No Clear Skies Ahead--Or For The Ride Home

Maybe, even after all of these years, I'm not a real New Yorker after all:  I still enjoy the views when I'm crossing some of this city's bridges.  This morning, as I wheeled across the Queens span of the RFK Memorial/Triborough Bridge, a woman who I thought was out for her morning run stopped mid-span to take photos of the skyline.  I didn't mutter "tourist" or any of the other epithets a jaded resident of the Big Apple might hurl at such a person.  

In fact, I stopped to snap a picture.  But I didn't take one of those photos that includes silhouettes of the UN Towers and the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings.  Instead, I turned my camera (my cell phone, actually--the woman was using a real camera) in the opposite direction:

The Hell Gate Bridge, which carries Amtrak trains to and from New Haven, Providence and Boston, winds through the Bronx and upper Manhattan.  They are to the west (and north) of Astoria, where I live and begin my commute. 

You can see the skies turning gray to the west.  That meant, of course, that the clear skies I was enjoying as I crossed the bridge would, more than likely, move across the river.  And, depending on what time of day I went home, I could contend with rain while crossing the bridge or on the other side.  

Most of the commutes I've done to jobs I've had in the past have taken me along streets in residential, commercial or industrial areas.  I get to sample all three during my current commute.  However, riding to my current job also involves riding over the Queens span of the RFK/Triborough Bridge which, at mid-point, is separated from the East River by about 90 meters (145 feet).  It's a bit like riding in a helicopter:  It allows me views I never had on previous commutes.  It also allows me to see incoming weather in ways I never could before.

I still listen to the weather report before I leave and prepare myself accordingly.  As useful as that is, there's still nothing like seeing a real-time video of the day's conditions unfolding.  The raingear is in my pannier, but literally seeing what's on the horizon prepares me in a unique way for a ride home that could be very different from my ride to work.

The Mysterious Syntax Of A Road Sign

Some people seem to believe that writing or speaking grammatically is elitist or simply fussy.  Then there are those who are convinced that those of us who do are conspiring against them in some way or another.

Now, I don't pretend to speak (or write) with perfect grammar all of the time. I think I do it often enough to be understood, at least most of the time. If nothing else, I know how poorly constructed sentences with unclear phrasing can lead to misunderstandings--and keep lawyers busy.

Hey, proper punctuation can save a person's life. If you don't believe me, look at this:

Rescind order to execute prisoner.

Now, tell me:  Does the prisoner live or die in that sentence?

If we add a comma, the intent is clearer:

Rescind order, to execute prisoner.

If that sentence was in the governor's memo, the inmate in question would be choosing his or her last meal.  However, another kind of punctuation, placed in another part of the sentence, gives us an entirely different outcome:

Rescind:  Order to execute prisoner.

Now, there aren't such drastic examples (to my knowledge, anyway) in the world of cycling. However, in an earlier post, I showed how a poorly-phrased sign can say something different from--even the exact opposite of--what was intended.

Today I saw another sign--on the RFK/Triborough Bridge--that doesn't convey what I believe the Department of Transportation is trying to tell us:

So, the graphic part of the sign is saying that graffiti isn't allowed.  Then the first four words of the text say it's a crime.  So far, it makes sense.

But what does "camera enforced" mean?  Is crime "camera enforced"?  Perhaps the person who wrote the sign speaks another language and, while composing the sign, his or her brain flipped from English to whatever, causing a change in syntax. A "camera enforced crime" would be a "crime camera enforced" in French, Spanish, Italian or a lot of other languages.

Hmm...Maybe the city didn't want to spend the money to print the sign in both English and Spanish.  

Or is the sign trying to tell us that graffiti is camera enforced?  Now that would be interesting, if in an Orwellian sort of way. 
 

Scraping The Sky, Or Brushed By Fog

Late yesterday morning and the afternoons were just interludes between rainstorms.  Or so it seemed.  And it rained even harder, from what I can tell, last night.

I crossed the Queens-Randall's Island spur of the Triborough (RFK Memorial) Bridge just before the window closed or the clouds opened, depending on your point of view:

I Couldn't Cross This Bridge When I Came To It

This morning I rode to an appointment in the Bronx.  Although it's friendly to neither cyclists nor pedestrians, I take the Triborough/Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. 

The bridge is actually a system of three spans, all of which meet on Randall's Island.  One spur connects the island to Queens, where I live, and the other two link it to the Bronx and Manhattan.

Actually, when I say the bridges are connected, that's true for motorized vehicles.  If you're a cyclist or pedestrian, you have to find your way through a maze of poorly-marked streets and paths in various stages of construction, destruction, reconstruction and deconstruction. 

My appointment was in the southwestern part of the Bronx, not far from Yankee Stadium.  It's actually easier to take the Manhattan spur from Randall's Island and take the Willis Avenue Bridge in the Bronx, which lets cyclists and pedestrians off near Gerard Avenue, a north-south street that--almost surprisingly--has a bike lane. I may have been the only one who used it today.

Manhattan Spur of Robert F Kennedy Memorial Bridge (a.k.a. the Harlem River Lift Bridge)

Anyway, when I got to the Manhattan spur, the pedetrian/bike lane was blocked off.  I saw bulldozers and cranes; I don't know whether the path or the bridge itself is going to be worked on.  But the lot around the entrance to the walkway was all torn up.

