect cyclists’ presence and believe it or not, the statistics say the Idaho Stop is safer for cyclists.
BUT:
It’s not the law right now
The Idaho Stop is safe only when certain conditions are met, as this Santa Cruz advocate says well:
What can cyclists do?
Proceed through an intersection when it’s clear & you know you’re being yielded to. Don’t run red lights or stop signs. Don’t roll through a crosswalk during the Don’t Walk phase. Report traffic signals that don’t detect your presence to Monroe County DOT.
What can motorists do?
Stay alert. Make sure the way is clear in each direction before proceeding. Yield to anyone in the crosswalk.
2nd Most Common MOTORIST Error – turns into cyclistsgoing straight
Note: The Most Common MOTORIST Error was covered in our March blog post
You know Reconnect Rochester: we love bike lanes! The more physical protection and separation from motor vehicle traffic, the better. Bike lanes, without protected intersections however, still present a potential conflict point at intersections. Sometimes motorists coming up behind the cyclist make a right turn into them as the cyclist is proceeding straight. This is called a right hook. Other times, motorists coming from the opposite direction will take a left turn into the straightgoing cyclist. This is known as a left cross.
In both instances, motorists are required by law to yield to that straight traffic and can’t make the turn unless it can be made with safety. We’ll note that illegal motorist turns are more common with sidewalk riders than classic left crosses and right hooks with cyclists in the roadway.
What can cyclists do?
Approaching intersections, come out from the curb (when it’s clear and safe) to be more visible and to limit motorist’s most dangerous choices. “Taking/Controlling the Lane” can sometimes be the wisest thing to do. It’s also prudent to not barrel through intersections at top speed. Proceed with caution until you know the way is clear and you’re being yielded to.
I’m not a big John Forester fan, but I like this line from his book: “When you approach a red light on a bike-laned street, be especially considerate to move out of the bike lane to maintain sufficient room on your right for cars to turn right on red. That is both politeness on your part and self-preservation…”
What can motorists do?
Yield to straight going cyclists before turning right or left. As prescribed in the image above, make right turns close to the curb, yielding to traffic already in the bike lane or shoulder.
2nd Most Common CYCLIST Error – wrong way riding
When cyclists ride in the street, they’re required by law to ride on the right side of the road with the flow of traffic. As I’m sure you’ve seen, a lot of bicyclists here choose to ride on the left side against the flow of traffic. At first glance, it’s easy to see why: They’d much rather see traffic come at them than not see traffic coming behind them. However, it’s a ticketable offense and we’ve got the data to prove it’s one of the leading causes of crashes here. The laws of physics make this crash especially severe on the cyclist: If you’re biking on the left at 10mph and are hit head on by a car in the opposite direction going 30mph, that’s literally the equivalent of getting hit at 40mph.
Ride on the right side of the road with the flow of traffic. This takes getting used to, but you’re more safe, visible and predictable this way. To make it easier, stick to the lines on our ROC Easy Bike map.
What can motorists do?
Look both ways at intersections, driveways and parking lot exits and ensure the way is clear before turning. Stay alert.
3rd Most Common MOTORIST Error – unsafe passing
Every bicyclist’s greatest fear – riding on the right side of the road, doing everything you’re supposed to do, and getting hit from behind by a straightgoing motorist – is not that common; the other crash scenarios we’ve discussed here are much more common.
But getting hit from behind does happen. Chances are higher on arterials when there are no bike lanes present. Getting hit from behind by a straightgoing motorist while in a bike lane is quite rare.
We find it interesting that much of the time when a cyclist does get hit from behind, it either happens at night or in the suburbs. Dedicated bike infrastructure and street lighting are less prevalent outside the City. Speeds are higher there and sometimes there’s not even a shoulder to ride in. The more “road diets” County DOT and NYSDOT can do, the safer suburban cyclists will be.
What can cyclists do?
If riding at night, it’s the law for bicyclists to have a red light in the rear and a white light in the front (reflectors don’t suffice). Of course for their benefit, the cyclist can go beyond satisfying the law to wearing bright reflective material that makes them even more visible. Two stage left turns and riding along the easy bike network make this crash less likely. Advocate for protected bike infrastructure.
What can motorists do?
Slow down and maintain vigilance while driving. It’s New York State law to pass cyclists at a safe distance. In Monroe County, that safe passing distance is at least 3 feet.
3rd Most Common CYCLIST Error – failing to yield to cross traffic
When any vehicle operator comes out of a driveway/parking lot or comes to the end of a minor residential street up to a major street, they must stop (before entering the sidewalk/crosswalk area) whether there is a stop sign or not. They can only proceed straight across or turn onto that busier road when the way is clear and they can proceed with safety. A significant factor in crashes in Rochester is cyclists (and motorists, too, for that matter) coming to the end of a residential side street and proceeding across a major road without yielding to that cross traffic (which has the right of way) and waiting until the way is clear.
Granted, sometimes that cross traffic is busy and/or that cross traffic can be speeding. But they have the right of way. If it’s rush hour, it might be a good idea for the cyclist to head to the nearest signalized intersection via the sidewalk and press the “beg button” to help them cross or turn.
Of course, lower speed limits, speed/red light cameras, traffic calming and more crosswalks would make this crash less common and make it easier to get around by bike.
What can cyclists do?
Don’t cross until the way is clear. If traffic is busy, head to the nearest signalized intersection via the sidewalk and press the “beg button” to help you cross or turn.
What can motorists do?
Slow down. Stay alert.
In sum, when cyclists eliminate these common cyclist mistakes from their repertoire and ride in a way that significantly deters the common mistakes motorists make, their safety skyrockets! Consider taking our bike class in 2026 and get acquainted with our ROC Easy Bike map.
Do us a favor and spread this finding widely. If Monroe County could eliminate or lessen this crash scenario, we’d see a significant decrease in motorist/cyclist crashes.
Whether you’re motivated by saving money, protecting the environment, improving street safety, boosting your health, or building community connections, join the Week Without Driving challenge. Discover the freedom and joy of leaving your car at home!
We are thrilled to share that in 2025, 44 participants logged a stunning 616 non-car trips for a total of 1,970. 41 non-driving miles! Read some of their comments here.
Mark your calendars for the next Week Without Driving which will be Thursday, October 1st to Wednesday, October 7th, 2026. In the meantime, try taking RTS to the grocery store, riding a Veo e-scooter to a midday meeting, walking to meet a friend, or using one of Rochester’s many bicycle boulevards for your commute.
Did you know 40% of car trips are under 2 miles? And that 28% are less than 1 mile? Is there somewhere you go regularly where you’d consider walking instead? If you can’t think of anywhere safe or pleasant to walk, conducting a walk audit of your community is easier than you’d think!
