First One In!

The new semester has just begun.

It looks like my bike is the first one in:

I have to set an example, if not a trend, you know.

If only more would follow!

Were They Entering Or Exiting The Gate Of Hell?

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that my daily commute takes me over the RFK Memorial Bridge, which gives me a perfect view of the Gate of Hell.

All right, it's Hell Gate, and the Hell Gate Bridge.  But it's fun to tell students that I pass the Gate of Hell on my way to class!

Anyway, this morning I saw the trail of a boat zigging and zagging to--or from?--the bridge:

I can't help but to wonder:  Was a boat skittering away from, or rumbling toward, the Gate of Hell...I mean Hell Gate?

At Least It's Mist

It seemed weirdly appropriate that, on the day after 9/11, I should encounter this on my way to work:

Well, at least I was going to work, not trying to escape.  And I had the expectation, as I do nearly every day, that I will leave and make it home.

Nearly 3000 weren't so fortunate on that day 17 years ago.

From Cars To Bikes, On A Highway

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, streets in Chinese cities were as choked with traffic as the Long Island Expressway (a.k.a. The World's Longest Parking Lot) during peak commuter hours.  The difference was, of course, that the throngs of people going to work or school in Beijing or  Shanghai weren't enclosed in four-wheeled motorized vehicles.  Instead, they were astride bicycles:

Westerners--especially Americans--were amused by the idea of "bicycle traffic jams."  The Chinese who were part of them, like people stuck in any kind of traffic jam, probably weren't (or so I would assume).  But within a decade or so, their problem would be "solved":  Instead of being surrounded by cyclists on their way to work, they would be stuck in automotive gridlock that would make a trip across the George Washington Bridge at 8 am seem like, well, a bike tour along la route departementale 618 from France to Spain.

Now some folks in Beijing are realizing that driving isn't always as quick or convenient as they'd hoped. They, especially the young are--you guessed it!--getting back on their bikes.

I haven't heard any reports of bicycle traffic jams like the ones the city experienced when few people had cars.  But city planners might be anticipating them--or responding to folks who want their bike commutes to be safer and more convenient.  To that end, construction on a 6.5 kilometer bicycle highway is set to begin this September.  

Because it will cross major highways, much of the bike route will be elevated.  There will be no traffic lights, and its use will be restricted to pedal bicycles without motors.  Moreover, it will have a gated entrance--a feature borrowed, along with others, from the world's longest elevated bike path in Xiamen.

That southeastern Chinese city was mainly a port city until three decades ago, but has morphed into a center for financial services and technology.  It has also become, interestingly, the city frequently cited as "greenest" or "most livable" in the country.  The influx of highly-educated professionals probably has something to do with that.

Those are the same sort of people who live and work in Zhongguancun, the district in the northwestern part of Beijing where the new bike highway will be built.  It's often called "China's Silicon Valley."  If the area's scientists, engineers, venture capitalists and creative people are anything like their counterparts in California, it's not surprising that they've taken to cycling--and want better conditions for it.

What I find fascinating is that the move from bicycles to cars and back has happened more or less within a generation.   Here in the US, the cycle has taken a century--that is, in those areas where there are people who ride to work and school, and for pleasure.

A Tide? Or A Trail?

In another life, my daily commute will take me along a seacoast and the tides will roll in, leaving their garland of foam on a neck of sand, as I pedal by.

Or I might pass by pates of snow perched on bald shoulders of rock as vapor trails stream above me--or behind me! ;-)

Then again, in another life I might not commute:  All of my rides will be for the sake of riding.  Dream on!

This morning I contented myself with seeing white streaks drifting and dissipating in Hell Gate.  It's not a bad way to start the morning. Hey, at least I get to ride my bike to work.  Not everybody here in the US can do that!

A Libertarian Argument To Subsidize Cycling?

Like many bookish young people of my generation, I had my "Ayn Rand phase."  I actually believed (or, at least, thought I believed) that if you want something, you should pay for it and you should only get what you pay for.  If you can't afford more, I believed, it was your own damned fault.

