Taking Their Bike Lane—Or Making Another Possible

 Keith Kingbay did as much as anyone could have to keep the torch flickering during what Sheldon Brown has called “The Dark Ages” of American cycling. He was a racer who helped to develop what was, for a couple of decades, the only world-class racing or touring bike made, or even conceived, in the US: the Schwinn Paramount.

But perhaps more important, he was a strong advocate for cycling when there were still relatively few adult cyclists in the US. He helped to reorganize the all-but-moribund League of American Wheelmen into the League of American Cyclists. So, perhaps not surprisingly, he championed what we now call “bicycling infrastructure.”

I now recall reading his articles and a book he authored or co-authored in the early or mid-1970s, when I first became a dedicated cyclist. As I am remembering, he said something to the effect that getting community support for cycling events is not difficult because bicycles are “not controversial.”

He passed away three decades ago. I thought of him in light of an argument about a Brooklyn bike lane.

In recent years, bicycles have become, at least in the US, symbols of environmental awareness and sustainability or, if you are of a different social and political persuasion,  everything that threatens the top-down, fossil fuel-consuming world as you’ve known it. In other words, it’s become a symbol of evolution or destruction.

While some individual religious people cycle for transportation or recreation, their organizations —especially if they are fundamentalist or otherwise conservative —aren’t exactly advocates for cyclists or cycling . On the surface, their hostility has to do with their alliances with right-wing politics. But if you probe deeper, you realize that the marriage of religious fundamentalism and political conservatism that veers into facism has to do with a shared interest in preserving patriarchal economic and social structures and what they perceive as “traditional” gender roles.

So, while the Satmar Chasidic Jews of Brooklyn may not have, or want, much participation in the techno-financial complex, they don’t want “scantily-clad” “sexy-ass hipster girls” rolling through their neighborhoods. That is why they (or their leaders at any rate) opposed Citibike, New York’s bike share program, and bike lanes.

Their opposition to the latter would have, only a few years ago, explained their delight in Judge  Carolyn Walker-Diallo’s ruling to uphold Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to remove a protected bike lane on Bedford Avenue, one of the borough’s major thoroughfares, without community notification or the other normal processes required for a major transportation project. In essence, Judge Walker-Diallo said that bike lane removal or replacement is not a major transportation project.

But the Chasidic community’s—and the neighborhood’s —leaders were not pleased. Not because, as it turns out,  Walker-Diallo contributed financially to the political campaign of a local bike lane opponent. Nor did it matter that the Department of Transportation under Adams, who is widely disliked in the community*, installed the lane.

Rather, their umbrage has to do with the fact that children were using the lane to ride their bikes to school. In fact, the suit against the lane’s removal (which ended with the judge’s decision) was initiated on behalf of one of those children. Peter Beadle, the lawyer representing him used the DOT’s own data showing that protected bike lanes reduced injuries by nearly half—to no avail.

He did, however, see a glimmer of hope. If changing from one type of bike lane to another doesn’t require community notice, he said, “then we need to change all non-protected lanes to protected lanes immediately because we know they make all road users safer.”

So, if bicycles themselves aren’t controversial, as Keith Kingbay wrote half a century ago, could he—or anyone else—have foreseen the controversies they could engender, let alone how they could flip political alliances?

*—I, too, am not a fan of the mayor, if for different reasons.

Would Santa Claus Ride It?

 Are snowmobiles allowed on it? Dogsleds?

Are “Reindeer Crossing” signs posted?

Those questions came to mind when I heard there’s a bike lane to North Pole.

Now you know that I missed something:  One end of the path ends in North Pole, not the North Pole.

Even though I got 100 on a test of Alaska geography (at least, that’s how I remember it), I didn’t know that when you remove the definite article, you get the name of a city in The Last Frontier.

Anyway, there is a new bike lane connecting the city, known for its year-round Christmas displays, to Fairbanks.

If I ever get to Alaska, I’ll ride the lane—named for local cycling enthusiast Matt Glove, who lost his life sun a commute—just so I can boast that I cycled to the North Pole. Anyone who didn’t get 100 on Sister Virginia’s Alaska Geography test in 1969 (if I remember correctly) will be none the wiser!

Attacked, Left To Die On The Island

Right now, I am alternating between feeling guilt and rationalizing a choice I often make.

I have pedaled on and through Randall's Island many, many times.  It lies under the RFK Memorial (formerly Triborough) Bridge.  The misnamed Harlem and East Rivers separate it from Manhattan and Queens, respectively, and a deceptively inert ribbon of water--the Bronx Kill--runs between it and the borough for which the body of water is named.

