Today: Shared Streets And Summer Streets

Today is Shared Streets Day.

No, it's not another one of those holidays created by FTD or the publishers of calendars and greeting cards.

Instead, it creates an almost traffic-free environment on what are--on weekdays, anyway--some of the busiest streets in the world.  Cars will have access to them only through checkpoints, and will be asked to drive at no more than five miles per hour (8kph).  Cyclists and pedestrians, on the other hand, will be able to enter and leave them freely.

From DIY Biking

The restricted streets will comprise a 60 square-block area south of New York's City Hall.  Most of them are in Manhattan's Financial District, which normally doesn't see a lot of traffic on weekends, especially in the summer.  In fact, I've taken dates and out-of-town visitors on rides in that area when the Stock Exchange and financial institutions are closed, and everyone marveled on how oddly bucolic it seemed.  It was as if the glass and steel towers were holding the noise and haste at bay.

Shared Streets area.

I'd bet that even most native New Yorkers have never enjoyed that part of town on a summer weekend.  For that reason alone, I think that area is a good place for Shared Streets Day.  Plus, it includes some of Manhattan's most historic sites, including the Customs House (ironically, now the home of the Museum of the American Indian),  Coenties Slip and the Woolworth Building.  It also includes such notable monuments as the Louise Nevelson Park and 9/11 Memorial and, well, tourist traps like the South Street Seaport.  

This event is being held today in addition to the Summer Streets Program, which took place last Saturday and will return next Saturday.  Nearly seven miles of major Manhattan Streets, running from Central Park at East 72nd Street to the Brooklyn Bridge, will be closed to traffic.  There will be rest stops as well as performances and other cultural events, as well as bike repair stands, along the way.

A Summer Streets stop, 2015.

While today is the first Shared Streets Day, the Summer Streets program has been held every August since 2008.  Not surprisingly, some drivers have complained about Summer Streets, although not as many as one might expect:  although not as quiet as the Shared Streets are on weekends and during the summer, traffic is generally lighter on the Summer Streets routes during those times.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Shared Streets, though, is that it encompasses the oldest parts of Manhattan (or, at least, the first parts to be settled and built upon by European colonizers).  Thus, for most of its history, it was traversed mainly by pedestrians; only horses and, later, bicycles would break the monopoly walkers would enjoy over the area.  Now that area of the city is being returned, mostly, if only for a day, to human-powered transportation.

How Do You Sell Cycling In Amsterdam?

You've probably heard the expression, "He/She could sell snow to the Eskimos/Inuits/Laplanders/any other native of a cold climate".

Believe it or not, Snowbrokers was "set up a few years ago to service the need of online snow sales for the Inuit community of Alaska".  Wow!  I wish I'd thought of that!  I guess it's another one of those opportunities to get in on the ground floor of something that'll reach the sky that I missed.  

Then again, people have come up with even crazier ideas for businesses. Like an Uber for hitmen:  surge pricing is always in effect.  Or an online social network for people who don't use the Internet.  Or one of my favorites:  an a capella singing group that only does death metal covers.  All right, that's not technically a business idea, unless you believe that performers start groups only in the hope of making money. (And we all know that no performer with any integrity would ever think of that, right?)

OK, so at least we know  Snowbrokers, Uber for hitmen, the social network and the a capella groups are jokes--just like the Swiss Navy. (I didn't find out until I tried to join! ;-))  Unfortunately, there are some things that sound like jokes but were conceived without irony or mirth, such as The Flat Earth Society and more than a few political campaigns. (Of the latter, there are some that we wish were jokes.  I won't mention any names as I am trying to remain, ahem, apolitical.)  Oh, and a Creationist theme park.

Hmm...Would all of these schemes have been funded by selling snow online to Inuits in Alaska?  Hmm...Maybe the Samis of Norway would be a more lucrative market.

Or, perhaps, selling cycling in Amsterdam.

Anna Luten, Amsterdam's "bicycle mayor"

"It is harder than it sounds," says Anna Luten.  She would know better than perhaps anyone else:  She is the "bicycle mayor" of the Dutch capital. She was chosen for the voluntary position (Her "real" job is that of brand manager for Giant's LIV line of bicycles for women.) last month by a jury of city officials and bike advocates.  

In a city where there are as many bicycles as people, "Cycling is so normal for us that it becomes boring for us, and we neglect it," she explains.  Because cycling is  "not an identity like it is in other countries, it's just the way we get around", she says, in essence, that cyclists take their position ("because we ride a bike we own the roads"), and that of the city as a bike haven, for granted.  Amsterdam's cycling infrastructure "has to improve for future generations", she asserts, because "There are almost too many cyclists and bikes."  If things continue as they are, she says, "people will stop cycling because it won't be safe".

People will stop cycling because there are too many bikes on the road?  That makes me think of Yogi Berra's observation about a restaurant:  "Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded".