Tuesday – “Magic Bus”
With the cost of car ownership estimated at $12,000 a year (due to maintenance, insurance, gas etc.), the $1 price tag of an RTS trip is a great alternative. Check out the RTS routes to see if you can incorporate a bus into your travels!
Wednesday – “Watching the Wheels”
There is so much to say about bicycling in Monroe County that we have a dedicated newsletter, social media channels, and a webpage just to index our resources. Bicycling connects communities and is great for heart health. Visit our ROC Easy Bike Map and enjoy some of the beautiful trails, bicycle boulevards, and protected lanes offered throughout Monroe County.
Thursday – “Electric Boogie”
E-scooters are a “micro-mobility” transportation option that offer a fun, affordable, convenient way to get from here to there! Try the Veo system to scoot around within their footprint in the city of Rochester.
Friday – Your Choice
Finish off your week with your favorite mode of transportation.
Saturday – Prize Day & Advocacy
Report the number of non-driving miles and trips you have accumulated for a chance to win a prize! We’ll also fill you in on our ways to get started advocating for safer streets and more frequent public transit!
Sunday – Reflection
How do you feel about the Week Without Driving? What did you discover about yourself and your community? Want to write a blog post about it? We’ll ask to hear your thoughts!
In our climate, most people ride bikes in the Spring, Summer and Fall and that’s okay! When the cycling scene slows down in November, our cycling Instagram account would go almost completely dark for several months. The thought struck us in 2019 that we could use that time of year to feature guest contributions from Monroe County cyclists. It would be a fun way to celebrate biking in Greater Rochester: Contributors could give us a glimpse of their biking lifestyle, what it means to them, what got them into riding, their favorite places to ride and groups to ride with, etc. It’s become a neat way for cyclists who bike in different ways for different reasons to find commonality.
The #ROCbyBike series has been a hit! Here are the previous season recaps.
We are proud to present below consolidated stories of our contributors from season 6. We hope it inspires you to get out and ride!
Kerry Foxx
“My hubby and I had bikes for years and they just took up space in the garage. In the last couple of years, we’d started to look for low-to-no-cost ways to spend intentional time together. We were also on a bit of a health kick – healthy eating, regular gym visits, etc. – and biking ticked all those boxes.
Biking has been an awesome way to connect with and learn about the City and surrounding areas. It’s also been fun meeting new people. We discovered Reconnect Rochester and the rest is history! We’ve been biking ever since. The open-invite group ride we attend the most is the Flower City Feeling Good ride series sponsored by DRHS and led by Reconnect Rochester and EE Pathways.”
(five posts Nov 8 to Nov 21, 2024)
Mary Eggers
“I’ve learned that Rochester is a great place for gravel riding. I live near the Lehigh Valley Trail and can do a 50 mile loop connecting to the Greenway, the Erie Canal, and the Auburn Trail with very little road involved! We are so lucky to have this trail system, and if you venture further South there are plenty of places to] ride gravel. On the trails I am surrounded by beauty.
It’s one thing to be with friends, but cycling friends are the ones you can ride 5 hours with and not need to say a word, and know that you have all helped one another through something. Cyclists share a special bond.”
(six posts Nov 22 to Dec 5, 2024)
Adrian Martin
“One day in 2009-ish, I was sitting on an exercise bike in the Downtown Fitness Club, still aggravated after having driven around a few blocks to find a parking place, when I had an epiphany – what if I biked to the gym? Later I had another epiphany – since I can bike downtown to the gym, I could also bike downtown to work. Within 5 years I was a year-round bike commuter.
Biking is my favorite way to get from one place to another. I bike both because I enjoy it and because I dislike driving. When I arrive at a destination having biked there, I’ve gotten some outdoor exercise, I feel better physically and mentally, and I can generally bike right to my destination instead of a large parking lot/garage. And I’ve had fun! And now that I have kids, biking someplace together is a bonding and learning experience totally different from chauffeuring them around town.”
(six posts Dec 6 to Dec 20, 2024)
Hulda Yau
“Bikes have played a huge role in my healing journey, helping me both physically and mentally. Every journey can lead to something beautiful. Get out there, and let your spirit soar!
Fall is the perfect time to explore! Ontario Beach Park and Durand Eastman Beach are perfect spots for a delightful cycling trip! Take in the crisp air and the stunning autumn leaves while you ride. It’s a great way to relax and enjoy nature. So, grab your bike and go!”
(seven posts Dec 21, 2024 to Jan 1, 2025)
Tim Gabriel
“I was that one kid growing up that was always riding his bike. Cycling was freedom, and I began my adventures very early. I agree with Einstein that something magical happens when we ride, and may add that if ever there were a “fountain of youth”: biking is it!
Adventure-type riding is truly the best form of cycling and traveling there is. These days you’ll find me taking photos of my bike against a tree, on local rides near the Zoo, the Greenway, downtown, the Canal, an old railbed, or a nearby park…just trying to stay in shape for my next cycling adventure!”
(seven posts Jan 3 to Jan 16, 2025)
Danielle Harrison
“My reintroduction to biking happened in 2020 when a friend introduced me to a bike group in Brooklyn. Since then, I’ve been hooked! I love the freedom and endless exploration that biking offers. It’s not only a fantastic form of exercise but also a way to connect with the world around me, whether it’s discovering new routes or just feeling the wind on my face. Cycling has truly become a passion.
My favorite places to ride are Turning Point Park and Ontario Beach Park. In terms of regular rides, I ride with Reconnect Rochester on Wednesdays & Black Girls Do Bike on Tuesdays.”
(four posts Jan 18 to Jan 30, 2025)
Gaie Goodness
“My friends and I ride in Mendon Ponds in the winter when the trails are snow covered or muddy. There is less traffic, but a good riding surface. I live a half-mile from the Lehigh Valley Trail, so as soon as the trails are dry enough, I am off!
Riding along the Genesee is always fun. We are so lucky to have the endless Erie Canal to ride in both directions. My friends and I ride this beautiful venue often, as soon as the snow melts. And then there’s the Genesee Valley Greenway, with new improvements over the past few years.
The May and October Light Up The Night Rides organized & led by Reconnect Rochester are among my faves.”
(seven posts Jan 31 to Feb 13, 2025)
Caitlin Meives
“Like a lot of people, I spent my childhood tearing around the neighborhood on my bike, then I took a 15-year break once I had access to a car. I decided to try getting back in the saddle after moving to Rochester and realizing that, in a lot of ways, a bike could afford me more freedom than a car. At first, it felt weird and I was super intimidated by biking in traffic. I started by taking little 15 minute jaunts on residential streets in the neighborhood and gradually worked my way up to more busy streets until I felt comfortable. Within a year, I felt at home on any city street (the ‘burbs are a different story) in any amount of traffic.
