In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
Recently, I heard someone refer to cyclists as "narcissists."
Of course, my reaction was to think, "It takes one to know one." I think that person was saying that we are entitled or a privileged class because we now have bike lanes--never mind that riding on some of them, at least here in New York, is more dangerous than cycling on the streets.
That person might have been right, in a way. Narcissus saw his own reflection.
Of course, we won't fall onto the pavement while kissing an image of ourselves. At least not intentionally.
When asked to define “film,” the director Jean-Luc Godard replied, “truth at 24 frames per second.”
Would that New York City’s Department of Transportation would define “bike” so clearly! Then again, if the DOT would, would the city’s Police Department enforce any policy about who and what could be in a bike lane.
The cynic in me says that my question is rhetorical: Just about anyone who pedals a non-motorized bike or walks in a bike-ped lane would answer with an emphatic, “Are you kidding?”
Too many of this city’s bike lanes (and I almost) have been overrun with two-wheeled contraptions that have no pedal assist and that run by a twist of the driver’s wrist. They, apparently, are lumped in with electric-assisted pedal bikes because they’re sold by the same dealerships.
Now the DOT wants to expand the definition of a commercial e-bike to 48 inches (122 cm) from the current 36 inches (91.4 cm) and “allow” a “maximum” speed of 20 mph (32 kph), which current e-bike riders routinely exceed.
Those behemoths would be even bigger than the delivery “bikes” UPS is trialing on city streets—and weigh 500 pounds (227 kg.). Oh, and the “bikes” have four wheels.
In other words, they would be as wide as most bike lanes—which would effectively block everyone else—and, with their volume, mass and four wheels, could build enough momentum to maim or kill cyclists.
If such vehicles are allowed to use the lanes, are they still “bike” lanes?
Yesterday was a no-particular-destination ride. The morning sky was so clear and bright I could have believed that the previous night’s “Blue Super Moon” was helping the sun. The temperature—around 19c (66F) felt more like an early Fall than late Summer. The north wind rustled leaves and spilled cool waves against my skin.
Though I had particular place I intended to ride, I knew I wanted to pedal into that wind so that, depending on my route, it would blow at my back on my way back.
So my ramble took me up and down the hills, and past estates—some inhabited, others turned into museums, libraries and other monuments and institutions. That meant going first through the Bronx—and up the new Bruckner bike lane I rode on Sunday.
As I entered the lane from 138th Street, I had a flashback that caused me to stop at one of the pillars holding the highway above me.
The scene I recollected may have happened at that post. If not, it took place at one nearby. Whichever it was, realizing that the memory was from about thirty years ago made me feel, for a moment, old. But I’m still in midlife. Really!
I was riding with some of my old mountain biking buddies. We all lived in Brooklyn and rode trails in nearby parks or took trains or rides with whoever could drive to places further from the city.
That day, if I recall correctly, we were pedaling home from Van Cortlandt Park. We prided ourselves on not having to stop for a traffic light—until that moment.
As we waited, I saw a boy who looked about 12 or 13 years old facing the post, his hands cupped in front of his crotch. I didn’t judge him: After all, countless men and boys (and I, once upon a time) took care of their needs in a similar way when they (we) couldn’t find a toilet.
Except that he wasn’t taking care of that kind of business. I couldn’t help but to notice something longer and darker than the “jewels” a boy of that age would’ve had. And it was darker, and made of something that wasn’t human flesh.
He took one hand off it, reached into his pocket and brought his hand to his crotch.
The light changed. As we pedaled down the next block, I turned to my riding buddies. “Did you see what I saw?”
I didn’t need to ask. They nodded. “Yeah, he was loadin’ his gun,” Ray—“Crazy Ray” to us—deadpanned.
As I continued yesterday’s ride, I couldn’t help but to think about that boy. Did he live to see a day like yesterday? If he’s still around, he’d be even older than I was then. Did he make it to midlife?
Bright sunshine, high clouds, temperatures gthat ranged from late-spring to early-summer from brunch time to early-dinner tine. Those are the perfect conditions for a Sunday ride, right?
There’s no “but” or “however” in this story. The cherry on top of this Sunday (pun intended) was that I pedaled into the wind on my way to the Greenwich Common in Connecticut—which meant that the same wind stroked my back (and stoked me!) on my way back.
