Why Are More Cyclists Dying On NYC Streets?

The New York City Department of Transportation has reported that 2023 was the deadliest year for cyclists since 1999.  A total of 30 people lost their lives on two wheels. That represents a more than 50 percent increase from the fatality rate of the previous year, or the year before it.

Cyclist deaths in New York City

(Purple bar-traaditional bicycles.  Pink bar--eBikes)

E-bikes

Traditional bicycles

30 deaths

23

25

20

15

10

7

5

2009

2011

2013

2023

2015

2017

2019

2021

(Source:  New York City Department of Transportaion)

The number of cyclists who were killed while riding traditional non-motorized bikes (7) actually declined from any of the previous 15 years. So, the vast majority of the city's cycling fatalities were on eBikes.  Moreover, those 23 deaths in eBike crashes is more than double the number of any other year for which records have been kept.

That number is, in part, a reflection of the degree to which eBikes have, as some cyclists and pedestrians say, "taken over."  Indeed, no eBike casualties are recorded before 2014 because, before that time, there weren't significant numbers of motorized bikes on this city's streets. 

(That era--the early to mid 2010's--was also, interestingly, when the popularity of motorcycles was at its lowest ebb in at least half a century.)  

But one theme has remained constant in the past quarter-century.  About half of all bicycle and eBike deaths are a result of crashes with trucks.  A major reason for that, I believe, is that truck drivers simply don't see cyclists.  Also, delivery trucks often pull into bike lanes or the rightmost traffic lane, which is used by cyclists when a separate bike lane isn't present. Some drivers, I imagine, don't know how else to make deliveries.  Plus, there is simply more traffic of all kinds on this city's streets, in part because of ride-share services that began to proliferate at around the same time as eBikes.

A Ride Through Snowscapes

 On Saturday more snow fell than we’ve seen in a long time.  Three inches (7.5 cm) stuck to the ground here in Astoria and in Manhattan; not far away, on Staten Island and in North Jersey, some places had three or even four times as much.

Although the temperature hovered near the freezing mark, the snow was pretty fluffy—enough so that, a block from me, I thought I was looking at a cotton tree.

I don’t imagine, though, that the snow did much to protect these bikes:

The streets and, yes, even the bike lanes were plowed rather promptly—enough so that yesterday, on a Presidents’ Day ride to Point Lookout, I had to steer clear of a snow pile only once. On my return trip, I walked up the ramp to the Veterans Memorial Bridge out of precaution: I saw ice on it on the ride out.

The remaining snow made for an interesting view

that seemed like an inversion of what I saw on a previous Point Lookout ride.

Did those white caps spill their foam on the sand and grass?

A Mirror?

 Recently, I heard someone refer to cyclists as "narcissists."

Of course, my reaction was to think, "It takes one to know one."  I think that person was saying that we are entitled or a privileged class because we now have bike lanes--never mind that riding on some of them, at least here in New York, is more dangerous than cycling on the streets.

That person might have been right, in a way.  Narcissus saw his own reflection.   

Of course, we won't fall onto the pavement while kissing an image of ourselves.  At least not intentionally.

Bicycle Freeways Are Nothing New

A few years ago, a bicycle freeway opened in Beijing.  Similar elevated bike lanes have been built, or have been proposed or planned, for other cities in Europe and Asia.

Turns out, bicycle highways and freeways aren't a new idea.  Nor is one of the motivations for them.  And they weren't exclusive to bike-friendly countries like the Netherlands and Denmark. 

In fact, a bike highway once linked a sleepy town with the city that, some would argue, is the birthplace of car culture. (Is "car culture" an oxymoron?)

All right...At the time the lane was built, that city--Los Angeles--hadn't become synonymous with "freeway."  And the town the lane linked to it--Pasadena--hadn't even begun to host the Rose Bowl.

In fact, automobiles were still a novelty item and the Model T was more than two decades in the future. For that matter, asphalt wasn't in use as a paving material.  

In that environment, a fellow named Horace Dobbins (who would become Pasadena's mayor) saw the need to get to downtown L.A. quickly.  Interestingly, getting to and from various destinations in China's capital was a design feature of the bike freeway built in that city a few years ago.