When it’s above my threshold biking temp (50°F), I have a rule that I bike or walk to my destination if it’s within a 2-3 mile radius.
I love that biking gives me the chance to take in my environment at a slower pace. You notice things you wouldn’t otherwise see, hear, or smell in your car. Biking is a multi-sensory experience that connects me to the world around me and to my body and gives me a little jolt of fun, especially at the end of a long workday.”
(seven posts Feb 14 to Feb 26, 2025)
Katie Evans
“I’ll admit: I once pulled up to a group ride, saw everyone dressed in lycra, and felt so intimidated that I decided to keep driving. That was a long time ago, and I am living proof that there is a place for everyone in this community. The Rochester cycling community is filled with kind-hearted, welcoming, and like-minded people.
I encourage you to try out a few group rides if you haven’t before. It is a great way to meet people; before you know it, you’ll have new ride buddies to meet up with. Cycling started as a solo activity, but it became a community. I’ve met the kindest, most encouraging people.”
(seven posts Feb 28 to Mar 13, 2025)
Martin Petrella
“Cycling has always been a passion of mine. For a while, it was hard to find people to ride with who had the same mindset. That all changed when I started riding with Just For Giggles Cycling. They ride every Monday night from Three Heads Brewing on Atlantic Ave., rain or shine, 12 months a year. I’ve developed many friendships in the group as well and always look forward to good times on our Monday night rides.
It’s so much fun riding in winter, listening to the snow crunch beneath the tires, and feeling the crisp winter air streak across my face. It’s exhilarating! With the proper gear and attitude, winter riding isn’t as chilling as you might think.”
(five posts Mar 15 to Mar 26, 2025)
TT Fairbanks
“My favorite part about riding my bike is helping the environment! Imagine how fast we could reduce pollution. It was so beautiful learning Rochester through riding my bike. I was nervous to join a group ride because I mostly ride solo but I was SO welcomed by everyone! Reconnect Rochester’s Light Up The Night Ride was so cool! The changes being made for a safer riding environment are incredible.”
(five posts Mar 29 to Apr 8, 2025)
Kel DeShong
“I love this city and my favorite way to explore it is by bike! I’m a huge fan of bike and transit infrastructure and anything car-free.
One underrated perk of bike commuting is recognizing people. I see my neighbor walking his big fluffy dog and Opa the school crossing guard. I cross paths with the cyclist with the blinky helmet light who also rides hand-free along a stretch of the Riverway Trail. For each of them, we give each other a little wave or nod of recognition and continue on our ways! Things like this make me feel more enmeshed in the community and part of something bigger.
Urban group rides make it so much fun to be a cyclist. It’s not just about the ride itself — it’s a good excuse to get outside on a weekday, spend time with fun people who, over time, can become great friends, and explore places and routes I’d never find on my own. We stop at cool spots like High Falls or the MAG outdoor gardens and art installations, taking in the scenery while hanging out. All while getting in some good exercise! These weeknight rides also make a “school night” feel like the weekend. And with the strength in numbers, we can go on roads I’d never bike alone!”
(six posts Apr 11 to Apr 25, 2025)
If you’re interested in sharing your story for our 2025-26 #ROCbyBike series, reach out to Jesse at cycling@reconnectrochester.org.*
*Diversity is important to us. So, it may take a while to fit you in the queue so we can make spots for other voices.
During Reconnect Rochester’s Ride for the Spine bike rally in 2024, one of our partners at City Hall made a passing remark that left a lasting impression: “It’s great so many cyclists turned out to hear from the Mayor, the County Executive and Congressman Morelle, but where’s New York State? They have authority over so much of this.”
Of course, they were right: The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT)’s decision-making authority over a road project can make or break bike infrastructure choices that any local authority – whether it be the City, Towns, Villages or the County – wants to implement. Projects in our region that are building better bike infrastructure use a combination of federal, state and local funding, and the requirements – and often constraints – imposed by these funding streams dictate what is considered as feasible in the design process. While engineering guides from the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), to the AASHTO and NACTO bike guides have made momentous leaps forward, design standards used by traffic engineers at all levels of government take far too much time to adopt and implement that progressive guidance.
NYSDOT’s decision-making authority over a road project can make or break bike infrastructure choices that any local authority wants to implement.
For suburban towns and villages, the hand of NYSDOT is even heavier: state roads built before the interstate highway system designed to move freight or serve as highway alternatives are now the main streets of local communities. Unfortunately, Smart Growth America’s Dangerous by Design report in 2024 cited that across the U.S., nearly two-thirds of traffic deaths in metro areas happen on state-owned roads—often fast-moving arterials that weren’t designed for people walking, biking, catching the bus, or simply crossing the street to enjoy a coffee or get home. The burden of mortality isn’t evenly spread either: Black and Native Americans, older adults, and people walking in low-income communities die at higher rates and face higher levels of risk of becoming victims of road violence when compared to all Americans.
To cite a recent Vision Zero Network analysis, state roads “serve very different purposes today – including local traffic, people walking and biking, school buses and delivery vans – without having been redesigned for these uses.” It is urgent for communities, therefore, that New York State officials, including planners, traffic engineers, municipal public works heads, become more responsive to the way local communities are growing and the ways the roads are used today.
That’s why this year, Reconnect Rochester is asking NYSDOT and other state leaders to speak to us about what they are doing to keep cyclists safe and build the all-ages/all abilities bike infrastructure on all roads, but especially on the state roads that are often the Main Streets of our county’s towns and villages. We see some glimmers of a culture shift , but it will take much more to turn such a large ship. Good intentions are present throughout the Draft NYSDOT 2050 Strategic Master Plan, signs of newly prioritizing active transportation are present in the agency’s move to update a two-decade old walk/bike plan. Now is the time to reiterate to New York State: safety for your most vulnerable people using the road is safety for everyone, including drivers!
But these intentions aren’t yet fully realized: A recent Brookings Institution analysis concluded that NYSDOT is among the lowest-ranked state DOTs in the United States when measured on evidence that it is shifting its mandate from car-centric infrastructure to building and maintaining multimodal transportation systems that serve all users and responds to environmental change. As articulated in our New York Safe Streets Coalition feedback on the 2050 plan, NYSDOT can show its seriousness about its strategic intentions through more transparency, funding allocations to public and active transportation, and public engagement with local communities.
What’s at stake for Monroe County’s cyclists of all ages and abilities:
To illustrate what’s at stake for cyclists in our community, let’s look at the map. Two years ago, Monroe County hired Toole Design to craft the County’s first Active Transportation Plan. It was very high level and created a common vision as a starting point for discussion. The question it asked: If there was an ideal countywide bike network someday that connected towns & villages, what lines on a map would make most sense to invest in? The map below is the result.
