The title of this blog is "Midlife Cycling." Even though I've been writing it for 11 1/2 years, I'm still in the middle of my life. Really, I am. I may have slowed down a bit since my youth, but I'm not old.
I'm still in the middle of my life. And riding my bike.
Yesterday I decried, as I often do, the sorry state of bike lanes here in New York City and much of the US. It seems that bike and pedestrian lanes are, too often, conceived and designed by people who never have actually set foot, let alone walked or ridden a bike, where the lanes are built. The result is lanes that actually put bicyclists and pedestrians in more danger than they'd experience without it and that don't offer safe and practical routes to and from wherever people live, work, go to school or shop.
Well, it seems that some folks in Tulsa, Oklahoma are reading this blog--or they have great minds that think like mine. ;=) They are doing at least part of what I think anyone planning a bike or pedestrian lane should do. What's more, they plan to continue the practice for at least a year.
The other day, some of the city's business owners, neighborhood association members, city councilors and other citizens took the first "walk audit" of an area with crash areas. More such "walk audits" will be conducted through the coming year. The purpose is to determine what needs to be changed in order to make those areas safer for walking, cycling and using public transportation.
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| Photo by Josh New, for Oklahoma Magazine |
It sounds like a good idea, although I'd also like to see "bike audits": Much, but not all, of what will make walking safer will also help cyclists. As an example, the audit identified a lack of sidewalks in one area which, of course, forces pedestrians to walk in the street. While I certainly favor installing a sidewalk, it generates this question: Will cyclists and other wheeled (but non-motorized) vehicles be permitted on it? In some places, like some areas of Florida I've ridden, bike lanes double as sidewalks (or vice versa, depending on your point of view). That works out as long as there isn't a high volume of pedestrian or bicycle traffic, which seems to go against the purpose of having safe bike and pedestrian routes.
So, I think the good folks of Tulsa have begun to move in the right direction. Now I'd like to see whether they expand their efforts, and whether they can export them--or whether they will be imported by--cities like the one in which I live.
I ride the bike lane on Crescent Street in Astoria only because it passes directly in front of my apartment--and I use it only to get home or to a street that will take me wherever I'm going.
In that sense, the Crescent Street lane is actually better than some: It not only takes me to my apartment; it also provides a direct connection between two major bridges with bike lanes: the Triborough/RFK and Queensborough/59th Street.
For a while, I was crossing the Triborough almost every day to work, and often use it for rides to points north, including Connecticut. But I take the Queensborough/59th Street only if I'm going to someplace within a few blocks of the Manhattan side. If I'm going to Midtown or downtown Manhattan, I prefer to pedal into Brooklyn and cross the Williamsburg or Manhattan Bridges.
The reason I like those bridges better is that the bike lanes are relatively wide and accessible. The Queensborough/59th Street Bridge, on the other hand, is--like the Crescent Street lane--narrow. How narrow? Well, I've come within a chain link width of brushing, or being brushed by, cyclists traveling in the opposite direction.
That problem has been exacerbated by motorized bikes and scooters. I was under the impression that they're supposed to be limited to a maximum speed of 40 kph (about 25 mph). But I've seen more than a few that were traveling well above that speed. And I have seen many more of them than cyclists run red lights, make careless turns and sideswipe cyclists and pedestrians.
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| Photo by Scott Gries--Getty Images |
I know I'm not the only one who's noticed. Christopher Ketcham said as much yesterday, in a New York Daily News guest editorial. He also points out something I've mentioned: It's illegal to operate those motorized vehicles in bike lanes. People do it; they endanger others; cops see it and do nothing.
Ketcham described such a scenario of which he had to be a part. Someone riding a motorized bike nearly knocked him off his bike on the Manhattan Bridge Lane. When he stopped to complain to the cops sitting on the complain to two cops stationed on the Manhattan side, one of them said, "We're here for the bikes."
So that officer admitted what many of us know: the police come after us because we're easy prey--and because, as former Transportation Alternatives head Charlie Komanoff said, "Cycling is everything cops are acculturated to despise: urban, improvisatory and joyous rather than suburban, rulebook and buttoned-up." I have noticed the hostility he and Ketcham describe even in cops who patrol on bicycles: I suspect that none of them ride when they're off the clock.
Some might say that Ketcham, Komanoff and I are paranoid or "not seeing the whole picture." Well, if we can't see from the proverbial 30,000 feet, we certainly can look through the wide-angle lens of statistics: In 2019, the NYPD handed cyclists 35,000 tickets for all sorts of infractions, from not having bells (more about that in a moment) to running red lights (even when, as I have described, crossing at the red light is safer for the cyclist and drivers). Truck drivers received 400 fewer tickets, although there are ten times as many trucks as bicycles on New York City streets.
When Ketcham complained to the cops at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge, they gave him a $98 ticket--for not having a bell and, allegedly, for yelling at the officers, according to the "Description/Narrative" portion of the ticket.
I wonder how many folks driving motorized bikes were ticketed for riding illegally in bike lanes (or on sidewalks), sideswiping cyclists and pedestrians--or yelling at police officers.