Dobbins envisioned an elevated bicycle highway stretching nine miles (about 14 kilometers) between his home town and the bustling metropolis.  His proposal was embraced and the first section of the bike highway--complete with a tollboth!--opened in 1900. A mile long, stood twenty feet (seven meters) in the air, had wooden railings on its sides and linked Pasadena's Green Hotel with the base of Raymond Hill, near the city's Glenarm Street.

The view north on the Dobbins Veloway

That year is often seen as a "tipping point," not only because it was the turn of the century.  Many then-current and developing events, ideas and inventions would shape the rest of the century and this one.  One of those inventions was, of course, the automobile.

And cars are, not surprisingly, why the Dobbins Veloway, as it was called, was never completed. Within a few years, the lane--the two miles of it that had been built--was torn down.  Ironically, the land rights that had been secured to construct it were used to build the Arroyo Seco/Pasadena Freeway, commonly recognized as the oldest freeway in the United States.

 

What Color Is Your Lane?

What do Amsterdam and Austin have in common?

Well, they both begin with the same letter.  And they're capitals:  one of a nation, the other of a US State that was once, albeit briefly, a nation and sometimes acts as if it still is one.

Otherwise, I'd guess that they don't share much.  Then again, I haven't been to the Dutch city in a while, and I've never been to the center of the Lone Star State.

I have just learned, however, that they do share a trait that most people wouldn't notice, unless they were cyclists.  It has to do with bike lanes.

In New York, San Francisco and other American cities, they're painted green. That color was chosen because it stands out against the rest of the pavement and isn't easily confused with, say, a parking or bus lane. While it's great for visibility, it makes a bike lane more expensive to build and maintain because it's a coat of paint over asphalt, which wears away even when it's covered with a clear sealant.  Also, the particular shade of green used on bike lanes is more expensive to make than other colors.  

And there is another problem: Depending on the paint used, the surface can become slippery in wet weather. That might be one reason why Amsterdam doesn't paint its lanes green--or any other color.  Instead, a red  pigment is mixed with asphalt to yield a rather lovely terra cota hue.

Photo from the City of Austin

I don't know whether Austin's planners were looking to their Dutch counterparts when they designed their city's bike lanes.  They did, however, adopt the same system--and color--for the bicycle byways.  One reason is the aforementioned cost.  But just as rain wears paint away, so does heat--which, from what I understand, Austin experiences for months on end. 

While the terra cota shade is not the kind of red used to denote Texas politics, it's still rather ironic that the color is used on bike lanes in one of the state's "blue" islands. 

On Ice

 Last week, we in New York City got our first measurable snow in nearly two years. A couple of lighter snowfalls followed and the temperature didn’t reach the freezing point for almost a week.

During that time, snow fell, it seems, over every part of the United States not named Florida or Hawai’i. Cyclists, wheelchair users and pedestrians thus had the complaint I am about to mention.

While the Department of Sanitation quickly cleared streets and most property owners promptly shoveled and salted their sidewalks and other common areas, bike lanes and even the rightmost part of traffic lane were patchy or sheets of ice. I didn’t take any long rides—just commutes and errand runs. But at times, those rides seemed like expeditions. I actually got off my bike and walked one stretch of the Williamsburg Bridge when it’s lane was impassable. And I resorted to riding on sidewalks—something I all but never do—for stretches of half a block or so.

I didn’t take any photos. But the folks at Bike Portland documented a similar situation in their city.

What Won’t Get Them To Ride

 In my childhood and adolescence, I imagined England as a quintessential cycling country.  After all, those Raleigh, Dunelt, Philips and Dawes three-speed bikes—“English Racers”—took people between homes, farms, factories and schools. At least, that was the image of the country we got from movies and magazines.  And those “English Racers” seemed, on the eve of the ‘70’s Bike Boom, as exotic as the latest Tour de France or World Championship track bike looks today—never mind that three-speeds bore as much relation to those bikes as a hay wagon to a Formula 1 car.

In other words, to neophyte cyclists like me who had never been more than a state or two—let alone an ocean—away from home, Albion seemed like today’s Amsterdam or Copenhagen.

Of course, my first trip there—the first part of my first European bike tour, in 1980–would change that image for me.  To be sure, I saw more people riding for transportation and recreation than I encountered in New Jersey, where I had just graduated from Rutgers College.  But people, while helpful, wondered why an American would come to their country—to ride a bicycle.