The red circled roads are owned & maintained by NYSDOT. Thus, if our county is ever going to be bikeable (for more than just the brave and bold), NYSDOT will need to modernize the way they design and maintain roads to prioritize complete streets elements and build with the safety for all users in mind. Monroe County is working on an implementation plan for the CATP (work item 8756) that will make more specific recommendations, and we’ll let you know when there’s a chance to give public input.
While the City of Rochester has a lot of control over how it designs its roads, NYSDOT owns and operates portions of the most dangerous road in the city and New York State: Lake Avenue. The City has recognized the unacceptable level of road safety problems on Lake Avenue, and has put on the table the idea of reengineering Lake Avenue to be a multimodal corridor equipped with continuous bike infrastructure and bus rapid transit through the ROC Vision Zero initiative. As recent events confirm, NYSDOT’s cooperation on making Lake Avenue a safety corridor is more urgent than ever.
A local sign of culture shift toward accommodating complete streets and active transportation is NYSDOT Region 4’s project on Route 204 – Brooks Avenue in the Town of Gates, which coincides with New York State Bike Route 5. Reconnect Rochester’s input to the project last year highlighted the opportunity to connect the City of Rochester, the Airport, Gates employers and commercial center on 33A with multimodal investments on this corridor. For this project, NYSDOT coordinated with the Town of Gates and local business partners to close sidewalk gaps, and improve bus shelters. Through a combination of shoulder widening and restriping, the project will provide 5’ minimum shoulder width through corridor (with the exception of the railroad underpass area – which is outside of the NYSDOT jurisdiction) and the installation of a refuge island and other enhancements to provide for a crossing of Rt 204 at the Canal Trail. This is the kind of attention to multimodal needs that we’d like to see on every project.
Implement dedicated bike facilities, sidewalks, enhanced pedestrian crossings, traffic calming or road diets (where appropriate) to create safer places for ALL users of the road.
Build safe cycling infrastructure on Empire Boulevard (Penfield) and Monroe Avenue and West Henrietta Road (Brighton) during upcoming road projects!
Build a safer, multimodal Lake Avenue as part of ROC Vision Zero!
Create a fully connected network of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in Monroe County working with towns, villages, the City of Rochester, Monroe County and residents. Improve connectivity across municipal boundaries, between neighborhoods, jobs, and safe routes to schools.
Allocate more funding to active transportation enhancements on all road projects.
NYSDOT has an important strategic choice to make: Do we maintain the roads and bridges we have and add safety for all users, or do we spend our limited resources expanding highway capacity to save drivers a few minutes of time? Reconnect for one would like to see our local roads maintained and more bike lanes, sidewalks and transit stops added. We know that adding lanes induces new demand for car trips at a time when climate action demands we reduce our vehicle miles traveled, especially for short daily trips that are most appropriate for walking, biking or transit. Let’s make it safer for more cyclists to use state roads!
Car Lite Rochester is a blog series that highlights the stories of Rochesterians living a car-lite lifestyle. The term “car lite” encompasses a variety of multimodal transportation lifestyles, featuring little dependence (but not NO dependence) on a car. It typically looks like sharing one car within a household or only using a car when absolutely necessary.
So, we hope you’ll continue to follow along. Maybe you will be inspired to join our bloggers in living a car-lite lifestyle!
That’s usually the reaction I get when I tell people I try to rely on public transit and carpooling as much as possible in Rochester. It’s as if I just announced I forage for food in my backyard. But my journey to going car-lite wasn’t exactly straightforward. Let me explain.
Last October, I decided to take a trip to Washington, D.C. (before the political madness of 2024 took over). After attending Reconnect Rochester’s Street Films: The Sprawl Effect program, I was determined to make this trip extra memorable by reducing my carbon footprint as possible, so I set a challenge for myself: no cars, no Ubers—just my feet, the Metro, and the occasional bus. I had no idea if my body could handle it. I also had no idea this little experiment would completely change how I look at transportation back home in Rochester.
Because, let’s be honest—Rochester isn’t exactly known for its public transit. And yet, after years of feeling chained to my car, I started wondering: Could I make a car-lite life work here?
Growing Up Car-Lite
Though I was born in Rochester, I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in Tacoma, Washington (state, not D.C.), just south of Seattle. And let me tell you—public transportation there is incredible. Buses ran on predictable schedules and connected not just from suburbs to the city, but between suburbs, too. There’s a light rail system downtown that’s completely free to use and is currently being expanded across cities. Most kids walked or biked to school, and school buses picked up kids in groups rather than stopping at every individual house (I think of this often when I’m stuck behind a school bus in traffic). There weren’t lines of cars idling in front of schools like some kind of chaotic drive-thru. Carpooling was second nature. There were trains that took you north to Seattle and beyond or south to Oregon, even down to California. Recycling and composting were the norm. Community and sustainability were built into daily life.
Then in 2013, I moved back to Rochester, and…well. Let’s just say it was an adjustment. Public transportation here felt like an afterthought. When I mentioned the possibility of taking a bus, I got blank stares, or worse, concerned looks.
“It’s not safe.” “What do you mean, you don’t have a car?!”
It was disheartening, to say the least. But I did what many do here—I got a car. I didn’t have a choice. A 15-minute drive to work would’ve been an hour-long bus ride. And so, like most Rochesterians, I became car-dependent.
My Health Forced a Change
In 2019, life threw me a curveball. I developed a rare autoimmune disease that left me completely paralyzed. Months of therapy helped me relearn how to walk, use silverware, drink out of a cup, even just see straight ahead in front of me. My body was fragile, and at the time, my focus was purely on survival: get to work, pay the bills, and come home.
I wasn’t thinking about how I got to and from places—I was just grateful to be able to go at all. I was given a second chance at life and I wasn’t about to take it for granted. My energy is now limited, so I kissed the opportunity to try to take the bus or walk to work goodbye.
A 15-minute drive to work would’ve been an hour-long bus ride. And so, like most Rochesterians, I became car-dependent.
Testing a Car-Free Life in Washington (D.C. this time)
Fast-forward to 2024. I changed career paths and met Chaz Goodman, who is now the Marketing & Outreach Manager at Reconnect Rochester. He invited me to come to their event “Street Films: The Sprawl Effect”. I was excited to hear how Rochester could be more sustainable with their transportation, so I went with my mother (we carpooled!) and I left feeling ambitious that it could be possible to rely less on a vehicle.