At the Common, I watched folks in their most carefree moments strolling and sashaying in polo shirts tucked into navy or beige chino shorts, frilly dresses and skirts and college T-shirts over gym shorts whose wearers were trying not to show that they were showing that those shorts didn’t come from discount stores.
Was it all a great show? Or had the ride and weather elevated my dopamine levels higher than someone who paid a visit to the local cannabis shop half an hour ago? All I knew was that I could’ve held the ride, the weather and the day, if not forever, then long enough to, well, write this post.
Oh, and along the way I found a good, if short, bike lane in the Bronx.
Built on a concrete island on Bruckner Boulevard, under the Bruckner Expressway, it runs for about two kilometers from East 138th Street to Hunts Point Avenue. I saw some evidence that it might be extended further. Even if it isn’t, I am sure to use it on future rides, as it will allow me to avoid the chaos of delivery trucks, tow vehicles pulling in and out of auto body shops, motor bikes making deliveries or simply trying to outrun young guys who really want to turn Southern Boulevard into their personal race track.
Finding a useful, safe bike lane during a blissful ride on a perfect day: Could a Sunday spin from Queens to Connecticut and back have been any better?
I have seen, if not that very truck, then others like it, from the same company.
Before the bike lane was built, delivery trucks parked in that stretch of Crescent Street—to make deliveries at the Trade Fair supermarket, around the corner and half a block away, on Broadway.
I do not mean to fault the driver: In my experience, operators of such large “rigs” are careful and courteous. One problem is—as they will tell you—they don’t have the best sight lines.
While bollards are better than painted lines for separating bike lanes from streets, as you can see, they (and bike lanes in general) are no guarantee of safety.
Today I'm going to talk about a bike and a bike lane.
First, what I rode for three days in Paris. I'd already mentioned it in an earlier post. I wanted to come back to it because it's unlike any other rental bike--or any other bike, period--I've ridden.
It's like the other bikes that comprise Paris a Velo's current rental fleet. When I availed myself to their services four years ago, the bike I rode--which, again, was like the others in their rental fleet at the time--was a kind of hybrid/city bike. It wasn't made for fast riding, but it sucked up abuse and neglect pretty well.
The same could be said, perhaps even more so, for the bike I rode on this trip. Victor assured me that the tires were "flat resistant" and that the bike shouldn't give me trouble. He was right on both counts. What I found interesting about this machine, though, were its construction and its ride.
About its build: While it, not surprisingly, doesn't have the fine filet-brazing of a constructeur bike, it did incorporate at least one principle of those old masters: structural integrity. The rear rack is of a piece with the frame, and the front end is braced for strength. One result is a surprisingly stable ride given the small wheels.
Those wheels, perhaps not surprisingly, got me to thinking about the one small-wheeled bike I owned and rode for any period of time: a Dahon Vitesse. (I briefly owned an Italian folding bike that I found on a curbside and "flipped" a few days later.) One major difference, of course, is that the Paris a Velo bike doesn't fold. That might be the reason why the PV bike felt so much more stable and was unexpectedly easy to accelerate.
(Oh, and I want to add that Victor included a really nice rain cape with the rental. I was tempted to ask whether I could buy it from him.)
One of the first places where I rode it was a bike lane along the Seine, toward the Notre Dame. Too often, when I see new bike lanes in the US, I ask, "Why did they bother?" If a lane isn't demonstrably safer than riding in traffic, there simply is no point to it. Whoever designed that lane must have understood as much: It's physically separated from the roadway by barriers that motor vehicles can't easily cross. Better yet, there's plenty of room for cyclists traveling in both directions. Too often--as with the Crescent Street lane in front of my apartment--a cyclist coming from the opposite direction risks a head-on collision or forces one cyclist to veer into traffic traveling in the opposite direction. (Crescent is a one-way street.)
So...while there might not be one "right" way to do a bike lane or city rental bike, I am happy to have experienced both done right.
A decade ago, a driver nearly hit me when she made a careless turn. (I think she was distracted.) I yelled a few things they don't teach immigrants in English classes and flashed a one-fingered peace sign. She rolled down her window and lectured me on how I "should be riding on the bike lane." Never mind that the lane was on another street and wouldn't have taken me where I was going.