Perhaps that experience, and subsequent visits, make something I read more plausible: According to a newly-released government survey, 7 out of 10 Britons never ride a bicycle.

Perhaps even less surprising are the reasons why people don’t ride and what might persuade them to get on the saddle.  They’re less surprising, at least to me, because they’re the same reasons I hear in my home city and nation of New York and the United States.

The chief reason why people on both sides of the pond won’t ride, they say, is that they wouldn’t feel safe. Where perceptions might diverge a bit is in what might make them safer.  While a majority New Yorkers and Americans say bike lanes might entice them, only 29 percent of English respondents cited them. On the other hand, the two most common improvements—safer roads and better road surfaces—were cited by 61 and 51 percent, respectively, of English people.

What accounts for their perceptions? I think it might be that even if the vast majority of English people don’t ride bicycles, many still have memories of parents, grandparents or other adults pedaling to the shop or classroom on the same roads used by motorists. In other words, they didn’t see cyclists segregated from traffic. 

Few Americans have such memories. Moreover, they grew up inculcated with the idea that bicycles were for kids who weren’t old enough to drive. 

So, the British survey is interesting in that it shows a common perception—cycling isn’t safe—but a difference in the perception of what could make it safer and therefore more appealing.

Riding The Buffalo

 Bicycle enthusiasts—whether we sprint to finish lines, cross cities or continents or simply appreciate technology and fine workmanship—are ripples in the ocean of the bicycle world.

That fact is easy to miss or ignore if you live in a Western/Global North city with bike lanes and well-stocked shops, or if you do all of your bike-related shopping online. It didn’t become real to me until I went for a ride in the Cambodian countryside with a native and both of us rode bikes like the ones people in the area ride.

People who haul their stuff and themselves—I’m not talking about someone in Williamsburg or Portland picking up artisanal bread at the local farmers’ market—don’t ride the latest high-tech carbon fiber wheels and frames with 12- (13?)-speed electronic shifting systems. For one thing, they can’t afford such things.  For another, in the Global South—especially in rural areas—there isn’t a shop stocked with the necessary parts, equipped with the required tools and staffed by mechanics trained to use them—or any bike shop at all. And two- or three-day shipping isn’t available in those areas, even if the shop or an individual has internet access and can order.

Moreover, roads tend to be less developed and maintained, if they exist at all. A laden bike might be ridden on a trail or even on parched or sodden earth.

Bikes lead hard lives under such conditions.  Therefore, reliability and simplicity are the paramount qualities.

World Bicycle Relief—an organization I’ve mentioned in previous posts—understands as much.  In response, they’ve developed the Buffalo Bike, consisting of a rugged steel frame and a coaster brake.

In addition, WBR has trained over 3000 mechanics to keep those bikes rolling, mainly in Africa and South America.  Trek has partnered with WBR to ensure distribution and repair of those bikes.

According to WBR, it takes $165 to provide one of those bikes and keep it rolling.  That is less than what most department store bikes sell for in North America or Europe, and Buffalo Bikes are sturdier and require less maintenance.

Crossing The Line Into A Collision

Once again, Florida leads the nation in bicycle deaths and injuries, overall and per capita.  And it's not even close:  the next-worst state--Louisiana--has about half of Florida's numbers and rates.

Having cycled in the Sunshine State, I could see why there the body count is so high.  Many thoroughfares are "stroads:"  multi-lane streets, avenues or boulevards that cut a straight line from Point A to Point B.  Such an arrangement seems to bring out the inner Dale Earnhardt in drivers. Also, those "stroads" are not only the most direct routes from one place to another:  They're often the only routes.  Worse yet, they often don't have "service" or emergency lanes or even sidewalks, let alone bike lanes.

The arrangements I've described can be especially difficult to acclimate to if you come from a place that isn't as auto- and driver-centric as Florida.   Just as my teachers and professors didn't teach me about female, queer or Black writers because they weren't taught them themselves, I think many drivers have the idea that the road belongs to them and nothing should be in their way because, well, they were inculcated with such a notion at a young age--and it was reinforced by road an highway engineering that prioritized moving motor vehicles as quickly and efficiently as possible from one point to another.

The conditions I've described had at least something to do with one of the more horrific car-bike crashes I've heard  of. Fortunately, it didn't add to Florida's death toll, though at least one of the cyclists involved has "incapacitating" injuries.