While Rochester’s limited in options, it’s not impossible. I was leaving for a trip soon to Washington D.C., so I made a gameplan: Could I set a no-car challenge during my trip and only rely on public transportation? I was stronger, but still cautious about my limits. I wasn’t sure if my disabled body could handle it. I would be kidding myself if I wasn’t worried.
Walking 20,000 steps a day? It sounded impossible; it was a huge leap from my usual 5,000. But with breaks, I made it work.
And the best part? I felt free.
I wasn’t stressed about parking. I wasn’t sitting in hours-long traffic just to get downtown. I wasn’t paying for gas. I was just…moving. Exploring. Seeing the city in a way you simply can’t from behind a windshield. So, I thought: What if I tried this at home?
The Rochester Experiment
When I got home, I made a goal: To take the bus to work. To put things in perspective, I live in North Greece, and I commute to downtown Rochester for work. I pulled up Google Maps and did some research. I found a possible solution: If I can be dropped off to a bus stop 10 minutes from home, hop on the bus, and walk 10 minutes to work after I got off, it could be doable.
It sounded reasonable. My husband’s car lease was ending, so we were already considering downsizing to one car. This could actually work.
For about 2 solid months, I strictly relied on taking the bus to and from work. Sure, it took a little longer than it would have if I drove (35 minutes instead of 20), but I didn’t mind.
Pros
The morning commute was a breeze. The bus was on time (a minor miracle in public transit).
The extra time it took gave me more free time to read. I listened to music. I looked out the window and actually noticed the neighborhoods I was passing through. Rochester’s really beautiful!
I never felt unsafe. In fact, I felt completely comfortable and felt as if I’ve done this route my whole life.
The ride was comfortable and the people were pleasant.
It was only $1 to ride the bus. UM, HELLO?! That’s way better than filling up a tank of gas 2-3x a month and paying a few hundred dollars a month towards a car payment.
The 10–15-minute walk to work? Surprisingly lovely. Fresh air, a little movement—it was an easy way to get steps in without even thinking about it.
The RTS Transit Center downtown? Super clean and well-designed—it felt like I was in a mini airport. (To put it in perspective, the transit centers back in Washington state were all outdoor, so I wasn’t used to this.)
Every Pros list has a cons list, so here are some of my not-so-favorite things about Rochester’s public transit:
Cons
The evening commute? A whole different story. The Transit Center was chaotic. I got lost trying to find my bus a few times, and by the time I spotted it, I had to sprint to catch it (not exactly ideal for someone with mobility concerns.)
The bus was PACKED in the evenings. Unlike the mornings, it was almost difficult for me to find a spot, and sometimes I was close to having to stand the whole way home.
The stops felt endless. A 35-minute morning commute turned into 50+ minutes going home.
The biggest issue? Frequency. But what would we expect differently if the bus only comes every 30 minutes? If it ran every 15 minutes, it would’ve been a game-changer. There’d be less people as we’d be spread out more.
I recognize my blessings in having the ability to be dropped off at my bus stop, which is about a 10-minute drive from my house. What if I didn’t have that option? Then, I’d have to walk to my stop, which could take hours given my disabled body. That’s not feasible.
Where I Landed: A Car-Lite Life
I did my bus experiment for about 2 months before my body started to push back. The morning ride was fine, but running through downtown and the Transit Center in the evening and scrambling for a seat? Not sustainable as much for someone like me.
But in the end, this experiment had a lasting impact—My family officially downsized to one car. Now, my husband and I carpool to work. Some weeks, I drive just one day to work. I’m still car- lite—just in a different way. And I still take the bus here and there, but I make sure to give myself enough lead-time to catch the evening bus so I’m not running to catch it.
And honestly? It feels great. I spend WAY less on gas. I walk more than I used to. I feel more connected to my city. And I still dream of the day that Rochester invests in public transit the way Tacoma, Seattle, and D.C. have. Until then, I’ll keep doing what I can—one less car ride at a time.
At Reconnect, we’re inspired by the stories of people in our community, like Karen Nozik, Steve Roll, and Calvin Eaton, who are passionate about living a car-lite or car-free lifestyle. If you want to support our work and make it easier for others to go Car-Lite please donate and sign up for Mobility Action Alerts to stay in the loop with opportunities of how to advocate for safer streets and transportation options.
Let us know if you want to share your mobility story! What’s in it for you? The intrinsic reward of knowing you’ve inspired others, and a free t-shirt from our online shop! Contact Chaz to submit your story.
In terms of bike education, John Forester’s Vehicular Cycling philosophy (drive your bike as if you were operating a car) has dominated in the US. If you can learn those tenets and develop a little bit of courage, that philosophy will absolutely keep you safer when riding. But we’ll readily admit that vehicular cycling philosophy alone doesn’t get a whole lot of people on bikes. That’s why we’re pro-bike education and pro-bike infrastructure at Reconnect Rochester.
As we’ve explored before, sidewalk-bicycling is legal in Rochester. While not as safe as many assume, sidewalk-riding can be used to the cyclist’s advantage – for short term maneuvers while taking precautions. Cyclists, after all, do have it both ways as John Forester himself notes:
Traffic law has two different sets of rules, one for pedestrians and one for drivers. Cyclists are unique because they are the only [roadway] users who have a choice. They can follow drivers’ rules when traveling on the roadway, or pedestrians’ rules if they travel on the sidewalk or crosswalk. It is nearly always more effective to be a driver…Being a pedestrian is the cyclist’s last resort when nothing else works.
One of the many benefits of bicycling around is that we tend to have more options than motorists do. Depending on the municipality, you can resort to using the sidewalk for a bit. Whereas motorists can’t drive in the shoulder or on trails, cyclists can. We can ride two abreast (if space is available). There are of course cut-throughs and shortcuts too small for motor vehicles that our shoulder-width vehicles can fit in. We also have more options for making turns.
Today, let’s examine the three ways cyclists can take a left turn.
1. Turning left as a motorist would
The default way any bike curriculum will teach you to make a left turn is by turning left as a motorist would: often in a dedicated left turn lane. We highly recommend learning and developing this skill. If you can work your way up to this and do it safely, the world opens up to you. We go through the intricacies of this maneuver in our on-bike Smart Cycling classes, which are now free by the way. 😉 Short version:
As you’re riding on the right side of the road, scan over your left shoulder to get a good view of traffic behind you (get in the habit of doing this often; that head turn keeps motorists on their toes and lets them know you might be about to make a move; mirrors don’t have the same effect)
For 2-3 seconds, signal your intention to change lanes (left arm straight out)
Yield to traffic already in the lane
Scan again for good measure
Move carefully, smoothly & deliberately when you have the chance
Repeat for multiple lanes until you’re in the left turn lane
When you’re in the left turn lane, position yourself in the middle of it. Make your turn when you have the green light/arrow and the way is clear.