To this day, too many drivers and seem beholden to the same notion. I was once stopped by a cop when I turned out of a bike lane onto a side street. Said cop claimed that I went through a light--which I wasn't--and that I "should stay in the lane." Never mind that I turned off the lane to go where I needed to go and that, in any event, even if I had gone through the light when there was no cross-traffic--or ahead of a driver who would turn right when the light turned green--I (and the driver) would be safer than if I'd strictly followed the signal. When I pointed that out, the cop said, "I ride a bicycle, too," in a tone of reminded me of people who tell me about a gay brother, sister or friend before doing or saying something to hurt me.
If bicyclists could ride only in bike lanes, we couldn't go anywhere--unless, of course, the lane goes right to the doors of our homes, schools, workplaces or favorite stores, cafes, museums or anyplace else we go.
Erin Riediger understands as much. The Manitoba-based architect and host of Plain Bicycle Podcast veered from the bike lane into the traffic lane so she could turn onto a side street. A man walked in front of her bike, struck her and said, "The bike lane is over there."
Fortunately, she wasn't hurt, at least not physically. She posted a series of Tweets about the incident and most of the responses were sympathetic. However, as almost invariably happens on Twitter, trolls clambered from under their rocks. One upbraided her for "wasting her time" with those posts (If she was "wasting her time," wha does that say about the troll?), she should have "called the cops"--which she did. Others posted stuff that nobody should be subjected to.
Still other twits (what I call trolls on Twitter) lectured her about how she should have handled the incident or stayed in the bike lane. Then there were the ones who used the occasion to rant about how cyclists should have licenses, insurance, etc.--which many, if not most, of us have--never mind that those things have nothing to do with the real issue at hand: someone--a woman--was assaulted--by a man--when she rode her bike.
A woman was assaulted by a man as she rode her bicycle. She was within the law; he wasn't. Those are the facts of this case; they have nothing to do with licenses, insurance or anything else that's bothering trolls with too much time on their hands.
If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I don't give a blanket endorsement to roadside bicycle lanes. Too many, at least in the US, are poorly-conceived, constructed and maintained. The worst sort of lanes are the ones that serve no pratical purpose-- the ones I call lanes from nowhere to nowhere--because they do nothing to encourage cycling as a practical alternative to driving for commuting, errands and other purpose-driven trips. And the most dangerous ones are the ones that separate motor traffic from cyclists by nothing more than a line on the pavement. As I've said on more than one occasion, "paint is not infrastructure."
Studies have shown that painted cycle lanes do nothing to reduce injuries and "advisory lanes"--one which motorists are allowed to enter--are worse than no lane at all: they increase the odds of injury by 30 percent.
The only news, for me, in those studies is the number: I know, from experience, that a painted is as much a margin of safety for cyclists as a swath of fishnet scotch-taped at the nose bridge offers against COVID-19 or any other contagious virus. And too often, motorists use "advisory" and even painted "bike-only" lanes to pass or double-park; the latter is often done by drivers of delivery trucks.
To be fair, drivers, until recently, have been inculcated with the notion that they are the "kings of the road": that motor vehicles take priority over cyclists and pedestrians. If they haven't cycled during their adult lives, it's hard for them to un-learn such an attitude. Also, some lanes, especially the "advisory" ones, aren't marked in ways that motorists can easily see, especially if they are driving large vehicles.
But some of the worst offenders, in my experience, are police officers in their "cruisers." I can't begin to tell you how many times I've seen them parked in the middle of lanes while munching on donuts and sipping coffee. And I've had a couple of close encounters with constabulary cars that weren't responding to an emergency call. At least, I don't think they were: their lights weren't flashing and their sirens weren't blaring.
Some have debated whether what was captured in that image was indeed a "close call" with a police car. However, Andrew Frogley on the Road.cc blog, who didn't think it was such a "close call," nonetheless agreed that one blogger had a legitimate question: "What's worse? The painted cycle lane or the close pass?"
Geoff Hickman had, I believe, the best answer: "One enables the other."
In many rural areas of the southern and western United States, the only way between Point A and Point B is a highway. Cyclists and pedestrians therefore must share these thoroughfares with motor vehicles, including 18-wheel trucks, running at speeds of 60 MPH or more.