Notice that I said "at least."  The driver involved in this confrontation was piloting her Kia SUV south in the southbound lane of North Ocean Boulevard Gulf Stream, a Palm Beach County community.  A group of eight cyclists was riding northbound, in the northbound lane.

For some as-yet-unexplained reason, the 77-year-old driver crossed the center line dividing the two lanes.  The front of her vehicle met--with great force--the front of a 43-year-old cyclist and struck the others who were riding with him.

Perhaps not surprisingly, he's the one with the "incapacitating" injury.  Three other cyclsts had "serious" injuries; they, the others and the driver were brought to the hospital's trauma unit. 

I hope everyone--yes, including the driver--recovers and she explains, or someone figures out, why she veered across that road.  And I hope--though, I realize, this is a very long hope, especially with Ron De Santis in the governor's mansion--that Florida makes itself safer for cyclists, many of whom are tourists or, like me, were visiting family members.

Kevin Duggan Knows

 

Great minds think alike.

So I've heard.  Now, I am not going to tell you that I am a "great mind."  But I know when someone is thinking like a cyclist--in particular, a cyclist in New York City.

Kevin Duggan is such a person.  His latest article in Streetsblog NYC tells me as much.

In it, he lauds a new series of bike lanes I've already ridden a few times.  But he also said they are part of the "groundwork" for a "much-needed safe transportation network in the neighborhoods of Western Queens.

Astoria, where I live, is part of Western Queens.  There is already a lane--which is far from ideal--on my street and a few others.  But those extant lanes do not form a coherent network that would allow a cyclist or, for that matter, anyone not driving, a safe, reliable and efficient way to traverse the area between its bridges, schools, workplaces, shopping areas, parks, museums and the residences of people like me.

Nor do the new lanes about which Duggan writes.  Oh, one of them, along 11th Street, is protected by concrete barriers along some stretches and a lane of parked cars along others.  And it connects, if not seamlessly, with two other lanes along other major thoroughfares--Jackson Avenue and 44th Avenue-- in the neighborhood.  But they don't offer something else they could:  a safe and easy way to access the Pulaski Bridge, which connects the Queens neighborhood Long Island City (an area about 4 kilometers south of my apartment) to Greenpoint, Brooklyn--and has a protected bike lane.

Moreover, the Jackson Avenue and 44th Avenue lanes, which run east-west, doesn't connect (yet) with the lane along Vernon Boulevard--a north-south lane like 11th Street.  And there is no lane to connect Vernon or 11th to Crescent Street or other lanes that take cyclists to the RFK Memorial Bridge and other useful, relevant and interesting places.

Kevin Duggan understands.  I can only hope that the planners will, some day soon.

(Photo by Kevin Duggan for Streetsblog.  Map from New York City Department of Transportation.)

Faster Than A Speeding Merckx?

Did Eddy Merckx ever get a speeding ticket?  

I don't mean for his driving--which I never hear about.  Rather, I ask whether he was summonsed while on his bicycle.

Somehow I doubt it.  Even in his home region of Flanders, which has produced more than its share of great racers (especially sprinters), I don't think there's anyone who could have caught him, on a bike or in a car.

So what brought the question of "The Cannibal" being fined for exceeding a posted speed limit to my mind?

This:  The other day, Flemish Mobility Minister Lydia Peeters announced that new speed cameras and average speed checks will be installed on bicycle streets by Spring 2024, pending approval from the Flemish government.

Bicycle streets differ from bike lanes in that cars are allowed in them, but drivers must give way to, and cannot overtake, cyclists. According to Peeters, the cameras will help to enforce that rule--and the speed limit of 30kph (18.64 mph).  

Yes, bicycles have to adhere to the speed limit, as well as cars. Ultimately, Peeters says, the goal speed limits and cameras is to make cycling safer which, she believes, will encourage more people to ride. While identifying motorists who break the rule would be easy enough, it's less so for cyclists, who don't have license plates.  Somehow, though, I imagine that Eddy, even at his advanced age, is one of the more recognizable--and identifiable--people in his homeland.

A Path Through Vermont?

 

Image by Markus Spiske via Pexels

Someone, I forget whom, quipped that the definition of a Canadian is someone who lives as close as possible to the United States without living in it. That makes sense when you realize the country’s largest cities—Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver—all lie within 100 miles of the border.