Of course, to libertarians--a very loose term that is normally used to describe Randians--taxes are anathema. But most see them as, if not a necessary evil, then at least as a reality:  after all, we're not likely to privatize roads, bridges and such any time soon.  To the extent that they're willing to tolerate having their money "confiscated" by the government, they believe that people should get only what they pay for.

Every once in a while, I encounter that line of thinking when some driver swears at me or anyone else, upon learning I'm a cyclist, lapses into an anti-bike rant.  Every single time some motorist vented his or her rage at me for taking up space in "his" or "her" roadway--or at having part of it "taken away" by a bike lane--or questioned my patriotism or simply expressed disdain of me because I choose two wheels instead of four--he or she said something along the lines of, "Well, you don't pay taxes!"

As I have pointed out to more than one such driver--and in this blog--the only taxes that they pay and we don't are the ones added to the price of gasoline.  If anything, we might be paying higher proportions of our incomes in taxes, because drivers--especially if they are salespeople, contractors or work in other auto-dependent endeavors--can write off much of the expense of driving and maintaining their cars.  Moreover, they make heavier use of the infrastructure we and they pay for.

Even if they are misinformed about who pays and how much, most people with whom I've gotten into arguments or discussions about bike vs car taxes are pretty consistent in their beliefs about taxation.  Also, they seem to agree with me on this:  Taxation is an effective way to regulate behavior.  That is why people (some, anyway) donate to charities:  It lowers their tax bills.  In my city and other jurisdictions, it's also helped to reduce smoking, among other things.

If we follow this line of reasoning, one might expect that tax policy could not only entice more people ride bikes to work, it could also encourage employers to encourage their employees to pedal to the office or factory or studio or wherever they work.

Well, there is evidence that such policies actually work.  In 2003, Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (Think of a British IRS.) enacted a regulation (EIM 21664), commonly known as "The Cycle to Work Scheme".  It allows employers to provide bicycles to their employees tax-free.  That is, tax-free for both the employers and employees, who do not have to declare them as part for their employment tax or as part of their taxable income, respectively.

Of course, certain conditions have to be met.  You don't get to deduct your custom Mercian or Bob Jackson--unless, of course, you are using it mainly for job-related travel and your employer provides it for that purpose.  HMRC doesn't expect employees to provide detailed records of how they use their bikes "unless there is clear evidence to suggest that less than half of the use of the cycle or equipment is on qualifying journeys."  Now, I'm no expert on US, let alone British, tax law, but I imagine (from my reading of the policy) that taking the bike on a charity ride or some other such event every now and again wouldn't disqualify the bike or the rider.

Notice the word "equipment" is included. It includes helmets that conform to European standard EN-1078, child seats, lights (including dynamos), bells and bulb horns, reflective clothing and front, rear and spoke reflectors. So it won't pay for your lycra "Sky Team" kit, cycle computers or training.

According to a study the Institute for Employment Studies released last year, there have been more than a million successful applications for Cycle to Work since 2007.  According to a survey of 13,000 users, nine percent were non-cyclists before they became part of the "scheme", and respondents, on average, said they are now cycling more than twice as many miles as they pedaled before the scheme.  Even among already-committed cyclists, about two-thirds said they'd increased the amount of riding they did before they entered the program.

The IES said that even if five percent of participants--9200 people--cycled 30 minutes a day as a result of their involvement in the program, their reduced absenteeism and increased fitness saved 72 million GBP a year.  That's 7826 GBP (10173 USD at current exchange rates).  How many programs, in any country, save that much money per person?

Ironically, that is the most palatable argument you can make about taxes to a libertarian (or my younger Ayn Randian self):  Something saves tax money, and reduces the tax burden on people.

Now, about a single-payer national health care system....

The Last Miles, The Longest Miles

Paris and Los Angeles are "the last cities standing", if you will, in the contest to host the 2024 Olympics.