In some of those areas, as cycling has grown more popular, shoulders or lanes of those highways have been designated as bike lanes. This causes resentment—and aggressive behavior—from motorists angry that cyclists are “taking “ their roads.
Sometimes the aggressive behavior includes driving that endangers cyclists—and, often, pedestrians and other drivers. I’m talking about drivers who swerve into the lanes, brush by or throw debris at cyclists and shine their high beams into the eyes of cyclists riding in the opposite direction.
Other times, though, the aggression is more passive and includes breaking glass containers and leaving other hazardous debris in bike lanes. Some of the perpetrators may believe they are merely inconveniencing cyclists by puncturing their tires. But from what I’ve seen and heard (especially from people who don’t know I’m a cyclist), some are trying to injure, or even kill, us.
How else can anyone explain leaving these on the bike lane of a Mesa, Arizona highway:
Several hundred of these spikes, called caltrops, were found in that lane—after a woman riding with a group flatted. Fortunately for her and them, she was riding behind them at moderate speed. But had she been riding in front of someone—say, if another rider had been “drafting” her—or riding at a higher speed, the results could have been catastrophic, given that the spike punctured her front tire.
I can’t help but to think that a more dire outcome was the intention of whoever left the caltrops: Unlike broken glass and other kinds of debris, a caltrop always points one sharp spike upward from a stable base, no matter how it’s placed.
People have also reported finding these weapons of destruction on local hiking trails. Tonto National Forest encourages anyone who finds them to report it to susan.blake@usda.gov or 602-225-5200. Caltrops or other hazards in the highway bike lane should be brought to the attention of the City of Mesa.
As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I generally avoid the bike lanes here in New York City. Most of them are poorly conceived, designed and constructed. Moreover, I see more motorized bikes and scooters than pedaled bicycles on them. Those vehicles--and the folks who operate them--are, in my experience, far more dangerous than motorcycle, auto or truck traffic. For one thing, you can't hear the scooters or Vespa-style bikes until they're practically at your elbow. And the people who drive them tend to be more reckless than anyone else.
But lately I've encountered other reasons not to ride on the marked lanes--even the ones separated from motor traffic by physical barriers. Lately, I've been seeing more broken glass an other debris in them. Worse still is that the lanes seem to have become magnets for all sorts of haters and their bad behavior.
To wit: Late yesterday, I rode two blocks down the Crescent Street lane in Astoria. Along the way, I saw two dude-bros weaving in and out of it. I don't know whether they were drinking, but even if their motor coordination were somewhat impaired, they could have easily walked along the sidewalk: Few other people were using it, and there wasn't any construction or other obstructions. But they chose to weave in and out of the bike lane, playing "chicken" with and shouting obscenities at anyone who happened to be riding by.
About three or four meters ahead of me, a young woman on a Citibike--a tourist, I'm guessing--just barely missed being entangled with them. "F---in' bike bitch," one of them yelled. She, and I, managed to dodge them and a delivery worker riding a motorized bike in the opposite direction. A little further on, she stopped. I pulled up alongside her. She told me she was OK and thanked me.
But I was furious. I turned around, saw the dude-bros doing their pedestrian slalom and rode right into their faces. "Who are you callin' bike bitch?" I bellowed.
One of them tried to put on his "fight" face. But he, his buddy and I knew he was bluffing. "Oh, no. We were just talking about our friend Mike Rich," the other one claimed.
I stared at them and intoned, "OK. Have a nice holiday."
"You do the same."
(Hmm...I guess it might've damaged their sense of themselves to get their asses kicked by a trans woman of a certain age!)
Although the exchange didn't lead to a physical confrontation or worse, I was still upset and worried: I am seeing, and hearing about more and more aggression against cyclists, especially in bike lanes, and not only from motorists who think we've taken "their" traffic lanes and parking spaces, in this city and elsewhere. I fear that one of us could ride into something like the attack a 46-year-old Texas cyclist suffered at the hands of a shirtless, pipe-wielding guy:
The cyclist was "shaken" but not seriously injured. Understandably, he doesn't want to ride that lane again. Even before the attack, he had a "weird feeling" about the path, he said. "[I]t's right next to houses and there's probably a lot of NIMBYs out there."