That same wag might’ve said that the idea of US Route 5 might’ve been a highway as close as possible to New Hampshire without actually crossing into the Granite State. That is exactly what the thoroughfare does for much of its Vermont segment along the Connecticut River, the Green Mountain State’s boundary with New Hampshire.

Route 5 is extremely popular with tourists, as it passes through many towns and villages that are more picturesque than any place has a right to be. It also links the rest of New England with Québéc.

And, having cycled in Vermont, I can’t recommend it highly enough, whether in the spring, summer or its incomparable fall foliage season. The one drawback I could see is that being mainly a rural state, you have to know it—or go with a local—if you want to ride the less-trafficked roads. That can make it more difficult to plan a multi day tour or even a commute and, perhaps, keeps cycling from being even more popular than it is.

Now the Vermont Agency of Transportation, commonly known as VTrans, is taking feedback from municipalities along Route 5 for a possible bike route that would parallel the corridor from Vermont’s southern boundary with Massachusetts to its northern border with Québéc. The route would consist of separate protected lanes for some of its length and on-road painted lanes in other parts.

One of the difficulties in building such a route is that it would require the cooperation—financial and otherwise—of the many towns and villages along its way. While some balk at the possible cost and time commitments, others—like Fairlee—also see an opportunity because such a bike route would link already-existing bike routes as well as the towns themselves.

My hope for such a project is that actual cyclists are involved in planning, designing and building it.  Too many bike lanes I’ve ridden seem to have lacked the understanding that comes from spending time in the saddle.

JFK: What If?

 

I hesitated to write this post.  But even if what I say seems irrelevant or simply wrong, I have to say it.

As you’ve heard by now, sixty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

I was a very, very young child that day.  My memories of that time are not of the event itself, but of people expressing grief or—to use a word that I wouldn’t learn until many years later.  Even in Brooklyn, where I lived at the time, there were people who hated Kennedy as much as any Klan member, and for the same reasons.

I would say, though, that grief or, at least, shock. He was the first Roman Catholic to become President, and most of the people in my neighborhood shared his faith or, at least, attended the same kinds of churches.  Most of the non-Catholics in our community were Jewish—working-class, like us—and felt as much as we did that JFK “belonged” to them.

I’ll spare you all of the hackneyed rhetoric about the youthfulness and optimism he radiated. And I won’t insult your intelligence by repeating that oft-echoed canard that the nation “lost its innocence” that day.  This nation was never innocent; nor was any other, ever.

And for all that he accomplished, his re-election in 1964 probably wouldn’t have been a “slam-dunk.” People referred to the states south of the Mason-Dixon Line as the “Solid South:”  Democrats had won most elections, from those for Congress and governors’ mansion all the way down to dog-catcher, for the century that had elapsed since the Civil War. But the “Dixiecrats” had completely different ideas about race relations and other issues from those of Democrats like Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt. They, however, needed Dixiecrats’ support not only to win elections, but also to pass legislation.

It almost goes without saying that if JFK had lived and won the next election, we would be living in a very different—and, I believe, better—country. For one thing, it would be easier (though not easy; it never is) to be non-White, non-male, non-heterosexual non-cisgender and non-wealthy. I think legislation intended to guarantee the rights of people I’ve mentioned (who include me) would have passed sooner and wouldn’t have been weakened.

I also think we’d be in a “greener” country.  JFK was the first President since pre-war JFK whose guiding principles included environmental consciousness. Most of his efforts focused on coastal landscapes because those were most familiar to him as someone who sailed from Cape Cod. But I believe that his consciousness about the natural world would have expanded—which would have helped to foster an environment that encouraged research and development of cleaner energy sources—at least in part because of his friendship with Rachel Carlson.

Who knows?  If Kennedy had lived and served longer, the bicycle might be seen as a mode of transportation and not a toy for kids-or adults. Might we have more and better bike lanes? Would my hometown of New York be the new New Amsterdam?

They Won’t Obey The Law. So Why Pass It?

 

Community Board 6, Manhattan . Photo by Kevin Dugan for Streetsblog NYC.

People kill people. Therefore, laws against homicide and manslaughter are pointless.