Most days, it's either uneventful or relaxing:  Most of the island is parkland.  The firefighters' academy occupies part of it; another piece is taken up by a water treatment plant.  A small bridge connects the island to Ward's Island, the site of a mental hospital and homeless shelter. Bike lanes wind around Randall's from the Connector, a bike-pedestrian bridge spanning the Bronx Kill, down the main road and up the Harlem River side near Ward's.

That last stretch is one of the more remote parts of the island.  Diana Agudelo rode it to and from her job at the Museum of the City of New York, the northernmost museum of Manhattan's famed "Museum Mile." I would imagine that she took that route mainly for the same reasons I have:  It is both convenient and relaxing.

That last quality is also what leads some people let their guard down.  I am not saying that Ms. Agudelo was not mindful of her surroundings, but in that island of calm amidst the city's hustle and bustle, it's easy to let one's guard down.  

So she probably had no inkling of what was about to happen to her on Friday night:  About half an hour before midnight, someone attacked and brutally beat her, taking her eBike and cell phone and leaving her to die.  Someone out for a walk found her, unable to move or speak.  She still can't do either, which is making it difficult for police to identify her attacker.

The guilt I mentioned at the beginning of this post is over knowing that someone has suffered a tragedy in the course of doing something I have done many times.  I hope it doesn't become "survivor's guilt."  At the same time, I have been offering rationales to people who've heard Agudelo's story and are admonishing me to "be careful" or simply scare me out of riding on the Island.  I have long been aware of the risks of riding the particular stretch of bike lane where she met her fate, and I almost never ride on the Island after sunset.  

All I can do now is hope that she is a "miracle:"  The doctors have given her a very small chance of surviving.  Oh, and I hope that the thug(s) who attacked her is/are caught.

 

If A Cyclist Falls Into A Pothole...

 A few days ago, I was riding home from one of my bread runs in the Little Italy area of the Bronx.  After stopping at one of the fruit stands in Fordham Plaza, I proceeded up Webster Avenue.  A bit more than a block north of Fordham Road, I noticed a pothole so deep that I could see, on one side, the bedrock underneath and on the other, what looked like utility pipes.

That hole was there when I first moved into the neighborhood, just over a year ago.  The one good thing I can say is that because I know it's there, I barely have to look for it in order to dodge it:  It's as if an image of it, or its location, is lodged into my mental GPS, if you will.  But I wonder whether someone who isn't familiar with that stretch of Webster has been pitched off their bike when their front wheel dropped into it.  

That idle thought led to another:  If the person's bike was damaged or destroyed--or if they were injured--could they sue the city?

I don't know what New York City regulations say, or don't say, about such a scenario.  But I imagine that some lawyer could make a case for someone being reimbursed for a damaged or destroyed bike, medical bills and lost wages.  

In Palo Alto, California--home to Stanford University and a major technology hub--Peggy Hock-McCalley is bringing such a lawsuit against the city.  Last September, Roderick McCalley, her 81-year-old husband, was riding along Park Boulevard when he fell and sustained a major head injury and neck fracture.  Two days later, he died.

Cyclists on Park Boulevard, Palo Alto.  Photo by Gennady Sheyner for Palo Alto Online.

The city claims Mr. McCalley had entered a lane closed for construction when the accident occurred.  The suit filed by his widow maintains that he fell into an unmarked open construction ditch in the asphalt. So, while I have no firsthand knowledge of the case, I can understand--especially given my near-encounter with the pothole on Webster Avenue--how he or someone else could ride into a hole or depression he couldn't have seen, or wouldn't have known to look for, as he was riding.  

Also, Ms. Hock-McCalley maintains, "There were no warning signs" which made the ditch a "hidden hazard" for "persons who use the road every day."

She is seeking more than $35,000 from the city for creating dangerous conditions, negligence and wrongful death.  Whether or not she wins, if you'll indulge me a cliché, it won't bring back her husband.  And unless Palo Alto--and other cities--are more proactive in addressing road hazards, there will be other tragedies like the one that befell Roderick McCalley.

The Councils Are Going Broke. Blame Cyclists.

"Americans can be trusted to do the right thing once all other possibilities have been exhausted."

That remark has been attributed to Winston Churchill, though experts on him can't find any tape, transcript or other record of him saying it.

Whoever said it, I wish that it were true of today's right-wing politicians.  Coaches, trainers, athletic directors and boosters sexually abuse athletes, yet the Fake Tan Fuhrer and his allies blame transgender athletes on girls' and womens' teams--which number something like ten in the whole United States--for endangering innocent young female gymnasts, skaters, basketball players, cyclists and other performers.  I have yet to hear of any anti-LGBTQ politician who went after the real perpetrators. Perhaps some day....