The attacker might well have been a disgruntled homeowner. But, on seeing him, I thought of the rioters at the US Capitol on 6 January. Looking at the comments on the YouTube video of the attack gave me a clue as to why: Some of those comments compared us, cyclists, to all of the folks Trumpsters love to hate: the Bidens, Democrats in general and so on. While I'd bet that most of us voted for Biden in the last election, it hardly makes us the threat to their way of life they fancy us to be.
Oh, I also couldn't help but to notice that one commenter said that we, and all the others they love to hate, "love protecting your pedos." How is it that all of their fantasies about us seem to lead to pedophilia? The bike paths in this city should have such clear destinations!
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that one of my pet peeves is bike lanes that put cyclists in more danger than they’d experience in riding on the streets.
Bike lanes can be hazardous in all sorts of ways: They can be poorly constructed or maintained. They can be poorly conceived and designed. (How many lanes begin or end “out of the blue” or lead cyclists straight into the path of trucks or buses turning right in intersections?) Or they can be marked (or not) in ways that confuse motorists and pedestrians as well as cyclists.
The latter situation confronts drivers and cyclists along Lake Avenue on Cleveland’s West Side. Recently, the city installed a bike lane there. What they neglected to do, however, was to remove 30- and 60-minute parking signs.
Not only is it inconvenient for cyclists when motor vehicles pull in and out, or park in bike lanes: it’s also hazardous. “It creates a situation where motorists don’t expect cyclists to veer out into the roadway because there is a bike lane,” explained Jacob VanSickle of Bike Cleveland.
He says BC has contacted the city about removing the signs. The city said it’s the duty of a contractor for the Ohio Department of Transportation to remove the signs. According to Isaac Hunt, the lane is expected to be completed by mid-December and the signs will be gone “in a few weeks.”
“Those are bike lanes now,” Hunt says and cars are therefore not permitted to park in them. But, many drivers are understandably confused by the signs: perhaps they don’t see the bike lane markings or realize they aren’t supposed to park in a bike lane.
Then, of course, there are motorists who resent having “their” road space taken from them, or just don’t care about rules. For them, the rules have to be enforced. For everyone else, those rules—and the very existence of the bike lane—need to be clarified.
After taking a late-day bike ride, eating a dinner and reading, I dozed off, with Marlee curled up on me. A couple of hours later, she woke me for some food and water. Then I stepped out of my apartment for a few-minute ride on the deserted streets and bike lanes. Well, they weren’t totally deserted:
The cops were looking at their smart phones. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that the NYPD is using those devices to communicate with their officers.
If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I am not wholly enthusiastic about bike lanes. In part, my attitude includes remnants of the late John Forrester's influence early in my cycling life. I subscribed to his philosophy of "vehicular cycling" which, as the name implies, calls for cyclists to ride as if they were any other vehicle on the road. This meant that, like him, I detested bike lanes. He argued that bike lanes turn cyclists into second-class citizens and, worse, put them in more danger than they'd experience if they were to ride in the roadway. These days, my lack of enthusiasm for bike lanes is rooted in something to which Forester sometimes alluded, and which I have experienced all too often: those lanes, particularly here in the States, are, as often as not, poorly- conceived, designed and constructed. Dave O'Neill learned that lesson the hard way. He has cycled across the country and "thinks nothing of" cyclng 150 miles a day. Two weeks ago, he was cycling from the Nubbe Lighthouse in York, Maine to his home in Greenland, New Hampshire. While pedaling through Portsmouth, a city that borders Greenland to the east, he experienced one of our worst nightmares: He was "doored." He was riding down the city's Middle Street bike lane, his friend ahead of him and his wife behind him. Like too many recently-constructed bike lanes, it rims a curb and is separated from street traffic by a line of parked cars. I avoid using such lanes whenever possible for two reasons: 1.) Drivers often pull into, or park, illegally. Sometimes they do so out of carelessness or disdain for others. Other times, lanes and parking spaces are not clearly delineated and drivers mistakenly park in the lane. 2.) In such a lanes, cyclists are riding to the right of parked cars. Specifically, they are pedaling by the passenger side of parked cars. In my experience, passengers are more likely than drivers to embark or disembark from vehicles--especially taxis and Ubers--without paying attention to their surroundings.
