Every city's mass transit system has its own rules about bringing bicycles onto trains, buses and other vehicles within the system. Here in the New York Metropolitan area, each part of the system seems to have its own regulations. For example, on PATH trains, bikes are allowed only in certain cars on the train, while on Long Island Rail Road and Metro North and New Jersey Transit trains, bikes are allowed during certain hours and in certain areas of each car.
On the other hand, in New York City subways, there don't seem to be any rules at all. At least, I haven't found any, aside from a prohibition against locking a bicycle to any part of a station, such as a gate. But there is a certain unwritten etiquette which, from what I've seen, nearly every cyclist follows. Mostly, it's common courtesy: Don't block doorways or get in people's way, and try to keep your grimy bike away from passengers' clean clothes. And try not to bring your bike on the train during rush hours!
I try not to bring my bike onto the subway at all, not out of fear, but mostly out of pride. I prefer to ride the entire length of my route whenever I can; I'd rather be riding my bike on even the busiest streets than wheeling or holding it in a crowded subway car. If I've had a mechanical breakdown or some other problem (thankfully, these things have been rare for me) and have no other way of getting to a bike shop, home, work or wherever else I have to be, I'll get on the train. Also, if I stay out later than I'd planned and I don't have lights with me, or if it's a cold day and it starts to rain heavily, I'll get on the train for safety and health reasons. But I try, at all costs, to avoid "bailing out" because of tiredness. That, to me, is an admission of defeat. I can't remember the last time I did that, but I can recall one or two occasions when I got on the train because I just didn't feel like riding anymore.
I wonder what this guy was thinking and feeling when he got on the train:
Some have called last night's debate "depressing".
I was too much in shock to be depressed. The last time I felt that way about an event in which I was not personally involved was on 11 September 2001.
Like many other people here in New York, I was stunned for days, for weeks, afterward. Then came grief, a sense of loss: Even though I didn't lose anyone I knew in the events of that day, I felt a sense of loss. When a complete stranger cried on my shoulder, I held her until she got off the bus we were riding. We didn't speak and I never saw her again. Each of us understood, I believe, and gave each other what we needed in that moment.
I had not thought about that encounter in years, until now. Some have seen that time as a kind of Fall, when this country lost its collective innocence. The days and weeks that followed--which, as I recall, were unusually warm for the time of year--did not feel autumnal.
The holidays, like the days that preceded and followed them, passed through a kind of gray storm in which needles of ice rained down even on the clearest of days. Those first glacial spears stung; the ones that followed stunned; after that, I was too numb to feel the rest, for a long time.
There may have been a Fall that year. But the season that followed did not feel Autumnal: that October and November felt just like the following January and February, in no small part because those months were--up to that time--the warmest winter months this city had experienced.
Today, in contrast, felt exactly the way some of us might have, at some time in our lives, expected a day from this time of year to feel. Today began overcast but turned, rather quickly, into an afternoon with a blue sky lit by intense sunlight that hinted at the sunset that would tinge the horizon a few hours later. The morning's chill had, by that time, turned into a nip.
In other words, it felt like the Fall day it is. It was that day when one realizes that the season is well underway: It's no longer possible to say that summer has just passed, but winter, though everyone knows it will come, does not yet seem imminent.
Fewer cars and taxis and buses plied the street on which I live, or the avenue around the corner or the other streets that branched from it, than one sees on a typical Monday. The reason, of course, is that today is a holiday (as I like to say, for a guy who got lost): the one that always seems, to me, the one that signals that it is indeed Fall.
On this holiday last year, I was in Montreal, where--ironically--it was warmer, more like a September day here in New York and the leaves of the iconic maple trees that line the city's streets blazed in the sun. Montrealers, like other Canadians, don't celebrate Columbus Day. Rather, the second Monday of October is, for them, Thanksgiving Day. I certainly was thankful for having such a wonderful day to ride and interesting places to explore.
I had those things, today, too. So of course I went for a ride. I didn't plan anything, not even which of my bikes I rode. As it turned out, I took Tosca, my fixed gear Mercian, for a spin. Perhaps I chose her because, somehow, I knew--my body knew--that I needed to keep my feet spinning. But I was not riding for escape: In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Where did I go? I know I pedaled through various parts of Brooklyn and Queens; I think I even popped into Nassau County, briefly, and back again into the borough I now call home, into the one I called home The Day The Towers Fell, and back home.
That ride gave me exactly what I needed, for I did what I needed to do. And I am satisfied now.
(Note: I didn't take any photos during my ride. The image you see was made by Matt Hyde.)
I've heard that certain women are attracted to male authority figures. All right, I take that back: I've known a few women for whom such men exerted a pull. That magnetism was all the stronger if said authority figure wore a uniform.
Now, of course, I don't mean to imply, let alone say, that such women represent the rest of us. Like any other group within a larger group, they are of and among us, but they are not all--or, most likely, even most--of us.
But I think more people in my parents' and grandparents' generations--women as well as men--believed that all or most women had that desire, or even a need, for such men in their lives. I am living in different times; also, I have enough experience with authority figures of both genders so as not to be overly awed by them. Plus, I have an innate skepticism of authority and institutions--which may seem paradoxical when you realize that I have spent much of my working life as an educator and, as often as not, avoid conflict and change when they are on the horizon. Moreover, I lived the first four and a half decades of my life as male, which, I believe, has magnified my skepticism, sometimes to the point of cynicism.
Now, I don't mean to say that I am disrespectful--at least, not deliberately. On the other hand, I rarely, if ever, "play up" to power, in part because I am not very good at it. Certainly, I don't think I'd be--or even try to seem--as happy as the women in this photo:
According to The Denver Post, which published this photo:
They had beauty but no licenses, and so the young women shown here had to walk back from their bicycle ride. Two police cars halted the cyclists at 2551 West 26th Avenue in Denver after they had received a complaint that the bicycles had no licenses. The bikes were returned to a dealer in a truck. Left to right are Doris Weeks, Virginia Huke, Clodagh Jones, Genevieve Strauss, Patrolmen H.W. Gibbs and L.R. Wigginton, Elouise Downer, Marietta Grange, Lois Hale and Rita Carlin.
That photo was taken and published in 1939. I wonder whether any of those women are still alive and, if they are, whether I am dragging their reputations through the mud. Really, I don't mean to!
I just can't get over how they're all smiling. Were they coerced into it, or were they genuinely happy, or at least content, to get the attention of Men In Uniform. (A few years later, in a Hollywood movie, I could see any one of them would fall into the arms of a soldier or sailor disembarking from the war.) And, I wonder: How did whoever tipped off the cops know that those young women were riding without licenses?
It would take a far more serious offense for me to call the police on them, let alone take them into custody. I guess that's one reason why I never became a police officer!