Or maybe they never will.  It seems that these days, a strategy of the far- and even center-right around the world is to scapegoat people, organizations and movements that are very small in number or limited in scope, much as Hitler targeted Jews (who, even where they were the largest presence, still represented a small fraction of the population), Romani and other minorities including, yes, LGBT people.  I still recall how the Reagan Administration targeted the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, ostensibly as defecit-reducing measures, even though they represented something like .005 percent of the Federal Budget and, as even the Wall Street Journal noted, contributed far more to the economy, not to mention the culture.

Now it seems that one of right wing's targets, in the UK as in the US, is bicycle infrastructure.  It's one thing to blame a bike lane for a loss of parking spaces or emergency vehicle access.  But it's simply ludicrous to attribute the sorry state of a local government's finances to the money it spent on a bike lane, mainly because it's almost invariably a tiny part of the budget but also because (at least in the US), those funds may have come from a state or the Federal government, usually as part of an allocation for transportation.

But that hasn't stopped politicians on either side of the Atlantic.  Among the most recent is Nigel Farage, the Reform Party leader and former member of the UK Independence Party--you know, the folks who campaigned for Brexit.  This morning he claimed that local councils are "on the verge of bankruptcy" because of "huge departments of people dealing with climate change" and the "tens of millions of pounds" those councils "wasted" on "cycle lanes nobody uses."

Image credit:  Simon MacMichael/Gage Skidmore via the BBC

Now, I can't argue against, or vouch for the last part of his assertion.  But a look at the charge that the councils are throwing money at bike infrastructure is, to say the least, exaggerated.  Some councils spend little or nothing on bicycle infrastructure or other "active travel."  But even for those that spent the most, like Kingston, spending for active transport (which includes walking and other non-motorized modes as well as cycling) is only around 4 to 5 percent of the total budget, with around a third of that coming from core funds and the rest from grants.  As a whole, the UK spends about two percent of its transportation budget on cycling infrastructure. 

All of this leads me to believe that if Nigel Farage were in Winston Churchill's place during the Blitz, he would have turned his ire toward Dame Myra Hess.

“Funeral” For A Bike Lane

 Jewish traditions include the levaya, a public burial ceremony for a Torah scroll or script that has been burned or otherwise damaged beyond repair. The Torah is often buried beside a Torah scholar as a sign of respect.

I thought of the levaya when I saw a news story out of Houston. That city’s cyclists didn’t bury a bike lane. They did, however, hold a “funeral” for the Austin Street lane the city abruptly removed from its Midtown district.

The penultimate word of the previous sentence describes what rankled Ursula Andreeff, who organized the event. “We wanted to mourn the loss of bike lanes, loss of critical infrastructure in this city and also to bring attention,” she explained. 

The city removed concrete barriers, often called “armadillos,” citing concerns from residents and first responders about reduced access for emergency vehicles, blocked trash collection and limited parking. Houston Public Works claims the move—and painting “sharrows” to indicate shared use of the road with motor vehicles.

Critics argue that the “sharrows” won’t offer the same level of protection and might deter some from cycling. They also lambasted the city for not giving advance warning about removing the Austin Street lane, or others. People went for their daily commute or fitness ride only to find that their familiar route, in which they felt safe, gone.

Some Houston cyclists held a “funeral” for a bike lane. I imagine that some were hoping the next funeral they attend won’t be for one of them.

A Cherry Blossom Canopy In The Bronx

The bike lane under the Bruckner Expressway isn’t more than a couple of years old. But I believe I can safely say that I’ve ridden it dozens, if not a hundred or more, times.

While pedaling Tosca, my Mercian Dixie, near the lane’s southern end, I caught a glimpse of this:

On a grimy industrial block of  East 140th Street, some men enjoyed a canopy more beautiful, to my eye, than any offered at the entrances of the most sumptuous Park and Fifth Avenue buildings.

Of course, those men may not have seen it that way: I couldn’t tell whether they live, work or simply hang out on the block. And I didn’t try to take a closer image of them because one of them eyed me suspiciously.  Perhaps it means I’m not really an artist or even journalist after all: My respect for his privacy won out over my desire to “create” or “make a statement.”

Or maybe I am: The inherent beauty of that cherry blossom, and the cloak of light and graceful curves it offered in a space bounded by concrete, asphalt, chicken wire and steel girders, impressed enough on me, however imperfectly I’ve captured it on my iPhone camera.

What Would John Think Of James?

He and John Forester would hate each other.

Or would they?

John Forester in the 1970s.

Forester, who died nearly five years ago, was best known as the author of Effective Cycling and for his advocacy of vehicular cycling.  He accused bike lane advocates of promoting what he called the "cyclist inferiority hypothesis" which, he said, was the product of motordom's propaganda campaign to frighten cyclists off the road.  