Dave O'Neill at the Middle Street Bike Lane
Dave O'Neill experienced a "perfect storm" if you will: A passenger-side door opened on a car that was illegally parked. Worse, a utility pole abutted the street right next to where the door opened. "I had zero time to react," he recalls. When the car door flung into his path, it stopped his bike in its tracks and sent him airborne. He landed face-first. "I had gravel in my mouth," he says. "It was the kiss of death." Still, he says, his injuries would have been "much worse" had he hit the pole instead of the door. As a recent face-plant victim, I empathize with him. I also recall a similar situation I faced before I started this blog. I was taking one of my first post-surgery rides in the 34th Avenue bike lane, not far from my apartment. That lane was configured in the same way as the one on Middle Street in Portsmouth, with the curb on the cyclists' right and a lane of parked cars on the left. A passenger opened his door into my path. Fortunately for me, the door struck only my left side. I wasn't seriously injured, but I got a pretty nasty bruise on my side. And, for a couple of weeks, I looked like I was pregnant on my left side. By the way: I haven't ridden the 34th Avenue lane since that incident. If Dave O'Neill doesn't ride the Middle Street lane, I couldn't blame him. He believes that lane should be deconstructed and parked cars returned to the curb before someone experiences what he calls "the kiss of death."
In other posts, I've pointed out that bike lanes and other bicycle-related infrastructure are not always received warmly by low-income or working-class people, or by people of color. Bike lanes are often seen as paths to gentrification. While the income level and hue of a neighborhood may well change after one of those green ribbons winds down a street, we cannot, as at least one of your teachers has said, confuse coincidence with causation. (The same association is often made between art and the ways neighborhoods change: More than one commentator has referred to artists as the canaries in the coal mine.) Still, I can understand why someone who's just getting by would feel resentment when he or she sees a cyclist who seems to be having fun--even if said cyclist is riding to work. Also, that cyclist is, as likely as not, to be white. Or, if he or she is not, he or she is, as often as not, an educated professional, and young. That last fact is even more important than one might realize: Gentrification often pushes out people who have been living in a neighborhood for decades--in some cases, their entire lives--and really have nowhere else to go. One more thing: Nearly all planners and designers involved in building bike infrastructure are like the folks spinning down those lanes: white, with at least one university degree and from at least the middle class, if not a higher rung on the socio-economic ladder. Urban and transportation planning, it seems, are a bit like architecture: a difficult profession to enter if you're not already connected, in some way, to the people who are already in it. And, of course, it takes financial and other resources to, not only get the education required for such work, but to endure long periods at jobs that don't pay well. That is why, for example, most of the students in the college in which I teach are preparing to become nurses, dental hygenists and the like, if they're not studying business. But today, in taking a slightly different route to work, I found yet another reason why poor, working-class and nonwhite people might fear and hate the arrival of a bike lane in their neighborhood.
As you might have guessed, those tall brick buildings to the left of the bike lane are projects (or what the British call "council flats"). Guess who lives in them?
If you were one of them, how welcome would you feel on that bike lane? Oh, and that ferry: It's nice. But, even with the location of that dock, one sees hardly a dark face on board. By the way, just beyond the end of the lane, a new development is going up. If nothing else, it just might make the bike lane seem welcoming, by comparison anyway, to the folks in the projects.
I know that what I'm about to say doesn't take a PhD to understand because, well, I don't have a PhD! Here goes: A parking lane is a place for vehicles to park. It is not a place to drive. A vehicle lane is a place to operate vehicles. It is not a place to park. A bicycle is a vehicle. Therefore, a bicycle lane is not a place to park. That, essentially, is the straightforward argument set out in an article D'val Westphal wrote for the Albuquerque Journal.
Members of the Albuquerque City Council understand that argument. In fact, they have even made an ordinance, which will go into effect on the 19th of this month, based on it. Better yet, for those of us who don't like to (or can't) read legalese, they've made a graphic of it, with captions in both English and Spanish.
Thank you, Albuquerque City Council and D'val Westphal. Now we have to get folks in other cities to codify--and enforce--such rules. If they need guidance, they can listen to this cheesy pop song from my pubescence:
In some of my earlier posts, I expressed ambivalence and even disdain for bike lanes.
