Her Last Ride

While riding here in New York City, I avoid curbside bicycle lanes.  I especially avoid them if they are alongside parks where motor vehicles aren't allowed. A terrible incident that occurred yesterday reminded me of why.

Madison Jane Lyden, 23 years old, was visiting from Australia.  She rode a rented bicycle in the lane on Central Park West just south of West 66th Street.  A livery cab pulled into it, in front of her.  She swerved to avoid it.  

A private sanitation truck rumbled up behind her.

Madison Jane Lyden isn't going home.  

When I lived in Manhattan, I cycled up Central Park West often.  That was in pre-bike lane days.  I always knew that the intersection with 66th Street was hazardous.  It's the where the southernmost traverse across Central Park enters regular New York City traffic.  Often, drivers are lulled after driving across that traverse, where they don't have to contend with the vagaries of Manhattan street traffic and are thus not ready for a change in traffic signals, pedestrians crossing--or cyclists.

Traffic is further congested when there is a performance at Lincoln Center, three blocks to the west, or in any of the other nearby performance and exhibition venues such as the West Side Y.

I am guessing that Ms. Lyden would not have been familiar with those traffic patterns.  Even if she were, I don't think she would have been prepared for a livery cab pulling into the bike lane--or for a private sanitation truck barreling behind her.

Let alone a garbage truck operated by an intoxicated driver.  

Madison Jane Lyden so enjoyed riding downtown that she decided to do some exploring.  She pedaled uptown.  It shouldn't have been her last ride.

Looking Up: A Tourist!

You can usually tell when someone is a tourist:  He or she is looking at all of the stuff (and, sometimes, people) the natives take for granted.

In downtown and midtown Manhattan, they are usually looking up--at the Empire State Building, Liberty Tower and other skyscrapers.  I haven't stopped noticing such things, but I think I've developed some sort of peripheral vision that allows me to look at the spires and other architectural features that are expressions of somebody's reach.

I realize now that in Italy, I must have been as obviously a tourist as someone from North Dakota or Oklahoma is while ambling along Broadway.  Or someone speaking Italian on Mott Street:  Little Italy is all but gone, so that person is more than likely from Milan.

Of course, I could've been taken for a tourist on my appearance alone.  The Italians usually greeted me with a friendly if somewhat deferential "signora", but they could not have seen me as one of their women:  I am taller and lighter than most of them.  Also, my Italian--such as it is--doesn't sound anything like what anyone speaks in "The Boot."  If anything, I probably sound like pure Bay Parkway by way of Asbury Park.

There is one other thing, though, that surely gave me away as a visitor--aside from the fact that I was consulting maps.  You see, I was like all of those gawkers I see in my home town:  I spent a lot of time looking upward.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the skylights in the catacombs' chapels must have turned those early Christians' attentions skyward, i.e., toward the heavens.  I couldn't help but to thin that so much cathedral architecture--internal as well as external--was at least somewhat influenced by a memory, historical as well as visceral, of that:  Worshipers were usually looking up, whether at the altar (which was raised) or the stained glass windows or statues above.

Even when I wasn't in a basilica or some other such place, it seemed that I couldn't look anywhere but up.  And, yes, my gaze was often turned above me even as I was navigating those Roman streets and traffic circles.

Was Eddy Mercx thinking about something like that when he told George Mount that if he really wanted to learn about bike racing, he had to go to Italy?

For The First Time, Again

It seems that every year I take at least one ride like the one I took today.

I didn't ride to or through anyplace I'd never seen before today.  Conditions were not at all challenging:  rather humid, but not oppressively so.  Probably the worst (or best, depending on which way I was riding) was the wind, but even that wasn't so bad.

Certainly, I didn't cover a lot of ground, at least compared to some other rides I've done.  I stayed within the confines of three New York City boroughs:  Queens (where I live), Manhattan and Brooklyn.  Then again, I hadn't really planned on doing a century--metric, imperial or otherwise--or a brevet, or any sort of ride with a name.  In fact, I didn't have any sort of plan at all.

I spun up and down major avenues, sprinted from traffic light to traffic light on 57th Street, made furtive turns into alleys and weaved among riders of Citibikes, skaters toting yoga mats and the self-consciously a la mode pushing strollers with the names of designers or athletic-wear companies emblazoned on them.  All of this was pleasant enough, even exhilarating at times.

One thing that seemed strange, even for a Sunday at this time of year, was that some of the streets were all but clear of traffic, whether of the motorized, foot or pedal variety, even though said streets weren't closed.  In fact, I could ride longer and faster in a straight line along those thoroughfares than I could on the bike and pedestrian lanes.

It seemed that almost all of the people--whether on foot, bike or skate--were in the places where one expects to find tourists:  around the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, the South Street Seaport, at the terminals for the ferries to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, on the Brooklyn Bridge. (I like to think that one of the signs I'm a "real" New Yorker is that I don't ride across the BB:  when I cross the East River, I take the Queensborough/59th Street, Williamsburgh or Manhattan Bridges, depending on where I'm going.)  In contrast, the shopping areas along 14th Street and Sixth Avenue (No New Yorker calls it "Avenue of the Americas"!) were all but deserted even though most of the stores were open.