Upon visiting each city, Olympic Committee members noted that the City of Light and La-La Land both had, among other things, already-existing venues for hosting events.  So, while hosting the Games won't be cheap, it won't be quite as expensive as it would be in some other cities.  In other places, the need to construct everything from new stadiums to housing for athletes has spawned opposition from citizens who believe the money could be better spent on, say, hospitals or schools.  Thus, everyday people as well as high public officials in the home of Impressionism and the kingdom of the silver screen support their hometowns' bids for the 2024 Games.

The Olympic Committee, of course, also found vast differences between Paris and Los Angeles.  One of them is the distances athletes, spectators and others would have to travel to and from events.  Although its officials are making efforts to develop a real mass transportation system and to make their town more bike-friendly, L.A. is still considered the capital of car-centered culture.  The City of Angels was founded in 1781, but it didn't become one of the major cities of the United States until about World War I--which, of course, is the time the automobile literally changed the region's, and the nation's, landscape.

Paris, on the other hand, is a pretty compact city.  It's almost exactly the same size as the Bronx (with nearly three times the population).  Thus, most people can walk, cycle or take take mass transit to work, shop or do almost anything they need to do, and arrive in their destinations within minutes.  Paris, of course, has one of the largest bike-share programs in the world, and no point in "Paname" is more than 500 meters from a Metro (subway) station.

That difference is emblematic, not only of the two cities, but also (to a large degree) the countries of which they are part. You probably wish, as I do, that more people would ride bikes to work.  In fact, you might wish that you were one of the people who rides to work.  If you are, you have a lot of company:  In various surveys, people have said they would bike to work if they lived closer and there were facilities like secure parking and places where they could wash up and change clothes.

The fact that this country depends on the internal combustion engine more than almost any other is what has led people to live further from their workplaces than their peers in just about every other nation.  (The Tri-State area has now become the Quad-State Area, and Las Vegas has become a de facto suburb of L.A.)  Let's face it:  Someone who lives 200 kilometers away from his or her job isn't going to ride a bike to work, even if he or she were capable of doing so.  

The fact that this country and culture are so auto-dependent has led to what is one of the most vexing ironies of transportation.  It can be expressed thusly:  "The last miles are the longest."  So, as an example, it could take someone an hour to go the 30 miles from home to work in his or her car.  But the last three or four miles might take up half of that commuter's time.

The reason is that the last part of the commute is usually the most congested part.  Even if someone commutes on a bus or train, that last part is the longest, especially if the commuter is headed for a large terminal like New York's Penn Station or Port Authority Bus Terminal--and has to take a local bus or train from there.

Longtime New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham rides to work in 2010.

Some folks in Bedford, Massachusetts are aware of this phenomenon.  So, they came up with an idea to encourage more of their town's workforce to ride their bikes to their jobs:  They designated parking spaces near the town line for people who would, after parking their cars, pedal the rest of the way.  

A year after this program's implementation, more people are riding to work. Still, Selectmen Margot Fleischman would like to see more people avail themselves to the option of pedaling from the town line to its center, which takes less time than driving.  While she is thinking of the benefits (and possibly pleasures) of cycling, she is also thinking about traffic congestion in the town's center.

If more people are willing to follow the lead of those who park and pedal, the last few miles of a commute will still be the longest only because of the anticipation and dread of facing bosses, customers or whom- or whatever the workday might bring!

Skyline, Invisible

Have you ever wondered what the Manhattan skyline looks like when you can't see it?

That was not an attempt to be cute, clever, ironic or oxymoronic.  It's also not an introduction to a post about going blind, an experience I hope never to have!

Rather, it is about my ride to work this morning:

That's what I saw ahead of me as I pedaled across the RFK Memorial Bridge.  Even if the weather forecast hadn't warned about fog, I wouldn't have been surprised to see it, given the heavy rains in the wee hours of yesterday morning, the showers that continued on-and-off through the rest of yesterday, and this morning's heavy gray sky. 


The skyline was invisible, but the Hell Gate Bridge was not:

When Hell Gate can be seen clearly, but the skyline is shrouded in fog, what kind of a day will it be?

So far, it's been good.  I think it had something to do with riding to work.

A Beautiful Ride, Indeed!

