Hopefully, you have all had an experience of not "getting the guy (or girl)" but ending up with The One.
I'm not going to describe anything quite as momentous as that. But I am going to relate a tale of things not going according to plan and turning out better than I'd planned.
I didn't work on any of my bikes yesterday. The rain didn't materialize. However, I did other things that took more time than I expected. So I got to spend only half an hour on my bike.
On the other hand, today I didn't have classes due to a scheduling quirk. And the afternoon turned into the nicest one we've had in months. The morning fog and clouds burned away in the afternoon sun; within a couple of hours, the temperature rose from the mid-50's to near 80. After sending off my state tax return and a birthday card for my father, I gulped down some green tea and yogurt with almonds and raisins and took Tosca out for a spin.
The route I followed today was the same as the one I took last year, when I did my first post-surgery ride of more than an hour. It's also the route that I took for one of my last rides before surgery. From my place, I took the RFK Bridge to Randall's Island and Manhattan, where I pedaled through upper Manhattan to the George Washington Bridge. On the New Jersey side of the bridge, I rode atop the Palisades, along the Hudson River, to the edge of Jersey City, where I descended to the Exchange Place waterfront. Then it was a matter of following, glancing away from, then following again, the waterfront through Jersey City and Bayonne (the hometown of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) to the bridge bearing the latter city's name to Staten Island, where I took the Ferry.
It's an interesting combination of urban neighborhoods, cookie-cutter suburbs, blue-collar and yuppie havens, and views of the river, skyline, bridges that reflect the color of the morning mist and trestles that put the rust in Rust Belt.
Just before the GW Bridge, there's an interesting or hideous (depending on your point of view) theatre that was probably built during the 1920's. It now serves as a pulpit for the ex of a famous singer/performer who has done some of her best-known work since splitting up with him.
Said preacher is Reverend Ike. Yes, that Rev. Ike: the one who was Mr. Tina Turner. Of course, he never saw the relationship that way, though sometimes I think that, deep down, he must have known it would come to that. Quite possibly the worst thing for the long-term prospects of a marriage is a wife who is obviously more talented than the husband. (Somehow marriages stay together when the man is more talented. That's a story for another post, or more precisely, another blog, or some sort of study by the NIH.) At least Sonny Bono admitted as much about Cher; from what I understand, Rev. Ike was very abusive toward Tina.
Hmm...Are politics and preaching the last refuges of husbands who can't make it on their own and whose wives get sick of them riding on their coattails?
I digress, again. About half a mile south (downtown, to New Yorkers) of Rev. Ike's temple, I saw something I hadn't seen since I last rode up that way:
It's the shortest bike lane in New York. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. But it does serve a purpose: It guides cyclists through one of the trickiest intersections in upper Manhattan, if not all of the city. When St. Nicholas Avenue (on which the lane is located) crosses West 163rd Street, it also intersects with Audubon Avenue which, like St. Nicholas, is one of the main thoroughfares of that part of town.
If the intersection were a clock and you were riding on St. Nicholas from the six o'clock position, the traffic from Audubon would be coming at you from the two and eight o'clock position, while the 163rd Street traffic would be coming from somewhere between the two and three o'clock position, and somewhere between the eight and nine o'clock positions. So, from St. Nick, you would cross 163rd and Audubon as if they were an eight-lane highway.
The new path leads to a couple of concrete islands where there are signs, and from which the path continues to 165th Street.
After that and Rev. Ike, the rest of the ride was a piece of cake!
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.
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.
