What Color Are Their Burgers?

 An after-work ride took me through some familiar areas of Queens and Brooklyn.

When I say “familiar,” I don’t mean only that I know which streets go where.  I’ve seen some of those neighborhoods when you lived in them when you had no other choice—or where the people in them were, well, like me and my family when I was growing up and less like the person I am now. Indeed, I don’t think any of us could have imagined a woman in, ahem, middle age riding a bicycle—and writing a blog about it. 

(Of course, we didn’t know about blogs because they didn’t exist!)

Anyway, I can remember when Cobble Hill was an enclave of blue-collar Italian-Americans, like some of my relatives.  Court Street was a corridor of stores, cafes and bakeries, some of which served and sold the sorts of things what the proprietors’ families made and ate themselves.  

In other words, whether it was American, Italian or Italian-American, it was rich but unpretentious: No one tries to make the pastas, pastries, pizzas and parmigianas (chicken, eggplant or otherwise) seem like anything other than what they were. 

So all I could say was, “There went the neighborhood “ when I saw this:

There was an old joke that people like me didn’t know we came from working-class or blue-collar backgrounds until we went to college and encountered those terms in a sociology class—or people who didn’t come from those classes.

Likewise, only people  who comes from privilege can go to a place like that because it’s their idea of “blue-collar,” just as they choose to go to “dive bars” (or even call them such) if they have the monetary or social capital to go to a place people are chauffeured into.

I wonder whether those “blue collar” burgers are made from organic New Zealand grass-fed beef—and served on avocado toast and washed down with a triple IPA aged in an oak barrel previously used for a vintage wine or single-malt whiskey.

The Bike Lane Didn't Get Her There Safely

 Some who read yesterday's post might believe that I'm becoming (or already am) a whiny ingrate. But even in a relatively bike-conscious country like the UK, simply building bike lanes--even "hardened" ones--isn't enough to ensure the safety of cyclists.

Last Friday afternoon, Trish Elphinstone was riding on a designated bike path--one that is physically separated from the road it parallels.  A driver steered a black sedan across that barrier, clipped Ms. Elphinstone's front wheel and sped away.

The lane where a driver steered into Trish Elphinstone's wheel.  Google image.

The encounter left her with swelling on her shoulders and knees, in addition to a "face matted with blood" as a result of a cut above her eyebrow.  Needless to say, she spent the rest of the afternoon in an emergency room rather than the meeting she was riding to.

She admits that it's "ironic" that the meeting she missed was about road safety.  You see, just last month, she was elected from the Labour Party to represent Rose Hill and Littlemore in the Oxfordshire City Council.  She narrowly defeated Michael Anthony Evans, an Independent politician whose platform included staunch opposition to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and traffic-calming schemes, which he described as a "blunt instrument that divides neighborhoods."  

One might assume that he opposes bike lanes and anything else that might encourage people to cycle for transportation, or at least get out of their cars.

I'm not saying a conspiracy was involved when that car clipped Trish Elphinstone's front wheel--and kept her from a meeting on traffic safety.  But...

Hardened About Bike Lanes?

The Department of Transportation in New York City, my hometown, has announced that we can expect to see ten miles of new "hardened" bike lanes this year, in addition to other ("soft"?) lanes.

So what does the city mean by a "hardened" lane?  Apparently, it's one separated from traffic by a concrete or other immovable barrier, in contrast to most lanes, which "protect" cyclists from traffic with flexible bollards or lines of paint.

If a sound like a cynical curmudgeon, well, I won't deny that I am one, at least somewhat.  You see, a DOT spokesperson says that building the lanes is, in part, a response to the increasing accident and death rate for cyclists.  Now, if I weren't (snark alert) one of those mean, nasty, entitled lycra sausages, I would simper "Oh, how thoughtful of them!"

Now, I am not against "hardened" lanes or even the "soft" ones, at least in principle.  What bothers me is planners' misconceptions that are almost inevitably built into bike infrastructure in this city and country. 

Crescent Street bike lane:  the one that runs right in front of my apartment.  Photo by Edwin de Jesus.

For one thing, when motorists maim or kill cyclists, sometimes deliberately, they usually get away with little more than a "slap on the wrist."  The Police Department seems to give attacks on cyclists the same priority as bike theft--which is to say, no priority, or even less.  

To be fair, some motor vehicle-bicycle crashes are caused by miscalculations rather than malfeasance on the part of drivers.  If they haven't cycled for transportation rather than just in leisurely social spins in the park, they aren't likely to understand what are truly the safest practices--for cyclists and motorists alike--for proceeding through intersections and other situations in which drivers and cyclists meet.

But what really drives me crazy is how planners seem to give little or no thought to where they place the lanes.  Too often, they begin seemingly out of nowhere or end without warning.  That is not a mere inconvenience.  For one thing, it renders lanes impractical:  The only way cycling will ever become a respected part of this city's traffic landscape will be if it becomes a practical means of transportation for people who don't live within a few blocks of their schools or workplaces.  For another, bike lanes that don't have clear beginnings and endings, and aren't integrated with each other, put cyclists and motorists alike--and pedestrians--in more danger.

So, while hoping that the new lanes will reflect a more evolved philosophy than previous lanes did, I remain a skeptic.