Perhaps I am more fortunate than most people.  After all, on two consecutive days, I took rides that--as familiar as they were--nourished my mind and spirit, if in completely different ways, as they exercised my body.

And I rode to work with the sun blazing over Hell Gate as a cool breeze floated over me.  "You look happy!" one of my students observed.

Happy, indeed.  After riding to work, I got to talk about poetry.  Between classes, I checked my e-mail.  Someone sent me this:

A beautiful ride, indeed!

Diverting My Commute Through History

The bike/pedestrian lane on the Queens spur of the RFK Memorial (a.k.a. Triborough) Bridge has been closed for "painting and repairs."  The signs said the lane would be closed from 9 am to 5 pm from the 1st to the 26th of this month.  I didn't figure that it would affect me much, if at all, since I always go in to work before 9 and usually am heading home after 5.

Last Tuesday, however, I didn't leave work until 8 pm.  I pedaled across the Randall's Island connector and the island to the Queens spur of the bridge.  There, the gate was still locked, with the same sign announcing its closure.

All right, I told myself.  Maybe they just forgot to reopen it.  That night, it meant backtracking to the north end of the island and the Manhattan spur of the bridge.  Then I rode down Second Avenue from 125th Street to the Queensborough (a.k.a. 59th Street) Bridge.  It was a longer commute home, but I didn't mind, really.

Well, the Queens spur of the RFK hasn't been opened since.  No one from the Department of Transportation has returned my calls.  (Should I be surprised?)  So, I've been taking another route to and from work.  To get to the Bronx, I've been crossing the Queensborough to First Avenue, which has a bike lane all the way up to 125th Street.  From there, I take the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx.  It's not bad, really:  Above 96th Street, there isn't much traffic, and below, there are other cyclists so, if nothing else, we're visible, though one has to watch for pedestrians who step into the lane while looking at their electronic devices or simply not looking at anything in their surroundings.  One place where you have to be careful  is at 96th Street, where traffic enters and exits the FDR Drive and there are several schools, a hospital and the largest mosque in the US within a two-block radius. 

(Along the way I passed several fruit sellers.  I stopped at one and bought my first cherries of the season.)

I often think that I ride, write and teach for the same reason:  to learn.  Well, today, I did just that on the Willis Avenue Bridge--or, more specifically, what's below the Bronx side of it:

 

Now, I know it looks like just another lot in an industrial landscape.  But this plaque, on the bridge, told of its significance:

It may be hard to believe that until 1840, most of the Bronx was farmland or woods.  That changed when the railroad cut through the area around that lot, which is now crisscrossed by highways, bridges and railroad tracks. 

Port Morris--the part of the South Bronx by the bridge--became the first commercial and industrial area of the Bronx.  (In fact, one nearby section became the nation's center of piano-making and has recently been dubbed "The Piano District" by realtors who are envisioning the next DUMBO.)  It also became a railroad center, which is why the roundhouse was built on the site under the bridge. 

Hmm...You never know what a slight change in your daily commute can teach you, eh?

The Arc Of My Commute

Yesterday, I wrote about seeing the cherry blossoms budding on my way in to work.

Well, my ride home included a different sort of visual spectacle.  Because I was carrying a lot (and was being a bit lazy), I took the new connector bridge, which is flat, to Randall's Island, rather than the steep, zig-zaggy ramp up to the Bronx spur of the RFK Bridge.

The connector passes underneath the Hell Gate viaduct--where the Amtrak trains run--and over the Bronx Kill, which separates the rusty but still running industrial areas of the Bronx from the parklike expanses of Randall's Island.

My commute may be only ten kilometers in each direction.  But I felt as if I'd experienced a whole spectrum of color, a wide panaroma of light and forms, on my way to work and back.

Cherry Blossoms Bloom In The Bronx

I have been at my current job for almost three months.  Most days, I have ridden my bike there and home.  It seems that I have settled into a basic route with a few minor variations.  But, whichever way I go, I seem to notice something new or different, if not every day, then at least very often.