Any lawyer who made such a statement probably wouldn’t be a lawyer for much longer. And anyone else who uttered it might be committed—or, in some places, elected.

While nobody in Manhattan’s Community Board 6–which includes the east side of the borough from 14th to 59th Street, one member of that wise and worldly body said something that is, at least to mind, just as logically flawed.

Or could it be that Jason Froimowitz has access that I lack to powers of reasoning. He was reactingto a bill, proposed by City Council Member Robert Holden, that would require, “ every bicycle with electric assist, electric scooter, and other legal motorized vehicle that is not otherwise required to be registered with the DMV, to be registered with DOT and receive an identifying number which would be displayed on a visible plate affixed to the vehicle.”

That sounds good on its face. But, perhaps not surprisingly for anything from Holden—who’s never met a cop or car he didn’t like—it’s not very well thought-out.  For one thing,  doesn’t address a legal loophole that allows moped buyers to leave the shop without registering the vehicle. So someone could buy a moped and the city would be none the wiser—and thus unable to enforce a mandate to plate.

The bill also does not acknowledge a major source of dangerous moped and ebike operation:  food delivery apps, which guarantee customers that their ramen will be delivered within 15 minutes or some similar time frame.  As it stands, delivery services and the restaurants that employ them face no penalties when their delivery workers maim or kill someone.

To be fair, requiring registration—from the point of sale onward—would make it easier to hold Doordash and their ilk to account, in part because the police will have one less excuse for not enforcing bans on motorized vehicles in bike and pedestrian lanes—and for not citing dangerous operation on the streets.

Froimowitz's objection to the bill, however, has nothing to do with the flaws I have enumerated.  Rather, he seems to think that passing any law to address the issue is pointless.  This would-be bastion of jurisprudential logic instead offers up this analogy as his reason for voting against the bill:

We currently require registration and license plates for motor vehicles in New York City and there is a prolific problem of vehicles obstructing, and removing, and defacing those license plates, so I fail to see how a solution requesting new implementation of  license plates would be effective. 

Before I proceed, I must say that I fail to see how a vehicle can obstruct, remove or deface a license plate.  And I am trying to wrap my head around "a prolific problem."  When someone or something is "prolific," they produce something in abundance, whether it's fruit from a tree or writing from a blogger.  A problem does not produce anything; it is produced and whatever produces it might be prolific if it is making more problems or anything else.

Now that I have pointed out the mixed metaphors and overall lazy use of language by a member of a community board that includes some of the city's most affluent and presumably best-educated residents, I will say, in fairness, that he is right on one count:  No regulation will stop all dangerous, discourteous and simply stupid behavior.  But to use that as a reason not to require registration and plating is a bit like saying that there shouldn’t be any restrictions on guns because someone, somewhere will find a way around them.

Bike In The Bus Lane

One valid criticism of bike lanes, and bicycle infrastructure generally, is that they’re constructed mainly in gentrified or gentrifying neighborhoods. Whenever someone suggests that the lanes, bike parking facilities and bike share programs into neighborhoods populated by people who are darker or poorer than those in Williamsburg or Chelsea, the excuse for not “sharing the wealth ,” if you will, is that “people don’t ride bikes” in areas like Jamaica, Queens.

That is a point Samuel Santella makes on Streetsblog.  He lives in Saint Albans, a southern Queens community that is a “transportation desert:” it is not served by the New York City subway system and only a couple of bus lines traverse it. So, its residents—nearly 90 percent of whom are Black—either drive or, like Santella, ride their bicycles, whether to their destinations or to the subway in nearby Jamaica.  

Sound on for commentary pls 🙏 pic.twitter.com/HHzMHZhQSI

— Samuel Santaella 🚎🤝🚲 (@TransitNinja205) November 11, 2021

Many New York City neighborhoods like Jamaica have a “downtown” that is a commercial district and transportation hub. Santella, as he recounts in his piece, rides to Jamaica to take the subway to Brooklyn.  He shows how it’s difficult to cycle safely on any of the thoroughfares that lead to the train stations. Hillside and Jamaica Avenues are essentially “stroads,” while Archer Avenue has a bus lane that are, technically, illegal for cycling. And all of those streets are chaotic messes of delivery vehicles and “dollar vans” that ferry people from neighborhoods like his to the subway and Long Island Rail Road (yes, it’s spelled as two words) stations.

