All About Parking

In New York City, it’s always about parking.

It’s one of the ostensible reasons for opposition to bike lanes: Drivers complain the green strips take away “their” spaces and traffic lanes.

Turns out, people with cars and trucks aren’t the only ones who can’t find places to leave them when they’re not driving.

In spite of the warning, e-bikes have filled one of the two rows of bike racks by the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Critics of dockless bike share systems have at least one piece of evidence here.

But it also raises a valid question: Is it better to leave e-bikes and scooters in a rack where they don’t belong than in the middle of a sidewalk or other public passageway? At least those racked e-bikes aren’t making life for people with mobility issues more difficult. Still, if I had to park my bike and there were no free spaces in that rack, it might be more than an inconvenience—say, if I had somewhere to be.

I will, however, put things in perspective. Here is the biggest “parking” problem at the terminal—and throughout the city:

Some would say, “They should go to the shelters.” I have known a few people who’ve spent time in them. While a few say the shelters offer services and “you can get your life back together” in them, even they admit the shelters often turn people away because they’re overcrowded or simply can’t handle the problems some homeless  people face. The overcrowding, along with some residents’ mental health issues and sheer despair and desperation, leads to theft, fights and worse. So it’s almost understandable, at least to me, that some people would “park” an elbow’s width away from the cyclists like me—and thousands of tourists—who stream by every day.

How An “Influencer” “Won”—On A Bicycle

I am almost always happy when I see somebody on a bicycle.

Notice that I said “almost.” Among the exceptions are when someone uses the bicycle to commit a crime or cause harm.

Or cheat.

I have never run a marathon, so I rarely criticize whatever anyone does to complete one—unless someone does something like what Yuanyuan Sun, known as “Abeeer” on social media did in the latest Berlin Marathon.

Now I am going to reveal a prejudice. I really try not to categorically disdain groups of people. As an example,  while  I can’t count any lawyers among my friends, and probably never will, I have met advocates who work for the public good, including ones who fought for equal rights, which the current administration is trying to take from people like me.

On the other hand, I must say that it didn’t surprise me to learn that Ms. Sun is an “influencer.” Some might accuse me of internalized misogyny, as the majority of “influencers” are female. Others might accuse me of jealousy, as many “influencers”:are younger and more conventionally attractive than I am.

But I have seen too much, shall we say, unethical behavior. In trying to get that perfect image, I’ve seen them endanger people by, for example, obstructing the paths of cyclists, pedestrians and disabled people. And some, like Ms. Sun, cheat:  She rode the last few kilometers on the back of a bicycle. That helped her finish the course in her “personal best” time and post a video of her, adorned with a medal.

Now, to be fair, what she did is, arguably, not the most egregious example of non-pharmaceutical performance enhancement in a long-distance running event. In the 1904 Olympics—one of the most bizarre sporting events ever held—the marathon’s winner was disqualified for driving part of the way. Then there was Rosie Ruiz, who “finished” the 1980 Boston Marathon after entering it during the last mile. That, after taking the subway for part of the 1979 New York Marathon, for which she was given a special dispensation to enter after claiming she was dying of cancer when she missed the qualification deadline.

I guess what Yungyung Sun did bothers me more because she committed her fraud on a bicycle. And I’ll admit being an “influencer” doesn’t redeem her in my eyes.

Why Him?

Why was the tubing on this frame named for a guy who got lost?

 

Happy Columbus Day/Indigenous People’s Day!

I live near the “real” Little Italy in the Bronx. I often go there for food and, occasionally, other kinds of fun. There are festivities there. So why am I not participating in them? Well, I’ve never understood why a guy who got lost, didnt “discover” any place (people were already living there) and helped to start the transatlantic slave trade became a source of Italian pride when we have Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante and Leonardo (What does that tell you when we only need to use their first names?), Vivaldi and, for crying out loud, fashion designers? 

And why was one of the best-known brands of bicycle tubing, from which so many fine frames (I’ve owned seven and ridden a bunch more) have been constructed, named after that wayward sailor?

Does ending a post with three consecutive rhetorical questions mean I’m getting cranky in midlife?