Of course, not everyone will be comfortable moving out from the side of the road into the middle, where they’re more vulnerable.
2. A two-stage (“Dutch”) turn
Another option, one that doesn’t require as much courage, is making a two-stage turn. These are common in the Netherlands, hence the moniker. In this maneuver, there’s no having to move out from the side of the road into the middle. Just proceed straight along the right side of the road through the intersection. Pull over to the right corner on the other side and reposition yourself to proceed in your new direction when the light turns green the other way.
Reconnect Rochester increasingly advocates for two-stage turn boxes on road projects since they’re more intuitive and easy for people. For an example of such a turn box in Rochester, see the corner of Court Street and Chestnut Street downtown. You don’t need a dedicated green turn box to make this maneuver. Those just help build awareness.
This option is the easiest but can take the most amount of time due to light cycles.
3. Wrapping around the corner via the sidewalk
Since Rochester bicyclists have the option of sidewalk-riding, there’s a third option: moving out earlier, getting on the sidewalk on the left side of the road prior to the intersection and using that sidewalk to wrap around in your new direction. Once the way is clear, you can transition back out into the street.
I do this for certain red lights that don’t detect my presence.
Example showing the path of a cyclist getting onto the sidewalk early before the intersection and using the sidewalk to wrap around in their new direction. They can transition back out into the street afterwards when the way is clear.
The benefits of this option are that the traffic lights at the intersection don’t affect you and you avoid being exposed in the intersection entirely. This can be useful if the light cycle is very long or there’s a lot of traffic from the other direction coming your way but you get the opportunity to safely transition onto the sidewalk early before that traffic gets to you. As always, go slow on the sidewalk, yield to pedestrians, maintain awareness and watch for turning vehicles. We only advise sidewalk-riding for short stretches like this.
Conclusion
I’m a confident bike rider as a result of many years of experience having the bicycle being my primary way of getting around. I use all three of these options to make left turns. Time of day, visibility conditions, level of traffic, intuition and my general mood are all factors determining which option I use at a particular intersection. It’s nice to have options.
If you have joined one of our weekly rides, you have experienced the community and joy that comes with navigating our streets and trails on two wheels. This feeling is something that everyone deserves to experience safely. This is a big part of why we do the work we do at Reconnect Rochester. On Sunday, June 1st we will host our 4th annual ROC ‘n Roll fundraising bike ride so we can continue to advocate for robust and equitable transportation choices across Monroe County.
There are many incredible bike rides for a multitude of worthy and important causes every year, but we are proud to say that the ROC ‘n Roll is the only ride that directly benefits multimodal advocacy.
This is why we’re inviting you – our community of riders, advocates, and believers in complete streets – to join us on this ride to support this work. If there’s any reason you cannot join, we hope that you can donate to support the cause or attend the after party for riders and non-riders alike!
If you can only make one group ride this year (which we sincerely hope is not the case as we have many wonderful rides planned), we hope you can join us at the ROC ‘n Roll.
A county-wide crash map to raise awareness and support local advocacy efforts around safe streets
Free bike classes to teach you how to safely negotiate traffic
Nearly 300 advocacy meetings in 2024 contributing to make gains such as; funding a new intermodal bus station, more 15 minute service routes for RTS, bus stop improvements, building the bike spine, and ROC Vision Zero
These milestones show what’s possible when we work together. The funds we raise can continue our mission to champion transportation choice.
Here’s how you can help:
Sign up to ride with a friend or a group. *Bonus points if you come up with a themed group costume at the ride*
Attend our After Party with live music, games, a raffle, food & drink from Rohrbach’s Brewing Company, and a chance to link up with our county’s mobility advocates.
Send a donation to show your support for our work. Spread the word on why you donated and why this cause is worth supporting.
Share this blog post with your network!
This work takes all of us. The more we grow, the more we can accomplish. We need your help; not because you’re a great rider or a generous supporter but because you get how important and joyful this work truly is.
If you want a more walkable & bikeable community, get familiar with the recently adopted Active Transportation Plans by the City of Rochester and Monroe County. Press your electeds to implement those recommendations. For those wanting a deep dive on how bike lanes get built and how to be a good advocate, please subscribe to Reconnect Rochester’s Mobility Action Alerts.
On Sunday, May 31st 2026, we will host our 5th annual ROC ‘n Roll fundraising bike ride so we can continue to advocate for robust and equitable transportation choices across Monroe County.
NEW THIS YEAR! Once you register, you’ll have an option to create a team, join a team, or choose to ride solo! Let us know if anything is confusing and we’ll get right back to you!
The Ride
Meet us at Rohrbach Brewing Company’s Beer Hallon Railroad Street, where this year’s ROC ‘n Roll will begin and end. The ride is rain or shine and the after party will be inside.
Thanks to our sponsors & donors!
Your generosity allows us to continue championing mobility in Monroe County!
The 8-mile ride is a family-friendly, casual route that features the traffic-free Riverway Trail. Check-in starts at 10:00 AM. Kickstands up at 10:30 AM.
The 30-mile ride is a mix of bike paths, bike lanes, and bike boulevards — and will probably take you places you’ve never seen in Rochester on a bike! Check-in starts at 8:30 AM. Kickstands up at 9:00 AM.
“I loved street riding in a way that felt safe. It was so fun to experience our gorgeous city from that vantage.”
“Riding a type of ride I never do. It was very eye-opening to see all the cycling infrastructure in the city. I had no clue.”
Includes after party admission (1 plate of food + your first drink/beer).
Snacks and water provided for riders pre- and post-ride, plus long route rest stop(s).
Create or Join A Team
NEW THIS YEAR! We’re excited to introduce a Teams option that will allow you to recruit and ride with your colleagues, friends and family! As a team lead, you can also encourage those who can’t join the ride, to support our cause with a donation in lieu of coming.
Once you register as an individual, you’ll have an option to create a team or join a team. Let us know if anything is confusing and we’ll get right back to you!
After Party!
Join us at ROC ‘n Roll event headquarters afterwards to eat, drink, and hang out! Enjoy live music from The Sideburns, and check out our raffle. Admission to the after party is included in rider registration. Non-riders can grab a ticket for just the after party via the registration button below. All are welcome!
There are many incredible bike rides for a multitude of worthy and important causes every year, but the ROC ‘n Roll is the only benefit ride that directly supports bike advocacy and safe cycling infrastructure along with all the work we do to champion mobility in Monroe County.
If you can’t join the ride, feel free to donate to support the cause or attend the after party for riders and non-riders alike! Here are just some efforts your dollars would go to support :
Can’t make this event, but still want to support the cause?
We’ll gratefully accept a donation to let us know you’ll be with us in spirit! Visit our donation page to support our work.
