Another Reason Why Bike Lanes Aren't Safer Than The Streets

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I generally avoid the bike lanes here in New York City.  Most of them are poorly conceived, designed and constructed.  Moreover, I see more motorized bikes and scooters than pedaled bicycles on them.  Those vehicles--and the folks who operate them--are, in my experience, far more dangerous than motorcycle, auto or truck traffic.  For one thing, you can't hear the scooters or Vespa-style bikes until they're practically at your elbow.  And the people who drive them tend to be more reckless than anyone else.

But lately I've encountered other reasons not to ride on the marked lanes--even the ones separated from motor traffic by physical barriers. Lately, I've been seeing more broken glass an other debris in them.  Worse still is that the lanes seem to have become magnets for all sorts of haters and their bad behavior.

To wit:  Late yesterday, I rode two blocks down the Crescent Street lane in Astoria.  Along the way, I saw two dude-bros weaving in and out of it.  I don't know whether they were drinking, but even if their motor coordination were somewhat impaired, they could have easily walked along the sidewalk:  Few other people were using it, and there wasn't any construction or other obstructions.  But they chose to weave in and out of the bike lane, playing "chicken" with and shouting obscenities at anyone who happened to be riding by.

About three or four meters ahead of me, a young woman on a Citibike--a tourist, I'm guessing--just barely missed being entangled with them.  "F---in' bike bitch," one of them yelled.  She, and I, managed to dodge them and a delivery worker riding a motorized bike in the opposite direction.  A little further on, she stopped.  I pulled up alongside her.  She told me she was OK and thanked me. 

But I was furious. I turned around, saw the dude-bros doing their pedestrian slalom and rode right into their faces.  "Who are you callin' bike bitch?" I bellowed.

One of them tried to put on his "fight" face.  But he, his buddy and I knew he was bluffing.  "Oh, no.  We were just talking about our friend Mike Rich," the other one claimed.  

I stared at them and intoned, "OK.  Have a nice holiday."

"You do the same."

(Hmm...I guess it might've damaged their sense of themselves to get their asses kicked by a trans woman of a certain age!)

Although the exchange didn't lead to a physical confrontation or worse, I was still upset and worried:  I am seeing, and hearing about more and more aggression against cyclists, especially in bike lanes, and not only from motorists who think we've taken "their" traffic lanes and parking spaces, in this city and elsewhere.  I fear that one of us could ride into something like the attack a 46-year-old Texas cyclist suffered at the hands of a shirtless, pipe-wielding guy:

The cyclist was "shaken" but not seriously injured. Understandably, he doesn't want to ride that lane again.  Even before the attack, he had a "weird feeling" about the path, he said. "[I]t's right next to houses and there's probably a lot of NIMBYs out there."

The attacker might well have been a disgruntled homeowner. But, on seeing him, I thought of the rioters at the US Capitol on 6 January.  Looking  at the comments on the YouTube video of the attack gave me a clue as to why:  Some of those comments compared us, cyclists, to all of the folks Trumpsters love to hate:  the Bidens, Democrats in general and so on. While I'd bet that most of us voted for Biden in the last election, it hardly makes us the threat to their way of life they fancy us to be.  

Oh, I also couldn't help but to notice that one commenter said that we, and all the others they love to hate, "love protecting your pedos."  How is it that all of their fantasies about us seem to lead to pedophilia?  The bike paths in this city should have such clear destinations!

Turn The Lights On!

 Today the Winter Solistice arrives at 10:59 am local (US Eastern Standard) time.  

Given that there will be less daylight today than on any other day this year, this image seemed appropriate:

It was taken during the "Glow Ride," an annual London Cycle Link event held in October.  The ride, they say, is about visibility, specifically, to "raise awareness that you can cycle in London," according to Mateus Butterwick, LCL's program coordinator.

Those riders will have even more opportunities to use their lights today than I will:  There will be even less daylight in London than we'll have here in New York.

A Ride From Art To Marlee

 I've ridden to museums, galleries, plays, poetry readings, concerts and other cultural events.  It's one of my favorite ways to spend a day: I get to combine some of the things I love most.  

The problem, though is parking. I know, I sound like a motorist when I say that.  But only in a few venues can one bring in a bicycle. The Metropolitan Museum has bike racks in its parking garage and valet bicycle parking during certain hours.  But at most other events and venues, you take your chances with parking on the street.

A couple of days ago, during a late-day ride, I came across a solution to the problem:

The 5-50 Gallery is located, as the name indicates, at 5-50 51st Avenue in Long Island City.  More specifically, it occupies a garage--from what I can tell, a commercial one.  Converting industrial and retail spaces to use for art and performance is not new, but this gallery's space is uniquely accessible. 

No, that isn't a portait of Marlee on mushrooms.  It's one work by Kyle Gallagher, the artist featured when I stopped by. 

The paintings have a grab-you-by-the-collar quality, full of  colors that flash with, at once, the energy of street festivals and the urgency of flashing ambulance lights.  And the way cats and other living beings are rendered makes comics seem like a kind of mythology of the subconscious,  spun from threads of graffiti, street portraiture and abstraction.

All right, I know, you didn't come to this blog for two-bit art commentary. But there was something oddly appropriate, almost synchronistic, about encountering those paintings on a bike ride through an industrial-turned-trendy neighborhood.

When I got home, Marlee didn't care. She just wanted to know, "what's for dinner?"