12 April 2022

Going Nowhere, Unsafely

What's the easiest way to anger urban drivers?  Take a lane out of "their" street or roadway and turn it into a bike lane.

Here's something that will leave them more enraged (I can't blame them):  When we, cyclists, don't use the lane designated for us.

We eschew those pieces of "bicycle infrastructure" our cities and counties "provide" for us, not because we're ingrates.  Rather, we avoid them because they're unsafe or impractical.  As I've said in other posts, paint does not infrastructure make:  Simply painting lines on asphalt does nothing to improve the safety of motorists driving at 30MPH (a typical urban speed limit)  or cyclists pedaling at half that velocity.  And too many bike lanes simply go from nowhere to nowhere.

Both of those flaws, it seems, came together this winter, Chicago's Department of Transportation constructed a "protected" bike lane on the city's West Side, along Jackson Boulevard between Central Avenue and Austin Boulevard.  The lane is only ten blocks long (which, if those blocks are anything like those here in New York, means that the lane is only half a mile long).  The worst thing about it, for both motorists and cyclists, is that it took a lane in each direction from a busy if narrow thoroughfare that connects the northern part of Columbus Park with Oak Park, an adjacent suburb.


The Jackson Boulevard Bike Lane. Photo by Colin Boyle, Block Club Chicago



In doing so, the Chicago DOT made an often-congested route even more crowded.  One problem is that drivers often use Jackson to reach the Central Avenue onramp for the Eisenhower Expressway.  Drivers making a right turn on Central get backed up behind drivers going east on Jackson because they can't make the turn on a red light.

Things are even worse during rush hour, school dismissals and when the 126 bus makes one of its four stops along the route.  The result is "total chaos and confusion," according to Salone.  It might be a reason why "I have yet to see one bike there."  City and school buses may be picking up and discharging passengers in the lane, and having to cross an entrance to a freeway is, for me, a reason to avoid a lane or street. (That is one reason why, when cycling back from Point Lookout or the Rockaways, I detour off Cross Bay Boulevard a block or two after crossing the North Channel (a.k.a. Joseph Addabo Memorial) Bridge:  I want to avoid the Belt Parkway entrance and exit ramps.)

The result, according to resident Mildred Salone, is "total chaos and confusion."  That might be a reason why she has "yet to see one bike there."  An equally important reason was voiced by someone else, who called Jackson Boulevard a "bike lane to nowhere."  

That title was bestowed upon it by Oboi Reed, who founded Equicity, a mobility justice organization that seeks, among other things, to start a bicycling culture in the area.  "When the bike lanes drop out of nowhere, people are turned off," he explained.  "People have to feel ownership and excitement."  

He says that in addition to the lane's faulty planning and design, people were alienated because they see the bike lanes as vectors of gentrification.  The Jackson Boulevard neighborhood is full of longtime residents, some of whom live in multi-generational homes, and most of whom are black and working-class.  They cyclists they see are mainly younger and whiter than they are, and don't share their roots in the neighborhood.

So, it seems to me, Chicago's Jackson Boulevard bike lane encapsulates all of the faults of "bicycle infrastructure" in the U.S.:  It was poorly planned and designed, with little or no regard for whom it would serve or the neighborhood through which it was built.  The result is something that makes motorists and cyclists equally unhappy.  Unfortunately, unless planners and policy-makers pay more attention to cyclists as well as other people who might be affected, we will see more unsafe bike lanes to nowhere.


11 April 2022

From Men In Black To The World In Pink

For me, Flushing Meadow-Corona Park brings back memories of the World's Fair, which I visited with my family when I was about six years old.

For you, it might be associated with one of the most popular movies of all time:  Men In BlackI saw and enjoyed it, too, but those early memories and associations never leave us, or so it seems.

Nonetheless, I will grant that I think of MIB, especially with the 25th anniversary of its release imminent. In the movie,  the mothership crashes through the Unisphere, the large globe sculpture that has become an emblem of Queens, "the world's borough."  (It's said to be the most linguistically and culturally diverse county in the U.S.)  

I would bet that the Men In Black never envisioned a World In Pink.






I stopped by the park the other day, during a ride out to Nassau County, down to the South Shore and up to the North.  A couple of years ago, on that very same piece of land, I saw a bloom of cherry blossoms that rivals any other I've seen.  If I recall correctly, it was around the third week, or possibly near the end of, this month.  Still, when I saw the trees the other day, their buds had bloomed enough to color the world in a way that, I believe, even the Men In Black would appreciate.






10 April 2022

Bliss

 One reason I cycle is its effect on my mental health.

In short, bicycling makes me happy.  How happy?

When I cycle, I'm a cat on a tandem and I allow a mouse ride on the rear.  And I mean ride:  The mouse doesn't even have to pedal.




Wheee!