Seeking Sponsors & Raffle Donations
Are you a business or organization interested in supporting our event? By partnering with Reconnect Rochester, you’ll join the movement for mobility equity, accessible recreation, sustainability, and safe streets. View sponsorship opportunities ranging from $500 – $10,000.
We also welcome in-kind donations for our RAFFLE. Bonus points if it’s Rochester or bike-themed! Contact kristin@ReconnectRochester.org if you’d like to make an item donation.
Car Lite Rochester is a blog series that highlights the stories of Rochesterians living a car-lite lifestyle. The term “car lite” encompasses a variety of multimodal transportation lifestyles, featuring little dependence (but not NO dependence) on a car. It typically looks like sharing one car within a household or only using a car when absolutely necessary.
So, we hope you’ll continue to follow along. Maybe you will be inspired to join our bloggers in living a car-lite lifestyle!
A College Student’s Journey On Two Wheels & Transit
By Una Gogstetter:
As a college student who, like many others my age, doesn’t own my own car, living car lite has been necessary for me. My experience getting around Rochester with limited car access has been both enjoyable and eye-opening. I am a current sophomore at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, with a Statistical and Data Sciences major, Urban Studies minor, and Community Engagement and Social Change concentration. Living without a car while away at college has also broadened my perspective on car lite living in Rochester
Car Lite in Rochester
For the past two summers, I biked or took the bus to my jobs (first at Corn Hill Navigation then at Rochester Area Community Foundation). While this was more by necessity than by conscious choice, I did particularly enjoy my experience biking. I would often listen to music through my earbuds on my way, the bike ride integrated exercise into my daily routine, and I was able to observe various people, houses, and businesses along my route.
Some of my favorite areas to bike have been the Railroad Loop Trail or passing by the lovely old houses on Park Avenue. Furthermore, RTS provided a convenient way for me to get to work in rainy weather—my house, near Cobbs Hill, is located in close proximity to a bus stop. I will likely spend much of this summer in Rochester and I intend to continue frequently commuting by bike or by bus.
The turn onto the Railroad Loop Trail.
The bike commute to my internship last summer involved this lovely section of Harvard Street.
While I’m lucky to have worked at locations I can travel to without a car, I am still cognizant of the ways in which access to transportation in Rochester could be expanded and improved. I have had to be mindful of transportation-related concerns when applying and planning my schedule for jobs and internships in Rochester, as I am unable to access many Rochester area locations without a car. Transportation-related logistics have also been a concern for me outside of work-related contexts.
Excursions ranging from dining out with a friend to purchasing a particular item I need to going on a family hike would be much more challenging without my parents and friends having cars. While it is of course possible to live car-free in many parts of Rochester, having zero access to a car would likely come with unavoidable drawbacks.
Although living car-free in any city comes with challenges, such challenges are greater in the absence of extensive public transportation systems as well as in the absence of comprehensive infrastructure supporting pedestrians and bicyclists.
Similarly to many cities, Rochester’s bike lanes are neither physically separated from car lanes nor consistently present even on busy streets. Therefore, the current arrangements force bicyclists to choose between riding beside automobiles or riding on the sidewalk. Furthermore, if someone is seeking to live a car lite lifestyle, and thus potentially biking rather than driving, their commute will likely coincide with rush hour—an especially dangerous time to bike in the road.
Comparisons with Northampton
Northampton is certainly imperfect regarding friendliness toward non-automobile forms of transportation. Its bike lanes are inconsistent, not physically separated from automobile traffic, and its bus system does not reach all areas of the city. Still the city has greater mindfulness of pedestrians in comparison to Rochester.
Crosswalks at locations other than traffic lights are much more common in Northampton. Pedestrians frequently utilize these crosswalks—the downtown area is often busy with people visiting the shops and farmers’ market. Additionally, drivers tend to be more considerate toward pedestrians. They consistently stop at the many crosswalks and, even outside of designated crossing locations, and display an awareness of pedestrians I wasn’t previously used to.
Overall, my experience living car lite in Rochester highlights the importance of Reconnect Rochester’s mission to “champion transportation choice”. Tangible improvements, such as expanding the public transportation system, implementing safer biking infrastructure, and creating more crosswalks, would be undeniably impactful. Such improvements, though, must perhaps be accompanied by a shift in residents’ attitudes. A high level of mindfulness toward pedestrians could become more normalized, as it is in Northampton. Biking, walking, and riding the bus would start to be seen as feasible alternatives to driving—a mindset shift that would be helped along by infrastructural improvements.
Improvements in the physical infrastructure and the public attitudes around car lite living in Rochester would allow residents with limited or no car access to get around more safely and easily. And any resident, car owner or not, could experience enhanced well-being and a deepened sense of connection to the city and its communities as a result of walking or biking more often.
At Reconnect, we’re inspired by the stories of people in our community, like Karen Nozik, Steve Roll, and Calvin Eaton, who are passionate about living a car-lite or car-free lifestyle. If you want to support our work and make it easier for others to go Car-Lite please donate and sign up for Mobility Action Alerts to stay in the loop with opportunities of how to advocate for safer streets and transportation options.
Let us know if you want to share your mobility story! What’s in it for you? The intrinsic reward of knowing you’ve inspired others, and a free t-shirt from our online shop! Contact Chaz to submit your story.
The protected bike lanes surrounding DC’s iconic landmarks highlight the importance of multimodal infrastructure for attracting residents and enhancing livability. Between the three bike share programs, metro trains, and a bus system, DC provides a multitude of options for those looking to get around without a personal vehicle. Pedestrian islands provide refuge for those crossing the street on foot while also providing space for turning bikers. Bus stop islands and shared bus stops allow riders to step out of the flow of traffic while maintaining awareness of cyclists.
We were struck by the decisive action of DDOT and their leadership prioritizing proven safety measures over means-testing and hesitation. Washington DC’s mayor has pushed to add 20 miles of protected bike lanes over three years to meet the demand for bicycle infrastructure for all ages and abilities without worrying about miniscule delays for drivers. Rochester could take inspiration from this approach by installing infrastructure such as two-way protected bike lanes. While this would require coordination with the county and some new traffic signal configurations, the benefits far outweigh the challenges.
We also had the chance to see DC’s Curb Extension Murals (the inspiration for Downtown SmART Streets) up close. As we prepare to break ground on this new program and review artist submissions (due March 22nd) we were eager to take notes on what has worked (and what hasn’t) for these traffic calming elements.
The Asks
The most critical part of the summit was taking our advocacy to Capitol Hill. Thank you to the League of American Bicyclists for the herculean task of organizing these meetings on a national scale. Our first ask? Fighting for Safe Streets for All grant funding—money that has already been approved by Congress but is now threatened in an unprecedented move from the Executive Branch.