On the other hand, former "Top Gear" presenter James May  says "People on bicycles are really just pedestrians" and that the bicycle is "an elaborate piece of footwear."  He decries "vehicle levels of traffic controls for bicycles" he sees in his native Britain.

James May near his home.

Another point of contrast:  May, so far, has been praised for his point of view.  Forester was often vilified though, to be fair, many of his critics reacted to his "shrill, nasty" tone rather than to the substance of his arguments.

But, as with so many whose views seem, on the surface, to be polar opposites, they actually share an important commonality:  Forester was, and May is, opposed to much of the "bicycle infrastructure" that's been built. 

And their criticisms might look oppositional, but they share a same root concern:  that too many bike lanes, signals and such constructed, ostensibly, out of concern for cyclists' safety actually puts us in more danger.

Forester's criticisms of bike lanes mirror my own:  that because of their poor design, they make it all but impossible to turn safely and also put cyclists in the line of opening car doors and other hazards.  May takes issue with "extremist" measures like bicycle traffic lights.  One near his home should instead be a "give way" (or, to us Americans, "yield") sign and allow cyclists to make their judgments.  "As long as people cycle in a sympathetic way, and pedestrians are still at the top of the hierarchy--the world belongs to people, not machines--then it ought to work."

James May, after a charity ride.

Ah, there's another point  of commonality: the notion that motor vehicles don't reign supreme. One could say, however, that Forester advocated for equality between cyclists and motorists while saying nothing about pedestrians, while May, as quoted above, believes that pedestrians (who, in his view, include cyclists) are at the top of the food chain, so to speak.

So, how would James May and John Forester see each other?  Of course, we'll never know about Forester and, to my knowledge, May--who is a lifelong cyclist--either doesn't know or doesn't think about him.  But I could see both of them pulling up the bollards from a bike lane.

From The City To The Island

 Yesterday I pedaled out to City Island. It’s not a long ride (about 25 kilometers round-trip) and it’s mostly flat.  So I thought about taking Tosca, my Mercian fixie, but instead went with La-Vande, my King of Mercia.

I was glad I made that choice: I pedaled into the wind most of the way back. Also, La-Vande has fenders, which shielded the bike—and me—from salt and sand the Department of Sanitation spread over the streets during recent snowfalls. And parts of the Bronx River and Pelham Parkway Greenways were mud puddles. 

While most of the bike—and I—were protected, the chain and cassette are a little worse for the experience. I don’t mind; I’m going to replace them in a few weeks.

I regret not photographing is some streets and both Greenways.  Road conditions are usually at their worst around this time of year: The salt and sand, along with temperature changes, result in fissures that make some of those concrete and asphalt ribbons look—and ride—more like broken stairway. Interestingly, it was worst along the stretch of Pelham Greenway from Williamsbridge Road to the I-95 underpass: Its surface was more uneven, and muddier, than along the path through the wooded area just before the bridge to City Island.

Only City Island Avenue traverses the island; the other streets, only a block or two long, are bookended by the Avenue and the water. And the Avenue has only one traffic lane in each direction. So it doesn’t take much to create a jam, which I encountered. The good news, for me anyway, was that I could move along easily.  Perhaps surprisingly, given that it was a mild day (about 12C or 54F) for this time of year, I didn’t see any other cyclists—or pedestrians or scooters.

So, when I reached the end of the island, I felt it was all mine—or, perhaps, that everyone else had forgotten it.

I must say, though, that there’s something I very much like about the light and water at this time of year: The austere, steely clouds and tides of winter are showing the first hints of turning into a more vivid, if still stark, shades of blue that will, eventually, brighten in the sun.

By then, the days, and my rides, will be longer, I hope.

Backlash Against Bike Lanes

 One hard lesson I learned in my gender affirmation journey is that the euphoria of a victory, whether personal or for a community, is all but inevitably followed by a backlash.  Such a reaction could come from the same individuals or groups who initially supported the positive and necessary changes you and your community made.

In my own life, I think of how relatives, co-workers and (former) friends—and, yes, a lover—turned on me after voicing support when I started living under my current name and gender identity and, later, when I had my surgery.

Since its Civil War, the US has witnessed two major vocal, and often violent reactions against efforts to create a more just society. The first followed Reconstruction, when newly-freed African Americans were doing everything from running their own farms to running for office.  In response, White supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan formed and Jim Crow laws were passed. The second reactionary movement is one we’ve witnessed during the past few decades:  the current far-right movement, which includes, again, White Supremacists, allied with Christian nationalists and other reactionaries. It is the counter-current against the Civil Rights, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements of the past six decades or so.  Far-right members often talk about “taking back” “their” country.  Some were once part of the very movements they’re reacting against.

