Late In The Day, Late In The Season

I'm still limited to short rides.  But my time in the saddle has given me no end of visual delight:

Saturday I rode to Roosevelt Island again and, from there, down the waterfront. November sunsets are so vivid--and bike rides so fulfilling--because of the darkness, the cold, that is ready to descend, just as trees are their most colorful at the moment before the wind strips them bare to the long, dark nights ahead.

 

Yesterday I took another, slightly longer ride.  I didn't take any photos, but I'll have something to say about it tomorrow.

We'll Cross That Bridge---When Traffic Allows!

Last night, I stayed at work later than I'd planned.  I figured it would be easier to finish grading a bunch of papers in my office than at home.

That meant I couldn't go via Randall's Island, as the Queens spur of the RFK Bridge closed for repairs at 8 pm.  So I rode into Manhattan via the Willis Avenue Bridge, which lets cyclists off at 125th Street and First Avenue.  It was already past 9:30 by the time I got on my bike, but I figured that if I channeled the messenger I once was, I might get to the Queensborough (59th Street) Bridge path before it closed for repairs at 10pm.

Well, things didn't quite work that way.  The Queensborough path was indeed closed when I got there.  At least a bus is provided.  Actually, there's a bus and a truck.  Each cyclist is given a number for his or her bike as it's loaded onto the truck.  The bus follows it across the bridge.

Not a bad arrangement, right?  Well, the bus and truck are nice, and the drivers are prompt and helpful.  There are two problems, though.  One is motor traffic on the Bridge:  I never realized there would be so much after 10 pm! The other is that the bus and truck have to take circuitous routes to get onto the bridge, and once they leave the bridge, as some streets are one-way and others are narrow and don't allow buses or trucks.



So, it took about 45 minutes from the time we left 59th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan until we disembarked on 23rd Street at Queensborough Plaza.  In other words, that trip took  twice as long as it took me to pedal from my job, at 149th Street and Grand Concourse in the Bronx, to 59th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan!





I won't whine about the inconvenience:  We got across the bridge safely and as quickly as conditions would allow.  And, as I said, the drivers and truck-loaders were courteous and helpful.  I can't help but to think, though, that whatever reduction in carbon emissions any of us might have acheived by riding from wherever to the Bridge was negated by all the time the bus and truck was stuck in traffic on the Bridge.

A Crash I Just Missed

I had just pedaled up the ramp on the Manhattan side of the Queensborough (a.k.a 59th Street) Bridge.  Two men and a woman, abreast each other,  spread themselves across the pedestrian side and into the side marked for bikes of the bike/pedestrian lane.  One of the men was stretching and craning his neck to snap photos of the city's skyline and the Roosevelt Island finiculaire; the other man and the woman were neither doing nor paying attention to anything in particular.  

As I had pedaled up the ramp from a dead stop at the bottom (courtesy of a man who was texting somebody and crossed into my path), I was riding slowly.  From the opposite direction, three young-looking, lycra-clad young men pedalled and spun at a much faster speed.  Still, I figured I had enough time and space to pedal around the photographer and his friends and that, by the time the three young cyclists were ready to ride around them, I would be well past the midpoint of the bridge.

My highly unscientific calculations proved to be entirely correct.  I was well past the photographer and his friends when the young male cyclists rode around them.  And I probably never would have thought about them, or the photographer and his mates, again.

But then I heard the thumping, clanging and clattering of metal and human flesh colliding as if sucked into a vortex or carbon fiber.  The cyclists were a few wheel lengths past the photographer and his travelling companions, but I don't think they had anything to do with the pileup.  To their credit, the male friend helped the cyclists--who didn't seem to be hurt--up.  I did a U-turn (fortunately, no other cyclists were approaching from either direction) and went to see whether the cyclists needed any help.  Two declined, and thanked me for my offer.  But the other, upon seeing that his bike was wrecked (It was carbon fiber.), punched and kicked the fence on the side of the bridge, picked up his bike and flung it. I got out of his way.

The bridge's lane is just barely wide enough for a couple of pedestrians walking abreast and a cyclist riding alone or in single file.  Plus, parts of the paving have been torn away (It's supposed to be re-paved), leaving half the width of the lane unusable for a significant part of the path's length.  That, at a time when more people are walking and pedaling across the bridge than perhaps at any time in its history.