The local projects funded by this grant are designed to meet the needs of each community, understanding that local governments know their streets best. In our meetings with Congressional Representative Joe Morelle, staff from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s legislative aide, we pressed them to recognize the importance of projects such as completing Rochester’s Bike Spine Network or expanding our Downtown SmART Streets program. These projects will make the streets safer for everyone—cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers alike. Canceling their funding will also harm our communities through the loss of local construction jobs from the projects and the long-term economic benefits these amenities bring.
As traffic dangers increase for everyone on our roads, improving safety isn’t a political issue; it’s a necessity.
Our next ask to the US House of Representatives was to support HR 1668, The Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Active Transportation Safety Act. In 2022, Sarah Lagenkamp was killed while riding her bike after dropping off her son at daycare. Her husband Daniel made it his mission to make our streets safer.
As the League of American Bicyclists say, this bill highlights the need to fill gaps in biking and walking networks and makes it easier for states and local governments to use Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) dollars as a “local match” to build safe bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure.
We were proud to have a strong Rochester contingent to mingle with our fellow advocates across the country. If you want to get more involved in our incredible local bicycle community here at home, please make sure you are signed up for our Mobility Action Alerts for weekly emails with local advocacy opportunities for safer, multimodal streets.
Two immediate actions you can take to support our cause:
With federal funding for bike lanes and many important transportation projects in danger of being cut off by USDOTwe urgently need your support to show the importance of these projects for the entire community. The League of American Bicyclists have put together a petition to show how many people oppose cutting this funding. Please take a moment to sign and send it to 5 of your friends Getting as many signatures as possible is critical to the success of our upcoming projects.
On Rochester’s last Report Card from the League of American Bicyclists, we were urged to collect and track bike crash data. With that in mind, Reconnect Rochester started requesting crash reports involving cyclists in 2021 under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). We started small by just collecting and analyzing city crashes but soon branched out to crashes in the suburbs too.
Today we’ll explore what is consistently the most common cyclist crash in Monroe County. We want all road users to be aware and take appropriate safety measures, both for themselves and for the safety of others. In separate blog posts, we’ll parse out other findings from these reports.
In the early days of bicycling, roads weren’t suitable for riding. They weren’t paved and were thus dusty, muddy and full of horse poop. The only smooth, hard rideable surface was the sidewalk network. When too many Rochester cyclists started using the sidewalks, pedestrians were inconvenienced and the local law was changed. In 1896, Rochester cyclists were banned from riding on sidewalks, much to their consternation. That ultimately led to (short lived) bike infrastructure, and longer term to paved public roads, which became a normal expectation of government henceforward.
Meanwhile, the automobile gradually took over our cities and bicycling, for a variety of reasons, dwindled for decades to primarily become a childrens’ activity. (It was the 1970s oil crisis and better built bikes and new gearing which gradually started bringing adult bicycling back). Sadly, a spate of fatal crashes involving Rochester children in the 1950s woke the community up to the need for changing laws once again.
The City Code was changed in 1958 to allow sidewalk riding here. Bicyclists in Rochester, therefore have it both ways. They can choose to ride in the road following most of the rules for motor vehicle drivers OR if they’re not comfortable riding in the road, they can bike or scoot on the sidewalk where they are more or less treated as a higher speed pedestrian.
The most common bike/automobile crash in Monroe County features a motorist failing to yield to a sidewalk-riding cyclist approaching from their right. Just as pedestrians can walk both ways on a sidewalk, cyclists can ride both ways on the sidewalk, though riding on the sidewalk on the right side of the road with the flow of traffic is much safer. (The law requiring cyclists to ride on the right with the flow of traffic applies only when riding in the road itself). When riding on the sidewalk on the leftside of the road facing traffic, the trouble for cyclists primarily comes at intersections and parking lot exits.
It’s all too common for motorists wanting to turn right at a red light or stop sign to only look to their left, waiting for a break in oncoming traffic before making their turn. Pedestrians or cyclists entering the crosswalk from their right must be yielded to. Therefore motorists must look both ways, ensuring the way is clear and that their turn can be made with safety.
It should be noted that this failure on the motorist’s part is a ticketable offense. On rare occasions, law enforcement in Monroe County will issue motorists tickets for either of the following violations in this scenario:
VTL 1146 Every driver shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any bicyclist or pedestrian…
VTL 1151 Drivers shall yield the right of way, slowing down or stopping if need be to so yield, to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a crosswalk… (In their crash reports, it’s very common for Officers to refer to the cyclist in this scenario as a pedestrian – with all their accompanying rights)
What can drivers do to avoid this particular crash?
The law requires motorists to come to a stop *before* the stop line/marked crosswalk, if there is one. If not, you must stop *before* you enter the crosswalk area. (Crosswalks exist legally whether or not they are marked).
Only after yielding to people walking or rolling in the crosswalk and ensuring the way is clear in *both* directions can motorists creep up gradually to get a better view, waiting for a break in traffic before making their turn with safety.
What can bike riders do to avoid this common crash scenario?
Because riding on the sidewalk opens you up to some very common motorist mistakes here, we recommend riding on the right side of the road with the flow of traffic. Yes, this can be scary at first (traffic will be coming up behind you on your left), but you are much more visible and predictable this way. The crash scenario we’re examining today is much more common than cyclists’ greatest fear (getting hit from behind or side-swiped).
Constant fear isn’t required when riding a bike, but constant vigilance is. If you choose to ride on the sidewalk, maintain awareness, scan around and behind you on a regular basis, and ride on the sidewalk on the right side with the flow of traffic. As noted above, motorists ahead of you tend to look left in your direction when approaching intersections, so you ought to be more visible to them.
Riding across crosswalks/parking lot exits via the sidewalk, don’t assume the driver sees you and will yield to you. You must negotiate and reach an understanding. This can be hard due to the increase in tinted windows which don’t allow you to interact with the driver in any way. Don’t proceed until you know it’s safe in all directions.
Some safety educators would advise you to dismount and walk your bike across crosswalks, particularly at busy intersections.
Crossing intersections on the lefthand sidewalk also puts you in danger of other turning motorists, such as motorists behind you turning left.
For municipalities that allow sidewalk-riding, update your code to require motorists to yield to bike & scooter riders in the crosswalk too. This is already the “common law” interpretation, but it helps to get rid of the ambiguity. Clear motorist expectations are important.
Continual messaging to motorists that cyclists have every right to ride in the street
Do us a favor and spread this finding widely. If Monroe County could eliminate or lessen this crash scenario, we’d see a significant decrease in motorist/cyclist crashes. Stay tuned for more crash analysis…