A similar phenomenon is brewing against bike lanes. San Francisco is removing the Valencia Street bike lane 18 months after the city installed it. (To be fair, the lane was supposed to be a 12-month pilot project.) Meanwhile, Ontario’s provincial government is taking actions to remove bike lanes in Toronto.  Other jurisdictions are making similar moves or stalling or canceling plans to build new bike infrastructure.

(In a related move, the self-coronated Fake Tan Fūhrer has ordered the end of congestion pricing in my hometown of New York. It’s not clear, however, that he has such authority.)

So why all of the hate for bike lanes?  If what I hear in the Big Apple echoes in other ‘burgs, much of the opposition comes from drivers and small businesses owners. The former believe that cyclists are taking “their” lanes and parking spaces, while the latter complain about lost sales.

Shop owners may have a point.  Malls (most of which are moribund) and big-box stores are inherently auto-centric. So are the business and commercial districts of most American municipalities:  They are designed so that customers can drive into, and park, in them.  While that characteristic doesn’t cause Wal-Mart to lose customers—such stores are usually surrounded by large parking lots—the downtown stores and cafes rely, in large part, on curbside access.

As for lost traffic lanes and parking spaces:  As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, studies show that it isn’t the case.  Bike lanes don’t “cause” traffic jams:  In most cases, the road was already congested.  As more than one planner has observed, streets and highways are “build it and they will come” projects.

The real reasons for the backlash against bike infrastructure, as Ron Johnson writes in Momentum, include the following:  a.) even in large cities, transportation planning is made in an “imaginary world” in which there are only “suburban drivers “ and its corollary, b.) the lack of a true infrastructure that allows cyclists to pedal safely from Point A to Point B.  Too often, the bike lanes are just “tokens,” poorly-conceived, constructed and maintained ribbons that make no one safer.

Two examples are the Grand Concourse lane near my current residence and the Queens Boulevard lane near my former home. Both are center lanes along the divider. One problem is that every few blocks, traffic crosses the lane to enter or leave the service lane.  Another is that because those lanes are not physically separated, drivers use them as passing lanes. (Some seem to take out their aggression by passing as close and as fast as they can to cyclists.) Moreover, trucks park or idle in the lanes when drivers deliver to the businesses that line the Concourse and Boulevard.  Oh, and I’ve seen cops sipping coffee and munching their donuts (OK, accuse me of stereotyping!) in patrol cars parked in the bike lane.

In other words, such lanes benefit no one. Nobody is safer and, perhaps, shop owners are indeed losing business.  A better-planned bike network would take cyclists where they want and need to go and allow traffic to flow more efficiently.

But would it stop the backlash?  Well, maybe not.  As Johnson points out, it’s one of the “culture wars” in which cyclists and their allies are seen as “woke” granola-crunching gender-variant (whoops, I meant non-male- or -female conforming) “enemies.”  In other words, people like me.  So the backlash against bike lanes doesn’t surprise me.

Wondering About Their Winter Wonderland

 According to reports, here in New York City we’ve had more snow during the past week than we’ve had during the past two winters. I can believe it.  That said, the white stuff didn’t come all at once:  Snowfalls were punctuated by spells of rain and above-freezing temperatures.  Therefore, most un-plowed or -shoveled surfaces have only a shallow coating.

Still, I and other New York cyclists have encountered a problem Cathleen Cronin reported in ecoRI news:  bike lanes covered with snow or, worse, ice.

The latter aborted (Can I use that word in the current political climate?) my commute the other day.  I was about to cross the Macombs Dam Bridge from Yankee Stadium to Harlem when my front wheel slid from under me.  The glacial stream covered the entire width—and, as far as I could see, length—of the bridge’s bike/pedestrian path. In years past, I rode in the traffic lane. But I didn’t want to take the risk of encountering an ice patch on it. Also, traffic seems to be heavier—and the vehicles bigger (with more aggressive drivers) than when I crossed thirty, or even ten years ago.

So, I did an about-face. I could’ve picked up one of the other routes I take, but that would’ve required some back-tracking. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go very far to the Yankee Stadium subway station. 

I haven’t cycled in East Providence, Rhode Island. But I reckon that it doesn’t have anything like New York’s transit system. I wonder how commuters (and other cyclists) deal with impassable lanes or streets and few, or no, alternative routes.

What Are These?

 

Arizona Bike Law includes a page titled with what seems like a rhetorical question: “Is This A Bike Lane?”

The question becomes not-so-rhetorical because they answer:  No, according to the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the transportation engineers’ “Bible.” But the city of Phoenix, where the pictured “bike lanes” are located, insist that shoulder strips just wide enough for a bicycle tire “separated” from lanes where buses, trucks and SUVs roam by a line of paint is safer than riding in the roadway.