It shouldn't be too surprising, I suppose to see a lot of trees growing in the Bronx, especially given that one grows in Brooklyn.  (By the way, I am not endorsing the book or any movie made from it.  The title is catchy, though.)  Today, it seemed, I saw them in places where I never expected.  Did they grow overnight?

Best of all, some of those trees--more than I expected--are cherry blossoms, just starting to bloom.

 

Cherry Blossoms Bloom In The Bronx.  How's that for a book (or something) about bike commuting in New York?

 

Through A Sea Of Molasses

If you commute by bicycle, you know that sometimes your ride home can feel very different from your ride to work.

Sometimes you're happy to get out and get on your bike at the end of your work day, especially if you have a couple of hours of daylight.  Then, your ride home might seem easier and go more quickly than the ride to your job.  You might even take a longer route, or a side trip, as you head home.

Then there are other days when the ride back seems longer and more tired because, well, you're tired.  You mght have had a stressful, or simply long, workday.  I know that when I have early morning classes, conferences with students and a meeting or two--or any unforeseen situation--the ride back might take me a few minutes longer, especially if I'm pedaling in the dark, in the dead of winter.

But yesterday, I felt as if I'd been pedaling through a sea of molasses for my ride home.  That sensation began with my first pedal stroke.  Even mounting my bike seemed more arduous than it did in the morning.

Mind you, I didn't have a tough day at work.   Things went well, actually:  Students were prepared and engaged.  So was I.  Exchanges with colleagues and office staff were pleasant.  Heck, I even stayed a bit longer to get a few things done--and write yesterday's post on a computer at my job.

By the time I got home, though, I felt as if I'd pedaled up every major climb in the Rockies, Alps, Appalachians and Pyrenees, and maybe one or two other mountain ranges.  Those eleven kilometers or so felt like a Tour de France stage--one that combined the mountains with a sprint.

Well, today I realize that I wasn't as out of shape as I feared I was.  My sinuses were spewing more than Mount Vesuvius and Mount Etna, and what it was spewing probably would have qualified my respiratory system as a Superfund site.  And, instead of eating pasta or noodles, my body has the lateral rigidity (sorry for the bikespeak!) of those foods--when they're overcooked.

So today I didn't go to work--or ride for any other reason.  It's odd that I managed not to be sick all winter, and the first week of Spring brought me to this.  Oh, well. It's temporary--I hope.  At least I'm not hurt. 

A Sugar Or Snow Coating?

Easter will be celebrated next Sunday.

I still remember the candy we used to get as kids:  chocolate bunnies, a rainbow of jellybeans, marshmallow "peeps" and those wonderful diorama eggs made of sugar.  Each of those eggs had a peephole that allowed you to look at scenes of little boys and girls hunting for Easter eggs, fields and flowers and, of course, Easter chicks and bunnies.

Those eggs were my favorite Easter confection.  I wouldn't eat mine right away, or sometimes even for weeks:  Those Easter (or Spring, anyway) scenes were just so pretty that I didn't want to risk ruining them from breaking the egg! 

I think what I loved best, though, was that I felt like I was looking at an Easter scene with a covering of snow, or one inside an Igloo.  It was like getting the best of both seasons.

The dioramas themselves were inedible:  They were usually made of paper.  Those eggs are harder to find today, and the ones that are available have dioramas that aren't nearly as elaborate.  As I understand, the reason is that a government regulation says, in essence, that if a candy is edible on the outside, it has to be edible inside.  So the dioramas are now made of candy, which is more difficult to turn into pretty scenes than paper or plastic are.

Still, I am tempted to get one:  I still think it would be fun to look at a Springtime scene with a coating of snow.

It would be different from the one I saw while pedaling over the RFK Bridge this morning:

That, on the first full day of Spring!

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:

Leaving In A Fog

She is British.  She lived her entire life in England before I brought her over in July.  So it makes sense that Vera would be accustomed to weather like we had last night.


Upon leaving work, I encountered the densest fog I can recall having seen in New York.  I literally could not see from one corner to the next, a distance of about 150 metres.  Yet, I didn't feel I had to make much of an effort to get home:  She seemed to be able to find the way.  All I had to do was pedal, and that wasn't so hard.