I found no mention of this closure on the sites of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (which administers the bridge) or the city's Department of Transportation.  I wanted to photograph the site, but the area was swarming with cops, and there are signs on the bridge itself that say photography is forbidden. 

Fortunately, I didn't have to go very far to get to the Bronx spur.  I rode about the same distance as I would have had I pedaled up the Manhattan span.  However, the ramp off the spur is a maze of 90 degree angles (Imagine a spiral staircase without the stairs or the curves, and with all matter of human refuse.) and it lets cyclists off in a spot where trucks enter and exit factories, a Department of Sanitation garage and the expressway.  And the nearest intersection, at St. Ann's Avenue and the Bruckner Expressway, is a nightmare because all manner of vehicles turn from and in all directions, including some you didn't even think were possible.

In spite of everything, I was still early for my appointment.  Still, I wish that there'd been an announcement of the closure and that it, and the way to the pedestrian/bike paths, were more clearly marked on Randall's Island.

WWDD (What Would Dante Do?)

Warning:  I'm going to start this post with a completely useless, and possibly even frivolous, literary and philosophical question.

Here goes: How would la Commedia Divina have been different if Dante could not see the entrance to the underworld as he entered it?

Of course, we'll never know the answer.  Or, for that matter, we'll never know what Dante might have written if he'd been with me instead of Virgil and he was at Hell Gate instead of the gate of Hell.

One of the thickest fogs I've seen in New York cocooned the area.  While crossing the Queens span of the Triboro bridge, I could not even see the cables just a few feet to my right, let alone the railroad trestle that spans the Hell Gate channel just a few hundred meters upstream.

I sure was glad not to be driving.  

 

Views After My Commute

After I rode home from work, Vera and I were ready for a little more action and some visual stimulation.

So we climbed the stairs to the walkway/bike lane of the RFK/Triborough Bridge.  We could not have had a better view of Upper Astoria clothed in fall colors:

It's a New York view most people never see.  But, when I turned around, I encountered the sort of vista almost everyone expects late on a mid-autumn afternoon in the Big Apple:

Even the Hell Gate railroad trestle took on the hues of foliage reflected in the late-day sun:

Vera was being modest about helping to make this mini-revelry possible:

 

Autumn Morning Mist In New York

So far, this has been quite a mild Fall, at least here in New York.  While the weather has been great for riding, there's one thing I'm not crazy about:  The days are getting shorter.

Here is a view from the RFK-Triborough Bridge, looking toward Manhattan, just before seven this morning:

I enjoy the mist, especially the way it's pulled across the pillars and posts of steel and and slabs of concrete, as some are trying to get a few more moments of sleep.

But, of course, if you're trying to get a few more moments of sleep, you won't.  So it is morning for you, even if the light hasn't caught up, and won't for a few more months.l
 

A New Randall's Island Bridge For Cyclists?

Today I took a ride to New Jersey, along the Palisades and through Jersey City, Bayonne and Staten Island. From the Island, I took the ferry to Manhattan and cycled up to the 59th Street Bridge, and home.

I've done this ride any number of times before.  However, along the way, I took a little detour on Randall's Island.  

Earlier this year, I'd read that the city planned to build a pedestrian/bicycle bridge from the Island to the Bronx.  Right now, it's possible to use the walkways on the Triborough (RFK) Bridge.  That's exactly what I did today. However, those walkways have their own perils for cyclists.

The Triborough is really three spans that lead into Randall's Island.  One such span, which is close to where I live, connects Queens with the Island.  This span is the most-photographed (for good reason) of the three, and many people think it is the Triborough.  Then there are spans from the Island to Manhattan (at 125th Street) and the Bronx.  

Actually, the Bronx spur is bookended by walkways on its east and west sides.  As those paths approach the Island, they zig and zag like Alpine slalom courses enclosed by concrete walls.  Then they converge at a single steep ramp that ends abruptly at a curve in the island's main road.

The bridge would eliminate those ramps (as well as the stairs one must ascend in order to access the walkway to and from Queens) and instead would be continuation of one spur of the island's mostly-complete bike path.

I am eager to see the bridge completed, not only for making a part of my ride more pleasant.   It is seen as a vital link between the paths and fields of Randall's Island and a greenway that's supposed to be built in the South Bronx. 

 Some residents of that neighborhood walk across the Triborough, but many more drive or take buses to play soccer, softball and other sports and games, have picnics and barbecues, or to fish, on the Island.  In addition to making a bike ride easier and more pleasant for folks like me, I would hope that the bridge would also entice some Bronx residents to walk or ride bikes to the Island.

The South Bronx part of Asthma Alley.  Actually, it's the buckle in New York's asthma belt: The neighborhood's 10451,10453, 10454, 10455 and 10474 ZIP codes have the highest juvenile asthma rates in the United States.  (They are also part of the nation's poorest Congressional District.) Obesity rates are also high in the area, as they are through much of the Bronx.  Ironically, even though much of the fresh produce sold in the NY Metro area goes to the Hunts Point Food Market (located in the heart of the South Bronx), most residents of the surrounding neighborhoods cannot buy fresh fruits or vegetables in their own communities.

Anyway, enough about subjects about which I don't know much (apart from having written an article about the asthma rates).  I am hoping that the new bridge's construction proceeds quickly but safely.  But I have to wonder whether that will happen after seeing the  sign on the left.

It says that Con Ed, the local utility, is removing duct work from underneath the scaffolding. I hope this doesn't delay construction!