Driver And Lane Blamed For Crash

 I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more frequently.

I’m not talking about the crash that resulted when someone drove a Tesla SUV across a Seattle bike lane to access a parking lot. Unfortunately, I’m also not referring to the life-altering brain injury Aviv Litov suffered when his bike hit the car. 

What I am about to mention is the lawsuit that’s followed. Not surprisingly, the Tesla driver is a defendant, as the suit cites her negligence. But the other defendant is one not often named in such cases:  the city itself.  

The lawsuit, filed by the Strittmatter firm in Seattle, alleges that the lane’s faulty design was a factor in the crash that landed Litov in a hospital for two months and has led to a long, arduous road to heal. 

The lane on Green Lake Drive appears to be like many here in New York (including the one along Astoria’s Crescent Street, where I lived until last March) and other American cities:  It’s separated from the traffic lane by a line of parked cars.

Those cars certainly are an effective barrier.  But in some spots—particularly driveways and intersections that cross those lanes—those parked vehicles also obstruct visibility for both cyclists and drivers. Too often, frustrated motorists make risky maneuvers to turn—or cyclists simply can’t see them until it’s too late.

I hope Litov has a full—or as full as possible—recovery. And it will be interesting, to say the least, to see whether more municipalities or their contractors are held to account for poor bike lane conception, design, construction or maintenance—of which I’ve seen plenty or, should I say, too much.

The Driver Who Thought A Paceline Was A Slamom

 A driver weaves through a group of cyclists, narrowly missing them.  At one point, he is actually driving in the wrong direction for the traffic lane.

On a video of the incident, someone can be heard yelling for the cyclists to watch out.

Shortly afterwards, a group of people smash the car in a parking garage about a mile from where the driver used the cyclists as a slalom course.

That incident was also captured on video.

Guess what the police have done.

They “believe” the incidents are “related.” But they didn’t arrest the driver. They are, however, pursuing vandalism charges against the people who smashed his car.

Call me a cynic, but I wonder whether the response to one incident and lack thereof to the other has something to do with the fact that the car in question is a late-model white Mercedes.

Whatever the constables’ motives and reasoning, it’s an example of what made Mimi Holt, whom I mentioned in yesterday’s post, give up cycling for nearly two decades when she moved to Los Angeles. She resumed riding after her doctor diagnosed her as a pre-diabetic, but says she’d feel a lot safer if there was a comprehensive network of bike lanes.

If she’s heard about the incident I mentioned today (it happened on Saturday), I am sure it reminded her of why she gave up cycling—and what police need to do in order to ensure that she and others can ride in (relative) safety.

She Doesn’t Think We’re “The Enemy”

We believe love is love, science is real…but keep your government paws off my vehicular patterns.

You’ve seen the two phrases preceding the ellipsis on signs outside houses in “blue” neighborhoods and on bumper stickers affixed to Priuses. (Is the plural of Prius “Prii?”) But the seemingly-contradictory exhortation that follows is, according to Maggie Cassidy, an expression of how otherwise sane people think, and what they sometimes voice, when a bike lane is propsed.

Ms. Cassidy admits that she loves driving and is “too weak and clumsy” to ride a bicycle. But she adds that she has felt safer during one of her daily drives since bicycle lanes have been installed and given cyclists “a prudent amount of space” along a busy stretch of road.

While I have spoken and written against bike lanes, I am not against lanes in principle. Rather, I criticize particular green ribbons of asphalt or concrete because they’re poorly-conceived, designed, constructed or maintained. Though not a cyclist, Ms. Cassidy seems to understand as much.

The most perceptive comments in her Valley News (Vermont) editorial, however, refute the objections of drivers. She mentions one who complains that he’ll have to drive with his “head on a swivel.” As Ms. Cassidy points out, that’s what drivers have to do anyway:  Drivers, and people in general, need to be aware of their surroundings, not only what’s immediately in front of them.

She doesn’t only blame drivers’ misconceptions, which she attributes to “anecdotal” evidence and flat-out misconceptions. She gets at something that causes motorists to see not only cyclists, but planners who conceive and engineers who plan and design bike lanes and other infrastructure. As she says, they are, too often, poor communicators: They too often lapse into professional and technical jargon or show other misunderstandings of their audiences.

I must say that Maggie Cassidy’s editorial is notable because she writes from a perspective I rarely, if ever, see: A motorist who isn’t a cyclist but doesn’t see us as “the enemy.”

A Record—For Whom?

 According to the latest statistics from New York City’s Development of Transportation, the number of cyclists in my hometown set a record for the fourth straight year.

