It’s Not All About Aging

 Those of you who have been following this blog probably have noticed that I haven’t been posting as often as I did, say, a couple of years ago. I haven’t stopped cycling or lost interest in blogging.  Rather, I have been busy with other things, some out of necessity, others by choice.

Even though I am not working as much as I did in the spring, it seems to take up more and more of my time and, more important, my mental and emotional energy. I am exhausted when I come home. Someone suggested that it’s purely and simply a consequence of aging. The fact that I am not as young as I used to be (if you’ll indulge me a cliché) probably has something to do with how I feel.  But I think it also has to do with the changes at work and in my own life.

From MDLive

While the campus on which I teach hasn’t specifically been a target of the current Administration, I feel varying combinations of fear, gloom and despair whenever I arrive.  Much of that has to do with the upcoming “merger” with another school. I encased “merger” in quotes because the college in which I teach will lose its name and become a location of our “merger” “partner.”

Naturally, many of us wonder whether we’ll still have our jobs or will have to move in order to keep them.  Or else we worry that we will be required to abandon courses, research projects and other activities that, for some of us, are the core of our work. 

While the takeover (I’m calling it what it is) might be necessary or simply rationalize-able from financial and other standpoints, I can’t help but to think it’s a symptom of the same mindset that causes children to go hungry because of a government shutdown. Some of my students are among the poorest and, in so many other ways, most vulnerable. It’s a miracle (if I can be allowed to use a religious term) that some of them are in college and we do what we can to accommodate them in their fearfully complicated lives, let alone challenge and inspire them. Will the institution that’s taking over, which is much larger, understand their needs, both in and out of the classroom? Will it care?

Also, I have to wonder whether that larger institution, which probably receives more government money, will subject me or others to the humiliation faculty and staff members of other larger, more prominent universities (think of Columbia) have suffered.

The students, interestingly, have been nicer, even if they are too often ill-prepared. Perhaps they know that I am on their side or, at least, not “the enemy.”  A few have expressed fears that family members or they themselves will be apprehended, detained or even deported to some country they’ve never seen before.  There are times when I wonder whether I will meet such a fate, even though I am a citizen of the country in which I was born to citizen parents—while my father was serving in the military, no less.

Simply living, let alone working, in the United States , is exhausting. Japan is looking really good. So is France. And Spain. And a few other countries. They have a their crazy nationalists and religious zealots, to be sure. But even though the daytime highs were  34-37C every day I was in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, the temperature seemed a lot cooler, if you know what I mean.

The Horn Of A Dilemma

 I have never been chased by an angry bear. But I would think that even at my age, in my condition, I would have a better chance of evading ursine umbrage by pedaling rather than carrying my bike.

Especially if I were wearing cleats!

A Better Way On The Greenway

 Every once in a while, my New York Cynicism (TM) is challenged.

Remember, this is a city where it took 100 years to build a subway line that basically goes nowhere.  And there are days when I’m still surprised that the Randalls Island Connector was finished in less time than it took for the creek underneath it to form.

So you can imagine my shock upon pedaling down the Hudson River Greenway and finding this:

Now, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s just another short segment of a bike path. But it fixes what disrupted what might otherwise be the best bike lane in the Big Apple.

At West 54th Street, cyclists had to risk unfortunate encounters with tour buses, taxis and ride share vehicles headed for cruise ships and ferry boats or the Intrepid Museum. That crossing (on the far left side of the photo) wasn’t an intersection with a traffic signal like the one at Chambers Street, just north of the World Trade Center. Rather, it was a spot where the street cuts across the bike lane, with no signal, at a point where the lane curved sharply and visibility was therefore not good.

The new ribbon of asphalt curves away from that spot, away from traffic, and goes underneath an access ramp. It is not only safer; it also makes for a smoother ride with greater continuity. A cyclist can now enter the Greenway at 125th Street and not encounter another crossing until 42nd Street—a distance of about 7 kilometers. In essence, it’s now possible to spin your pedals nonstop all the way from West Harlem to Midtown. That certainly makes the Greenway a valid option for many commuters and simply a more enjoyable ride for everyone else.

I am happy we now have it, but we need more if this city’s planners and policy makers are serious about encouraging more cycling and getting more cars off the streets.