While it can be very nice to be able to pedal on ribbons of concrete or asphalt where motor vehicles aren't allowed, too many bike lanes are as dangerous as, or even more dangerous than, the roadways and motorists from which the lanes separate us.
Such lanes end abruptly or make turns though intersections that put cyclists directly in the path of turning trucks and buses. Others are not clearly marked--for pedestrians, motorists or cyclists--which results in pedestrians walking into our paths as they're chatting on their cell phones, or drivers using the bike lanes to pass other motorists.
Still others go nowhere or are so poorly constructed that they're all but unusable. But I've never seen one quite like this:
Above 10th Avenue in the very northern end of Manhattan, the #1 train of the NYC transit system rumbles and clatters. The tracks are supported by the steel columns posted every few feet in the bike lane.
I mean, if you can ride a bike, you can do anything, right? Well, almost...I haven't quite mastered riding through immobile objects.
The sign in the photo is not an aberration: One is posted on every other (more or less) steel column.
For a short local ride, one of my favorite destinations has become Concrete Plant Park. For one thing, I just love the idea that someone converted an old factory to a park. Better yet, whoever conceived of the park was absolutely brilliant in actually incorporating the old machinery into a recreation area.
The concrete path you see is a bike/pedestrian path that is being extended along the Bronx River. With the old cement plant on one side of the river, and some old brick factory and warehouse buildings on the other, the park feels rather like an old New England mill town, especially in the spring and fall.
What is also interesting is that every kind of transportation, except for aviation, intersects there:
Motorized vehicles are not allowed on the path. But, just outside of the park and under the railroad trestle (where, if you look closely, you can see a passing New York City transit train) is the bridge for Westchester Avenue. And, when I was there the other day, motorboats stuttered over the surprisingly choppy water.
I understand that the Parks Department plans to extend the path along the entire length of the Bronx River to Westchester County, a distance of about ten miles. That would definitely make for one of the more interesting urban bike lanes. Actually, it already is: We just need more of it.
If you've been reading this blog, you know how ambivalent I feel about bike lanes, especially ones that are next to parking lanes. Now I've seen something that makes me feel more ambivalence on top of what I already felt about bike lanes:
This lane, which runs alongside the westbound lanes of Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn, has a three-foot high concrete wall separating it from the rest of the street. It parallels the southern boundary of the old Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Most of the Yard is fenced off, but it's possible to catch a few glimpses of some of the old buildings. Yes, they do have a sense of history to them, as do many buildings that were used for the purpose of war. On one hand, I feel about them the way I do whenever I'm on the any site where death reigned: A combination of anger and grief over the sheer futility and waste of lives. On another hand, I find it interesting in the way old industrial areas are: Such places represent ways of life that have come, or are coming to an end and skills and knowledge that are, or are becoming obsolete but that were once indispensable to large numbers of people. In other words, they're a bit like the nearby docks of Red Hook and Bush Terminal, where male relatives of mine worked in jobs and trades that, for all intents and purposes, no longer exist. For that matter, neither do the jobs my mother and grandmother worked in the factories that once operated very near the Navy Yard.
I sometimes think that the only real advance the human race could make is to realize that war is obsolete, or at least ultimately useless. But, of course, that would also mean the end of large parts of the economy as Americans and many other people in this world know it.
All right...I'll get off my soapbox. Standing on them is risky when you're wearing high heels, or bike shoes with Speedplay cleats. (Look cleats are somewhat less risky.) Besides, what I've just said about the military-industrial-financial complex is not the only reason why I'm ambivalent about the bike lane I just found.
I decided to ride the lane on my way home from DUMBO. It's narrow, but as long as you're looking ahead of you, the oncoming cyclists won't be a problem. The problem I found is the lack of a connection between the point where the lane meets the exit ramp of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the bike lane that parallels Kent Avenue along the Williamsburg waterfront, just north of the Navy Yard. The gap between those two sections of bike lane isn't more than a hundred meters, I'd guess. But cars are exiting the highway, and I'd bet that most drivers don't know about the lane. And any cyclist who is riding the lane for the first time probably won't know that there's a point where the lane meets, but doesn't cross, the highway exit ramp.
Perhaps, in another post, I'll tell you about something that happened to me along that stretch of Flushing Avenue before the lane was built. Don't worry: It wasn't terrible, just ironic.