Some may criticize their methodology:  They counted only the cyclists using the East River crossings, which connect Manhattan with Brooklyn and Queens.  While I wonder what, exactly, can be extrapolated from it, I also understand that those crossings are among the few places where à accurate counts can be made consistently.

Photo by Frank Franklin for the NY Daily News

From my observations, however, such a methodology skews the findings and conclusions drawn.  Cyclists using those East River crossings tend to be commuters—usually, going to Manhattan—and younger than other cyclists.  I think the DOT’s way of counting also misses riders who commute within their own borough or, say, from Queens to Brooklyn, and misses the Bronx entirely.

One interesting finding that squares with my observations is that even after the new bike lane opened on the Brooklyn Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge is still the preferred East River crossing. It’s easy to see why.  For one thing, many of the young commuting cyclists I’ve mentioned live and/or work in the neighborhoods on either side of the bridge.  Also, at least in my experience, it offers easier access than the other bridges, and the Manhattan entrance is at the end of a protected bike lane along Delancey Street. 

Oh, and if you’re a tourist (or simply not a commuter or regular NYC cyclist), I’ll let you in on a secret:  the Williamsburg offers the best views—including those of the Brooklyn Bridge!

The Real Battle

 Last week I wrote about the passage of Bill 212 in Ontario, Canada.  Among other things, it authorizes that province’s government the authority to order Toronto—its largest city and capital—to remove bike lanes and to block the metropolis from installing a new bike lane if it results in the loss of a traffic or parking lane.

Interestingly, Philadelphia has gone in an almost-opposite direction.  Yesterday Mayor Cherelle Parker signed a bill that prohibits drivers from stopping, standing or parking in bike lanes—and increases fines for those who break the law.

Reactions to both events has been predictable and echoes the ways in which cyclists (and pedestrians) have been pitted against drivers. The debate, fueled at least in part by misconceptions, can also be seen on the editorial pages of the Washington Post.  The first salvo of the latest fight came from Mark Fisher’s article, “The truth about bike lanes:  They’re not about the bikes.” Yesterday the newspaper published reactions from anti-bike lane (and, in some cases, anti-cyclist) motorists. It has announced its intention to devote a page to pro-bike lane arguments.

Among the misconceptions expressed in the editorials, perhaps the most egregious is this:  We are getting our lanes for free.

Some years ago, I found myself arguing about that with a driver whom I cursed out after he cut me off.  I became his emotional punching bag because, at that moment, I was the embodiment of all cyclists, just as any given Black person can become a proxy for an entire race.

I didn’t raise my voice or lose my temper. Instead, when he shouted the “free ride” canard, I pointed out that I paid for that street and its parking spaces just as he had:  Here in New York, as in most places, street and road construction and maintenance is paid from the general pool of taxes. He was not, as he believed, paying for something I wasn’t. In fact, I said, the only tax he pays that I don’t is on gasoline.

He actually calmed down. I probably could’ve mentioned other ways his and other ways his and other motorists’ driving is subsidized—including our foreign policy—but I left him while we were at least civil toward each other.

Some would call it a “win.” In today’s political climate, it would be a step forward. On the other hand, to amend Mr. Fisher’s thesis, the debate about bike lanes isn’t really about the lanes.  I believe it is, rather, a proxy for the culture wars, which in turn are about economics: Will they serve the interests of those who have brought the planet (whether through their financial, political, cultural or ostensibly-religious activities) to its current crisis—and their often-unwitting pawns? Or will we leave those coming after us a world in which they can live, let alone thrive?

Is It The Most Unsafe Bike Lane?

 In this blog, I have written about poorly-conceived, designed, constructed and maintained cycle lanes.  There are “bike lanes to nowhere” (which can be sung to a certain Led Zeppelin tune), those that begin seemingly out of nowhere and ones that put cyclists —and pedestrians and wheelchair users—in more danger than they would face among motorized traffic. Oh, and there was one that ran smack into a supporting column for elevated train tracks.

But there is another hazard that, according to some planners and even path users, can’t be designed away:  Lanes that are safe, useful and even scenic by day become alleys of potential terror, especially for those of us who don’t present as male.

Such is the case for a popular 24km (15 mile) ribbon that connects Bristol and Bath in the UK. Because it passes through other fairly-major cities along the way, it’s popular with commuters as well as recreational cyclists—by day.

When darkness falls, however, so does the path’s safety. “It’s like walking down a dark alley on a night out,” said Bristol-based cyclist Rosalie Hoskins.  She and other cyclists have described their experiences, or recounted those of others, who have been jumped or ambushed and had their bikes or e-bikes stolen by masked moped riders. There are also other reports of anti-social behavior, such as drunkenness and drug use, along the lane.