I know what he’s talking about: I sometimes ride those streets. As a matter of fact, I cycled them almost daily for seven years, when I worked at York College, in the middle of Jamaica.  I experienced some of the pandemonium he describes, which is undoubtedly worse than it was when I was making the commute in pre-pandemic, pre-Uber days when SUVs, while growing in popularity, didn’t dominate the roads as they do now.

Does He Understand Why People Don’t Cycle to Work?

 

Jalopnik is ostensibly about cars and “transportation.”  Quite a few of its articles, however, seem to be anti-bike rants in the guise of “reporting” about cyclists’ actual and perceived transgressions against motorists.

Then there is Owen Bellwood’s article, published yesterday.  The title—“0f Course People Don’t Want to Bike to Work”—is a clue to the tone, if not the content, of his article.

For a few paragraphs, Bellwood seems to be on the right track.  He cites poor infrastructure—including bike parking (or lack thereof), showers or other facilities for cleaning and changing clothes at workplaces (again, or lack thereof) and bike lanes—as a major reason why people in New York and other American cities won’t bike to work. He also mentions drivers who use bike lanes for passing, parking or picking up or discharging passengers or packages.

Bellwood also correctly identifies the poor design and pure-and-simple muddled thinking behind too many bike lanes.  As he wryly notes, “It’s not good enough to have a bike painted in the road to warn cars that a cyclist might come through.” And he echoes an observation I’ve made in previous posts: “[W]e can definitely do better than a few floppy plastic bollards separating a cyclist from a 4000 pound pickup truck.”

He sums up by saying that “space” is “all that cyclists are asking for.” We need “space on the road and space to park up,” he says.  I agree with him on those points. But he also falls into a common misperception that I once shared:  Educating drivers will help to improve cycling safety.  I know that many unfortunate encounters between drivers and cyclists result from motorists’ lack of awareness of what safe cycling actually entails, which doesn’t always align with motorists’ perceptions. On the other hand, many more cyclists are maimed or killed by road rage or drivers who simply don’t care about anyone but themselves.

That latter category of drivers won’t be changed through “education.” Though not uniquely American, such drivers are more common in the US because of our car-centered and individualistic culture. Bellwood can be forgiven, I believe, for not understanding as much—and that such motorists won’t be “cured” through “education”- because he is an Englishman.  But I also believe that at least his cultural background—and his familiarity with cycling culture in his home nation as well as countries like Denmark—gives him an awareness of how things could be better in my hometown and home country of New York and the USA.

The Ghosts At Norwich

  “Ghost” bikes originated in Amsterdam during the 1960s. Anarchists painted bicycles white and left them on the streets for people to use.

Around the turn of this century, artists began to make “ghost” bikes from abandoned bikes, some of which were stripped of their parts.  They were purely artistic expressions until October 2003, when Patrick Van Der Tuin placed a white-painted bike and a sign reading “Cyclist Struck Here” on a St. Louis street. 

Within a couple of years, “ghost” bike monuments began to appear on streets in New York and other American cities. Soon afterwards, they started to show up in other parts of the world.

Nearly all of those monuments have been placed on or near the sites where cyclists were struck by motorized vehicles.  Members of the Norwich Cycling Campaign decided that members of their English city’s council need a daily reminder of the six cyclists who have been killed on city streets this year.  So, Campaign placed six “ghost” bikes outside the Council’s offices.

“Each of the white bikes symbolizes a failure to keep people safe on our roads,” declared Campaign chair Peter Silburn. He added,  “These deaths are not accidents, they are the result of policies that prioritize the convenience of car drivers over people’s safety.”

The Campaign wants the city to install more cycle lanes, lower speeds on urban roads and fewer cars. I hope the “ghost” bike installation helps to deliver the message—and results.

No Bikes On The Right

Since the death of Generalissimo Franco in 1975, Spain has gone from being a conservative Catholic bastion to one of the most seemingly liberal and progressive countries in Europe and, indeed the world.  As an example, in 2005 it became the third nation on the planet--after the Netherlands and Belgium--to legalize same-sex marriage.

Note that I used the word "seemingly."  As in other countries, liberalism and tolerance of racial, ethnic, sexual and gender-expression minorities is found mainly in the large cities.  Rural areas and other places far removed from cities either remained conservative or were part of a "backlash" --which included animus against immigrants--that boosted right-wing politicians and parties into power.