Seriously, though:  She has a point.  I mean, in how many other cities  are there bicycle traffic jams?  (In New York, where I live, and other cities, one of the reasons why we ride to work is that we can pedal around traffic jams instead of getting into them!)  Also, because so many people ride to work, there aren't enough ferries, bridges and tunnels to take cyclists across the city's waterways.  Starting more ferry lines isn't an ideal solution for those who depend on their bicycles to get to work, as the ferry rides --though picturesque and free for commuters-- are time-consuming.  Building a new tunnel would be a very expensive and lengthy process, given the city's marshy soil.  And talk of building a new bridge angers harbor boat operators, who fear they--especially those who conduct cruises--could lose out.

Finally, for all the publicity Amsterdam receives as a cyclists' utopia, one only has to cross the city's boundaries, or go into neighborhoods like Nieuw West with large immigrant populations-- to find people who don't share Anna's--and other Amsterdamers'--connection to the bicycle.  Many of the immigrants come from places where people (especially women) didn't ride bikes. Others simply see cycling as unsafe and drive their kids to school. "[W]hen those kids hit 16, they get motor scooters, not bicycles," says Maud de Vries, who runs the Cycle Mayor program.

(I noticed something similar in Paris:  When I cycled through la Goutte d'Or,  into suburbs like Saint Denis and Montreuil (not to be confused with Montreuil-sur-mer) or even the bike lane on Boulevard Barbes, I did not see any other cyclists. In fact, I saw  motor scooters--and a lot of pedestrians--in the Barbes bike lane.)

Some would argue that Copenhagen has overtaken Amsterdam as the world's most bicycle-friendly major city.  To Anna Luten, "the rivalry isn't important, so long as each city is a good place to cycle."  Her efforts, and those of people like Maud de Vries, come from the belief that "cycling has the power to transform".  Such a transformation, she says, would mean that there are "more cities like Amsterdam, where cycling is so normal and accepted that we are not even aware of it."

Then, maybe, no one would have to sell cycling in Amsterdam--or anywhere else.

The Heat Wave I Escaped; What I Couldn't

The day I got to Paris, it was hot and humid.  At least, it was hot by Paris standards--or it seemed so because I wasn't expecting it.  But for the rest of my trip, the weather was mild to pleasantly warm.  The rain waited until I wasn't riding because, well, I made it wait.  (You didn't know I had such powers, did you?  I can do all sorts of things just by twitching my nose! ;-)) Thus, I had lots of nice weather for cycling, walking and picnicking along the Seine when I wasn't visiting museums and friends.

When I got back, my friend Millie--who takes care of my cats--told me I'd "dodged a bullet", if you will.  "You missed the worst heat wave," she informed me.  So, in addition to reveling in the good time I had during my trip, I counted my blessings:  I was glad not to experience temperatures high enough to melt lycra.  

I got to thinking about the first trip I took across the Atlantic:  the one in which I rode for three months in England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and back into France before deciding to stay there.  I took that trip during the summer of 1980, which was said to be the coolest and rainiest for at least a generation in most of Europe. (The weather aggravated the tendinitis in Bernard Hinault's knee and caused him to withdraw from that year's Tour de France after the twelfth stage.)  I didn't mind:  the cycling was pleasant; so were a lot of other things.  On the other hand, that summer was one of the hottest on record in much of North America, including New York and New Jersey.  And, from what I heard and read, the heat and humidity continued until October that year.

Two decades later, I spent a month cycling in France and Spain.  Once again, I "dodged" an extended heat wave in New York.  To be sure, I experienced a couple of hot days during my trip, but none like the ones that were baking the Big Apple that year.  When I returned, people told me how they sweltered on the city's concrete and asphalt; I have to admit that I felt a kind of guilty pleasure, as if I were a kid who'd just had ice cream when she wasn't supposed to.

When I got home from that tour, about a month of summer remained.  As I recall, we didn't have any really hot weather--or much rain-- for the rest of that year.  I rode a lot, long and fast and often, as far as I could from what I'd escaped--or, perhaps, merely avoided.  I was "safe"-- at least for another year, until my next trip, which would be the last I'd take in the life I'd led up to that time.  Of course, I didn't know--couldn't have known--that.

This year, going away allowed me to "dodge" one "bullet", if you will. But not another:  today the temperature reached 33C (92F) and, according to weather forecasts, will increase by a degree or two every day until Sunday.  And, as the temperature is rising, so is the humidity.

I have to admit:  I punked out today.  I didn't go for a ride, except to the college where I teach, about 10 kilometers from my apartment.  OK, I got on my bike and pedaled, but it doesn't count as a real ride, does it?  

Was my old self asking that question?  Who says every ride has to be an escape or a dodge--or that it has to be ridden at the speed, or with the intensity, of one that will never be done again?