While the B2B, as it’s commonly called, has been declared the “most unsafe” bike lane in Britain, the problems described are hardly unique. Indeed, on various bike lanes here in New York, I have nearly hit, or been hit by, people hanging out in the path, not to mention drivers—especially those of for-hire car services—pulling in and out or double-parking.

And while I haven’t heard as much about crime against cyclists, runners or pedestrians in Central Park as I did during the ‘70’s, ‘80’s and early ‘90’s, I was aware of the possibility when, on Monday, I rode the length of it uptown about an hour after it got dark. As I descended the curves to the exit at 7th Avenue (Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard) in Harlem, I thought about the possibility of someone—or some group—hiding in the bushes, ready to spring on an unsuspecting rider or runner:  a common occurrence in the bad old days. One reason why such attacks may be less common is that many more people pedal, run, jog, walk or simply hang out in the park than in times past.  And while more lighting may or may not improve safety, I think some would oppose it because they believe it would detract from the park’s ambience—which may be a reason why some other path aren’t better-lit or more surveilled.

I concur, however, with Bristol cyclist and PhD student George Rowland when he  says more emphasis should be placed on making roads safer for cyclists.  They already have lighting and open space, and making them more cyclist-friendly and -usable will do more to encourage people to pedal to work, school, shop or have fun than segregating us.

“Rip ‘Em Out”=“Drill, Baby, Drill”?

 Here in New York City, we don’t need anyone to tell us that life isn’t always fair. One reason is that here, in one of the world’s major cities—with a population of around 8.3 million—some decisions that affect our everyday lives are made in Albany, about 250 kilometers (160 miles) up the Hudson River. Though its population of 101,000 is less than a quarter of Staten Island, New York City’s least populous borough, “Smallbany” is the capital of New York State.

Now, one might expect that Toronto, Canada’s largest city, has more self-rule since it also happens to be the capital of Ontario. But the province’s government has just passed Bill 212. This controversial new piece of legislation gives the province sweeping control over Toronto’s bike lanes.  

That means, for one thing, that Toronto and other cities would have to ask the province for permission before installing a bike lane if doing so would involve removing á traffic lane.  Moreover, it gives the province authority to order a city to rip out a bike lane if a traffic lane was removed in the process.  So, for example, Ontario’s government could order Toronto to take our the bike lanes on three major thoroughfares—Bloor and Yonge Streets and University Avenue—though it’s not clear as to whether the province will exercise that power.

Oh, and Bill 212 allows the construction of Highway 413 to begin before consulting indigenous groups or conducting environmental assessment.

Bill 212 sounds like part of a “backlash” against the progressive policies for which Toronto has come to be known.  Somehow I can hear echoes of “Drill, baby, drill!”

When It Was A Gravel Rider's Dream

Following the trail further, the hardy voyager wandered over 'hills and valleys, dales and fields' through a countryside where trout, mink, otter, and muskrat swam in the brooks and pools; brant, black duck, and yellow-leg splashed in the marshes and fox, rabbit, woodcock, and partridge found covert in the thicket.

The preceding passage isn't an account of my latest ride, though it could have described other rides I've taken.

I have, however, pedaled down the route followed by the author of that passage.  My latest trek along that thoroughfare--one of many--took me past stores, restaurants, condo and co-op buildings and offices.

Also, I rode in the opposite direction from that of the scribe who penned that passage.  Today, it's the only way one can travel for most of the roadway's length.

I am talking about one of the world's most famous urban byways:  Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

The section Arthur Bartlett Maurice described ran from about 21st to 28th Streets:  about a mile and a half from the Avenue's southern terminus at Washington Square Park.  He was also narrating a northward ("uptown" in New York parlance) trek; since 1966, all of the Avenue, save for a few blocks at its northern end, has allowed only southbound ("downtown") traffic.

Can you believe this was once a sight along Fifth Avenue?

This month marks 200 years since the Avenue--which was mainly a dirt path--opened.  It had been planned thirteen years earlier; its opening ushered an unprecedented building boom that, decades later, would lead to the stretch abutting Central Park to become "Millionaire's Row" and, later, "Museum Mile."

Or this?

Mind you, I don't make a point of cycling Fifth Avenue.  But there are times when it's an efficient and, given that it doesn't have a protected bike lane, relatively safe way to go.   Because the stretch from 110th to 59th marks the Park boundary, most side-streets dead-end into it, so there are few intersections to navigate.  Also, I find that its traffic patterns and flows are fairly predictable, even along the Midtown sector.

Oh, and I always make sure I wave to Patience and Fortitude when I pass the main New Yave to ork Public Library building.  If they could talk.... 

(Thanks to Esther Crain, the author of one of my favorite blogs--Ephemeral New York--for the tribute to Fifth Avenue's bicentennial.)