In this sense, a recent development in Elche is not surprising.  A coalition of right- and far-right parties now rules the third-largest city in the Valencia region. They are un-doing what previous administrations did or started--including a bike lane in the center of town. 

Moreover, the city's new government wants to increase the amount of space allotted for cars on the city's streets because--tell me if you haven't heard this before--bike lanes "take away parking spaces" and "cause traffic jams."

It seems that right-wing politicians and their supporters see cyclists and bike lanes as easy targets.  Part of that, I believe, is that in a departure from times past, much of the native working class--who form much of the base of support, as they do for the Republican Party in the United States--either work in auto-related industries or are car-dependent in one way or another.  Cycling is therefore seen as attack on their way of life.

Also, in Elche the bike lane, like others in European cities, was funded in part by a European Union fund to develop "low emission zones"--of which the newly-dismantled bike lane.  Right-wing nationalists can therefore depict bike lanes and other sustainability projects as "overreach" by far-away bureaucrats, whether in Brussels (for the EU) or in Washington DC or state capitals (in the US).

It seems that everywhere a nation or group of people tries to make its country or community more sustainable and livable, the pushback comes from the political right--and bicycles and cyclists are among the first targets.

Their City Is Dying. Blame The Bike Lane.

Recently, another neighbor of mine lamented that the bike lane on our street--Crescent, in Astoria, Queens--is "ruining the neighborhood."

"How?" I asked.

"It used to be so easy to park here.  Now it's impossible," she complained.

I didn't express that I found her cri de coeur ironic given that she doesn't drive.  I believe, however, that she knew what I was thinking:  "When I did drive, one of the reasons I moved here from Manhattan was so that I could have a car.  So did a lot of other people."

To be fair, the reason she doesn't drive is an injury incurred in--you guessed it--a car crash.  So while I conceded that some folks--like the ones who pick her up for errands and outings--need to drive, I pointed out that others could do their chores by walking or biking and their commutes on buses or trains--or bikes.  "Didn't people find it harder to park as more cars came into the neighborhood."

"Yeah, but the bike lane made things worse."

In one sense, I agree with her:  the bike lane was poorly-conceived and -placed.  But blame for decades' worth of traffic and parking congestion on bike lanes that are only a few years old seems, to me, just a bit misplaced.

It seems that such mistaken vilification is not unique to my neighborhood or city--or to American locales in general.  In the UK city of Doncaster, "cycle paths, pedestrianisation and poor bus planning" are "slowly choking our wonderful city centre."  Nick Fletcher, a Tory MP, heaped on the hyperbole, begging planners to "reverse this trend" before "Doncaster becomes a ghost town."

What is the "trend" he's talking about?  The one he and others claim they saw unfold in nearby Sheffield:  a plan to turn downtowns into "15 minute cities," where all of the businesses and services a resident needs are within a 15 minute walk or bike ride. Fletcher and other conservative MPs see such plans the way much of today's Republican Party sees vaccination, mask-wearing during a pandemic, teaching actual history and science and shifting from fossil to sustainable fuels:  as "socialist conspiracies."

Doncha' no"?  They're part of a socialist conspiracy to destroy their city!

Where I live is, in effect, a 15 minute city:  Whatever one's needs, interests or preferences, they can be reached within that time frame, without a motorized vehicle.  Even midtown Manhattan is reachable in that time when the trains are running on time.  And in my humble judgment, Astoria is hardly a "ghost town."  Nor are neighboring Long Island City, Sunnyside or Woodside--or Greenpoint in Brooklyn-- all of which are, or nearly are, 15 minute cities. 

Oh, and from what I've heard and read, Sheffield and Doncaster are both "post industrial" cities in South Yorkshire.  Steel is no longer made in Sheffield, once the nation's center of that industry, just as coal and mining were once, but are no longer, synonymous with Doncaster's identity.  Both cities have endured losses of population that disproportionately include the young and the educated.  So it seems as ludicrous to blame bike lanes and bus routes, even "poorly planned" ones, for turning those cities into "ghost towns" as it does to blame a poorly-conceived bike lane for the lack of parking in a neighborhood to which people moved from Manhattan so they could have cars.