It Looks Like A Lane Now

It looks like a real bike lane now.


Last week, I mentioned the construction I saw on the Queens side of the Edward Koch/Queensborough/59th Street Bridge.  (At the rate it's going, the bridge'll have more names than God has in the Old Testament!)  Well, I don't know whether they've finished it.  But at least now the path is useful, and takes you to a practical destination.


More important, it doesn't force cyclists into this:

This is where the lane from the bridge used to end.  Just beyond the orange barrels, 27th Street dead-ends under the elevated tracks of the #7 and N lines of the New York subways.  Most of the traffic on 27th (which is one-way in the direction of the truck in the rear of the photo) merges onto the bridge ramp; a few vehicles turn right onto Queens Plaza North, where you see the black sedan.  Sometimes those streets are completely full of vehicles, and their drivers aren't known for patience.


So, when a cyclist coming off the bridge can turn left onto the lane, which intersects with 23rd, 22nd and 21st Streets. All of them continue underneath the tracks.  Or one can take 23rd in the other direction to go to Astoria.  That street passes through an industrial area and the traffic on it is usually light.   Twenty-Second is one-way in the opposite direction from 23rd, and 21st is a major artery that serves as part of the route for several bus lines.  


I would love it if the path were extended to Vernon Boulevard, which skirts the Queens bank of the East River.   That would offer cyclists relatively easy and safe access to PS 1, Socrates Sculpture Park and the Noguchi Museum, among other things. 


One can always hope.  For now, I'll suspend my cynicism and be grateful for something that's better than what we had.

You Can Cross That Bridge When You Come To It

This is not an April Fool's joke:  Today is the second.


Besides, you don't really believe that a nice, simple middle-aged woman (Is that a contradiction?) would play a joke on you, do you?  


I really did buy that fixie you saw in yesterday's post.  ;-)


Anyway...What I'm telling you today is true, although some of you familiar with the situation might think I'm extending April Fool's Day by another 24 hours.


If I go about a kilometer or so directly down the street on which I live, I come to an entrance for the Edward I. Koch Bridge. Those of you who don't live in New York and know what you know about this city from Simon and Garfunkel probably call it the 59th Street Bridge.  Officially, it has been known as the Queensborough Bridge.


As you can imagine, I cycle over it fairly often.  And, being a New Yorker, I can find reason to complain about it.  Actually, you don't need to be a native of this city to find ptoblems with the crossing.  The path on the north side of the bridge is divided between cyclists and pedestrians.  It isn't wide enough for either, and sometimes rollers, skateboarders and surfers use it too.  All right, I was kidding about the last one.  But you get the picture.


Still, it's not bad, as bicycle/pedestrian accesses on local bridges go.  It's been well-maintained and, of course, there are some interesting views.  Plus, it takes you about as close to the Roosevelt Island finiculaire as you can get without riding it.  

The main problem with it is getting on and off it.  The path ended where 27th Street effectively dead-ended in Queensborough Plaza.  And the traffic on that street is one-way, in the direction opposite from the one a cyclist would be riding upon exiting the bridge.  


Until recently, there was one other alternative for exiting the bridge:  turning left onto a path that wasn't really one.  In other words, it was a strip of dirt in a berm that was, as often as not, full of glass.  But it at least took cyclists to 23rd Street, where one could turn right and cycle toward my neighborhood and other points north. Or one could turn left and go underneath the bridge and train trestles to Silvercup studios and the factories and warehouses (some of which are now used for studios and other purposes) in Long Island City.


Well. the city Department of Transportation is paving that ad hoc path, effectively extending the bridge's bicycle/pedestrian path.  The cynic in me gapes in disbelief that the city (or any American municipality besides Portland) is providing something safe and practical for cyclists.  And--gasp--it's pretty convenient too (at least for me).  


Now, if they could only extend the exit/entrance ramp on the Manhattan side just a bit.  It ends on 60th Street and First Avenue.  That's fine if you're going uptown, as that's the way the traffic goes on First.  I sometimes take that route  when riding to the George Washington Bridge.  However, it's not so convenient if you're going downtown, as I do when I teach at the technical college on 34th Street.


I guess I should be thankful for what we get, and hopeful that we'll get more.  Actually, it's rather nice to think that way.