 

They Weren't Wearing Bike Outfits

On my way home tonight, three guys stumbled off a curb and nearly tumbled in front of my wheel.  I would have cursed at them, but they were dressed in very gaudy outfits that were somewhere between robes and dresses.  And they wore wigs, or what looked like wigs.


Instead of yelling at them, I thought, "Hmm...They look like they're doing a Chasidic version of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.  Or maybe La Cage Aux Folles. The loud but lilting music that echoed off the houses made it seem even more like a campy drag revue.


Turns out, I wasn't too far off.  At sundown, a couple of hours before I left work, the feast of Purim began.  Some people refer to it as "The Jewish Mardi Gras," which also isn't too far off.  


It commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people from destruction in the ancient Persian Empire.  Hamman, a high-ranking advisor to King Ahaseurus, conceived of the plot, which is revealed to the king by Esther, who became his favorite concubine and, finally, his wife. Until the moment she tipped the king off, she did not reveal her Jewish identity.


It's a complicated but fascinating story, which is related in the Magillat Esther, the only book of the Torah in which G-d* isn't mentioned by name.  However, everything about the story, including Esther's concealment of her identity, shows G-d working in mysterious ways and in various guises.


That is one of the reasons why people wear costumes for the feast and it is the only day on which the prohibition against men wearing women's clothing is not observed.  


Hmm...Imagine if I'd run one of those guys over.  Can you just see the next day's New York Post headline:   Wrong Place, Wrong Time or Wrong Clothes:  Chasidim Dragged Under Tranny's Wheel.  Or something like that.




* I am using the name of G-d in the way an Orthodox or Chasidic Jew would.

The Wind And Back

When you commute, you think a lot about timing.  You know that leaving a few minutes earlier or later might put you into, or keep you out of traffic, on some stretch of your ride.  You may also notice a temperature difference.  In my case, I had completely different weather than I'd've had had I left fifteen minutes earlier than I did.

When I'd originally planned to leave, rain was falling and the temperature was about to fall below 45F, where it had been (give or take a degree or two) through the morning and the previous night.  And the air was still calm.

However, I misplaced a couple of papers and searching for them put me about fifteen minutes behind schedule.  By then, the rain had stopped and temperatures below freezing were forecast for my commute home.  I can live with such conditions, so I decided to chance the weather.

I hadn't counted on one other condition mentioned in the forecast: the wind.  I must have had a steady 15MPH (25KPH) stream at my back for the stretch from Woodside all the way to my job.  Gusts of at least double that speed turned my back into a sail by the World's Fair Marina.  So, in spite of leaving late, I arrived at work early.

I'm still there now, dreading/anticipating riding into the wind that blew me here.

Ride To, Or To Ride

Do you ride to go places?  Or, do you go places to ride?

Those questions came to mind when, on my way to work, I saw the gull in the photo circling across an inlet from the World's Fair Marina. That bird had about as un-picturesque a view as any could have:  Between the Home Depot and the orange-and-white "silo" are auto-body shops, a cement factory, scrap-metal yards and some warehouses, punctuated by garbage dumps.  Yet that bird was flying because it needed to and because he/she probably found plenty to eat.

Of course, when we are riding to work, we have a very speicific destination in mind.  And some of our other rides are like that.  But much of the time, when I'm on my bike, I don't care that much about where I'm riding:  I am happy simply to be in the saddle.  Interestingly, today I felt that way for at least part of my commute.

I think Vera was rather enjoying it, too.

Bike Noir

Really, I don't like to leave my bikes in the rain.  But sometimes it's inevitable.

Such was the case last night.  I managed to just beat the rain on my way to work.  As you may know, one of my favorite games is "playing chicken with the rain."  So, I always run the risk of getting caught, or parking, in the rain--or of going to work dry and coming out to find a wet bike.

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised that Vera would take to a rain-slicked night.  The raindrops and streetlights bring out her natural glow, I guess.

She likes to show a little leg now and again.  Given that she kept going, and got me to work before the rain, I can certainly indulge her!