As I cycled up First Avenue near the United Nations, I realized that everything I'd seen was a sign that it's almost the end of summer.  I realized that I take a ride like this one around this time every year:  a week or two before Labor Day.  This is the "last chance" for a lot of New Yorkers to leave town and for many tourists to come here.  And, of course, New Yorkers with lots of money and vacation time have been out of town for weeks already.  It'll be a week or two before they, and other vacationers, start trickling back in--and before the tide of tourists becomes a trickle.

It's at this time of year that I feel most like a "fly on the wall" in my own city.  I am not a tourist, but at the same time, I feel as if I am looking at familiar streets and buildings from the other side of a two-way mirror.  Although I live here, I feel as if I am not entirely here.

I don't mean any of what I've said as a complaint.  If anything, I find it interesting.  In a way, I am privileged:  Although I am far from rich (by the standards of this city and country, anyway), I was able to take a vacation of my own choosing, to a place of my own choosing and do it on my own terms.  And I have had little to worry about since I came back.

In fact, I realize now that since coming back from Paris--three weeks ago, already--I've spent a fair amount of time outside the city, with the bike rides I've taken to Connecticut and the more bucolic parts of New Jersey and Long Island.  So, in a way, I haven't been living like a resident of this city.  But I haven't been a tourist, either, because at the end of the day, wherever I've ridden, I've come back to my own bed and cats--and, as often as not, prepared my own meals.   

Could it be that this time of year--the latter part of August and the first few days of September--is a season unto itself?   Is this the season of The Outsider--and was today's ride my annual Outsider Ride?  

Perhaps no matter how often we've ridden a street or trail, seen a building or field, swum in a sea or opened a particular door--whether for the first time or the last, for a moment or a lifetime-- we are visiting:  We are coming in from the outside.  But we are coming in, and we can stay as long as our time, resources and imaginations allow us.  And one day we can come back.

And we can do the same rides, again, for the first time, from the outside.  At least, that's what I feel I did today.

Citibike In Winter

From Diario en Bici

I have no empirical studies to back up what I’m about say:  The popularity of Citibike, New York’s bike-share program, has continued into the winter.  Granted, I don’t see as many people riding those blue bikes as I did during the summer or even in November.  But I still see fair number of them: sometimes more than I see “civilian” cyclists.

If my perception is indeed accurate, it bodes well for the program.  I can think of two possible explanations for what I’ve seen. One might be that New York residents who don’t own bikes but have yearly memberships are trying to make as much use of them as they can.  The other could be that more and more visitors to the city see going for a bike ride as a requisite experience, much as other tourists (or, perhaps, they themselves), might see going to museums, galleries, plays or concerts, shopping, eating foods they might not find at home or—incredibly—going for a horse-and-carriage ride in Central Park. 

I’ve never checked out a Lonely Planet, Routard or Let’s Go! guide to the Big Apple.  I wonder whether they’re telling people that pedaling through the urban canyons is a “must” for one’s stay in my hometown.

New York's Bike-Share Program: Who And What Is It For?

From Velojoy

The bike-share program here in New York has just passed its first week. Of course, it's too early to render verdicts on it, although that hasn't stopped anyone--whether a proponent or opponent of the program--from doing so.  The other day, I wrote about Dorothy Rabinowitz's hysterical editorial; yesterday, the Daily News harped on the fact that a couple of bicycles lost their pedals and a few kiosks (out of hundreds) didn't accept would-be riders' credit cards. 

On the other hand, even though I'm glad that the program is finally up and running (two years after its planned launch), I still think it's too early to pronounce the program is a success.  For one thing, as a Time article points out, it's more expensive than its counterparts in Paris and London. In those cities, a day pass costs about what a single ride on the Metro or Underground costs; one day on a Citibike in the Big Apple will cost you about what five subway or bus trips would cost.  And, if you don't check into one of the kiosks within 30 minutes (or 45 minutes if you buy the lifetime pass), it's even more expensive.

The rules I've just described, as well as the cost, limit the usefulness of the program for commuters as well as its desirability for tourists and recreational riders.  Even if you're a very fast rider, it's difficult to "explore" on the bike, let alone reach the more far-flung corners of the city, within those time limits. As all of the kiosks are in Manhattan south of 59th Street and in the Brooklyn neighborhoods closest to Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island are out of reach. (The ferry ride alone to or from Staten Island takes about twenty minutes.)  So are Harlem and Coney Island. 

Perhaps these limitations on tourists and recreational riders wouldn't be of such concern if the bike share program were intended to be a supplement to the mass-transit system.  That might work in Paris, as no place in the City of Light is more than 500 meters (about 3/10  of a mile, or six blocks) from a Metro station and the buses are efficient.  It might even work in London: Although it's more spread out than Paris, its Underground branches through the city.  On the other hand, not only is New York bigger than those cities; it also has subway lines that are more clustered together in certain parts of the city, leaving other parts without service. (Parts of eastern Queens and southeastern Brooklyn are seven to ten kilometers, or four to six miles, from the nearest subway station.) Worse yet, the buses--especially the ones that run cross-town in Manhattan--are notoriously slow.

So, perhaps, the City's Transportation Department and Citi Bank, the program's sponsor, need to be clearer about the intended purpose(s) of the Bike Share program and structure policies and rates accordingly.  And, as I've mentioned in a previous post, it would help if New York were truly made a more bike-friendly environment.