When Cycling (and Pedestrian) Safety Is Social Justice

 Yesterday I crossed the Rubicon.  All right, it was a Boulevard of Death.

Several New York City thoroughfare have earned that moniker over the years. I regularly crossed two of them—Queens and Northern Boulevards—when I lived in Astoria.  The, like the one I traversed yesterday, are what transportation planners call “stroads.” While classified as city streets because of their urban settings, they have four or more long, straight lanes with long stretches between traffic signals. This setup encourages motorists to drive well over the speed limit.

“Stroads” often  include merges with, and on- and-off-ramps for, major highways. They usually pass through commercial areas, which provide constant streams of cars pulling in and out of traffic. The stroad I crossed yesterday, however, cuts through residential areas.

Those residential areas include what have been, for decades, two of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods. In addition to the other difficulties of growing up and loving in poverty, residents have some of the worst health in the city and nation:  Heavy traffic contributes to high rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses and its un-walkability and lack of green spaces means that people don’t exercise much. (There also isn’t a gym, which most residents couldn’t afford anyway,) And because there aren’t supermarkets or even bodegas along the way, fresh fruits and vegetables, and other healthy foods, are difficult to come by.

And, in contrast with Queens Boulevard, under which a city subway line runs, and Northern, which includes stops for other lines and the Long Island Rail Road (yes, they spell it as two words), the “stroad” I’m talking about is miles from any train station. Local buses run along parts of it and on some streets that cross it, but it’s difficult to piece together a route from where people live to where they work, go to school or shop, let alone visit family and friends in other areas.

Oh, and many people who live along and near Linden share a trait shared by others, rich and poor, in the Big Apple:  they don’t have cars, or even access to them. Thus, they are not the ones contributing to the nightmarish traffic situation.

The “stroad” in question is Linden Boulevard. It begins in Brooklyn, at Flatbush Avenue, and runs south and east for 20 kilometers (with an interruption at Aqueduct Race Track) to the Queens-Nassau County border, passing near JFK International Airport along the way. .In Brooklyn, Linden cuts through Brownsville and East New York, home to the greatest concentrations of public housing and percentages of residents—including children—living in poverty. Many of those kids must cross eight lanes of traffic—on some stretches, with no pedestrian islands or other barriers in the middle—to get to their often-overcrowded and under- funded schools. Some, and some adults going to work or to catch the bus, didn’t make it.

Linden Boulevard, like otner “stroads,” cries out for, in addition to pedestrian islands, dedicated bus and bike lanes and other improvements to mass transit and safety for anyone who is getting around without a car. Our new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has announced plans for a redesign of the most dangerous stretch of Linden, which includes the intersection I crossed during yesterday’s ride.  While nothing is mentioned about bike lanes, the other improvements I mentioned, including more points where pedestrians can cross, should at least help to cut down on the reckless driving that plagues it.

Redesigning “stroads” like Linden Boulevard, therefore, isn’t just a matter of convenience: It’s imperative for safety—and social justice.

The Baby Christian Jesus President

 Today I am not going to write about cycling or midlife.  But I somehow believe that what I am about to say is a midlife reflection of the sort I might have during a ride.

I was brought up Catholic. Later I became an Evangelical Christian. I explored other religions.  Though I can feel some affinity, and great respect, for Buddhism (mainly because I don’t see it so much as a religion, at least as I understand it, as a way of being centered on learning and teaching), I identify as an agnostic non-theist.  That is to say, I don’t believe in a “higher being” but, because no one has been able to prove, or disprove, the existence of such a being, I cannot dismiss the possibility of its existence.

So why am I mentioning what I do or don’t believe? Well, reading Bruce Gerenscer’s post today got me to thinking about how Evangelical Christians (like the one I was) and conservative Catholics give their full-throated support to Donald Trump.  And the more un-Christian (at least as I understand the faith) his behavior, the louder and sometimes more belligerently they defend him.

What really got me thinking about this phenomenon, however, was a particular point Bruce made. Six decades ago, many people—some not even particularly religious—took umbrage at John Lennon exclaiming “We’re more popular than Jesus.” Actually, the outrage was, and continues to be, over how the tabloids misrepresented, and the public mis-remembers, what he said: that the Beatles were “bigger” than Jesus.

Even if John, normally the most articulate Beatle, could have said it differently, his point was valid:  His group and rock’n’roll music generally had more influence on young people than Christianity or any other religion. I think church leaders, and many everyday believers, were more worried that they were losing their authority than over a band’s or a musical genre’s popularity.

I was a young child at the time, and I recall that many kids weren’t allowed to have Beatles’ records or albums, or even to listen to their music on the radio.  I wasn’t subject to such a ban, mainly because my parent’s didn’t listen to the Beatles or other British Invasion bands: Their tastes ran more toward Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and Concetta Franconero, a.k.a. Connie Francis. (I think every Italian-American family in my milieu had a similar playlist!) 

Anyway, in contrast to the anger, some from not-particularly-religious people, at Lennon, Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians, and conservative Catholics, raised barely a peep—some even applauded—when an AI-generated image of the Fake Tan Führer as a Christ-like healer spread across the web and airwaves. And when he excoriated the Pope for denouncing the war (let’s call it what it is) against Iran and being “soft on crime” (last I checked, the Vatican had the lowest crime—at least as it’s defined by law enforcement and investigative agencies—rate of any country). If anything, they justify “Baby Christian” Trump’s belligerent words and deeds by admonishing his critics not to “judge, lest ye be judged.” Perhaps that’s also their rationale for not calling out J.D. Vance—a recent convert to Catholicism—when he told the Pope to “be careful” about speaking of matters of theology.

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the events I’ve just described is that the most pointed critiques of Trump’s and Vance’s blasphemies have come from people who aren’t religious: secular Christians and Jews, even atheists and non-affiliated believers.  I must admit that I, too, feel even more ire at folks like Trump and Vance hijacking religious beliefs and iconography, and attacking religious leaders, than I might have were I still a believer. Why? Well, as I said earlier, even though I don’t believe, I still have respect for those who actually do and, more importantly, use it as a moral foundation for their lives rather than as a cloak over their calumny. After all, I can no more prove that their God doesn’t exist than they can prove he/she/they/it does. They have a right to believe, just as I have right not to. If the Pope is a guide and Jesus is an avatar for them—or if any other religious leader spreads a message of love—I am willing to denounce anyone who dares to defame or mis-appropriate them.

Red And Gray

It’s been a while since I last posted. The past two weeks have been busy. I finally did a long ride yesterday, to Point Lookout, Coney Island and into Manhattan via the Manhattan Bridge before hopping onto the D train at Grand Street, in Manhattan’s Chinatown. In all, I covered about 150 kilometers, or just over 90 miles.  It actually 130 km ride I did the previous Saturday because I had the wind at my back or side all the way from Point Lookout to Manhattan, whereas I was pedaling into the wind on my way home from the previous ride.

The weather has been strange, even for this time of year. On Wednesday and Thursday, the temperature reached 90F (32.2 C), which would have been the beginning of a heat wave in July or August.  While the weather had cooled down (70F/21C) by yesterday, it felt even cooler along the ocean. And although the sun didn’t feel intense—in fact, skies had grown overcast—I still managed to get sunburned,  (Use sunscreen even if you don’t think you need it!).

How is it that my limbs and face burned tomato red, yet steel gray cables and towers (in this case, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge) were bathed in the even grayer mist and clouds?  The mysteries!