16 injured by runaway vehicles in Chinatown, Garment District and Harlem

And not one of those vehicles was a bicycle.

Here's the Post's account. And the Daily News. I didn't just do this just to prove my point about the comparative harmlessness of bikes. You gotta believe me!

Why do we let cars do this? I wonder what's going to happen to that car menace now that it's proven that they're dangerous? Nothing, of course.

Why are people more upset about the danger of bikes running red lights?

Oh, and the most typical part: two of the three drivers weren't charged. Apparently, running people over on the sidewalk is only a crime if you do it on a bike.

FYI: Approx 150 pedestrians die each year in NYC. One every other day from cars and trucks. Maybe one a year from bike.

Operation Barrier in Effect

The NYPD has implemented an innovative, some would even say brilliant, approach to keep motorized traffic from driving in bike lanes. It's called Operation Barrier. And since the NYPD's trial run on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, reported incidences of cars illegal driving in the bike lane have dropped to zero. Outstanding! Keep up the good work, officers. I look forward to such continued successes in the future.
I got this picture from Streetsblog.

I hate Hillary

I can't believe she's starting to sound like George Bush. The Times reports:

Clinton Presses on Gas Tax Holiday
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s decision to take on members of Congress over her proposal for a federal gas tax holiday this summer -– “are they with us or against us” –- is tempting fate a bit, as she risks antagonizing uncommitted superdelegates who are members of Congress and who oppose the tax holiday.

Why doesn't any politician or tax law reward me for NOT USING ANY GAS in my commute to work!!! Why does the government pay people to drive?! Arrrgg.

My head hurts.

The "need" for a car

"I need a car," a friend of mine declared a few days ago. I hate hearing this shit. If you live in New York City, you don't "need" a car.

I'm not a live-off-the-land kind of guy. I like living in urban civilization and paying taxes to support quality of life. I think we need many things beyond just food and shelter. We need schools and police and fire protection. We need health care. We need transportation. We even need art. But we don't need cars.

My friend has three small kids and lives in one of "those" parts of Brooklyn. Now I don't have have any kids, so what do I know? But I see plenty of mothers with kids on the subway. Granted, the mothers often look tired, but they're there. You don't need a car, you want a car.

She can afford a car and bought one. But here's the problem. Her car makes my life worse. Through pollution, through accidents, through parking, through car alarms, through a car simply being and taking up space in a city with little space, cars are bad.

We should have wider sidewalks that fit yuppie strollers. There should be spaces on subways for strollers (and wheelchairs... and bikes). We need to make the city friendly for all people. We need to tell people that they don't need a car. And we need to charge them if they selfishly want a car.

This all started as a discussion about congestion pricing. My friend, in her defense, is pro-bike and pro-congestion pricing. But I still don't want her to have a car. I subsidize her large car through road maintenance, snow clearing, traffic police, curb cuts for driveways, and parking.

Having a car in New York City is not a simple choice you have a right to any more than me running a tannery in my backyard or me keeping neighbors awake at night by blasting a stereo is a choice I have a right to make.

Funded benefits to car owners is wrong. If we charged market rent values for public parking and zoned in ways that didn't encourage parking and car ownership (and even make it a necessity for most Americans), I wouldn't be so opposed to cars.

Why not rent parking space to vendors? I'd love to plop shipping containers on parking spaces and rent them out as offices or workshops or meditation centers or pay-by-the-hour hotels. Anything. I'd love to give parking spaces to trees and benches. I'd love to give parking spaces to anything but parked cars. I want parked cars to pay.

If rich people can afford a car, fine. Hey, rich people live better than you or me. I don't have a problem with that. I just don't want car subsidized by the taxpayer. Car owners need pay the full societal cost of having a car... and then some. Congestion pricing is a start.

Still no charges against the driver...

... but Ivan Morales is alive and for that we're all thankful.

So sad

Another biker killed by a vehicle on a bike path. Not a bike lane mind you. But a bike path. You know, where cars aren't supposed to be.

The New York Times link

http://bikeblog.blogspot.com/

On why bikers don't obey the law, part II: “I had the walk sign.”

The New Yorker piece on bikes has this crazy guy in the article who was all into the importance of everybody obeying the law—especially bikes. Even though this freak had no problem littering his cigarette butts while ranting about other people (say in German accent:) not following the rules!

[I have to give some props to the pussies at Transportation Alternatives for refusing to say that bikes should stop at red lights. They said that bikes should yield to pedestrians. They’re right. Everybody should yield to pedestrian, except, of course, when they’re in the bike path.]

A few weeks ago I was biking home in the rain from the West Side and came across a young woman lying in the crosswalk at 59th and 5th. She had just been hit by a car. She was pretty upset in the adrenalin-fuelled kind of way. She kept saying, “I can’t believe this happened to me. I had the walk sign!”

I’m sure she did. She was in the right. She was foolish enough to think that if you play the rules, you’ll be fine. And then she got hit. Pretty hard. She was going to live. But she wasn’t going to walk away. Her leg was sticking out all funny. Right does not equal safe. Bicyclists often have to violate traffic laws to be safe (getting in front of the crosswalk at red lights immediately comes to mind). The problem is not bikes and pedestrians disobeying the law. The problem is cars. That’s why we have traffic laws: for cars. Because they can kill you. Even when you're in the right.

Anyway, there wasn’t much I could do for this girl. Having been a police officer (in Baltimore... really), I moved traffic along so the fire truck could pull up. Once she was in better hands, I bolted, happy to have 59th St. blocked-off and traffic-free!

Meanwhile yesterday another fucking SUV plowed into some more pedestrians on a sidewalk. Last week the same thing happened and hit a family, killing a kid. Ripped them right out of his shoes. That’s what happens when you get hit hard enough by a car. Can you imagine how hard you would have to be hit to separate you from your shoes?

And this hot off the presses from today’s Times: “A man was killed by a speeding car late Thursday while bicycling … in Queens…. The bicyclist … was on Linden Boulevard … in St. Albans when a speeding westbound Dodge Stratus struck him…. After hitting Mr. Simpson, the car crashed into a telephone pole…. The car’s occupants, two young men ages 15 and 22, were in stable condition at Jamaica Hospital and Medical Center, the police said, adding that neither would admit to driving the car. No arrests were made.”

What’s the impact all this reckless and irresponsible driving will have on driving and public safety in New York? Now imagine if a bike was in the wrong and killed three people? Hell, even if the bike was in the right. And not that bike could kill three people, but just imagine…

Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

On why bikers don't obey the law, part I: the Queensboro Bridge

It always pisses me off when people complain about bikes running red lights and not obeying traffic laws. Traffic laws are there for cars. Cars kill people. Not bikes. We wouldn’t need red lights if it weren’t for cars.

Running a red light on a bike is akin to jaywalking: nominally illegal but something we should all do because it’s smart, right, and prevents a fascist obedience to authority from developing. (But I also firmly believe that bikes should not ride quickly on sidewalks and always respect pedestrians in crosswalks if they have the walk sign).

Anyway, leaving aside my moral argument, bikes also don’t obey the law because we can’t. Sometimes obeying the law is dangerous. Sometimes it’s just plain bizarre. Let’s say I’m going from my place to Central Park (4 miles away) and back.

First you get to the Queensboro Bridge Bike Path. A nice green line on the bike map representing the best New York City has to offer bikes: a dedicated bike lane separated from traffic. Great. And it is pretty good. But not if you follow the law because you couldn’t bike on the damn thing. And once you get used to ignoring the no-bike signs on bike paths, well, you start to take all rules and regulations with a grain of salt.

The entrance is a bit of a traffic mess, but not too bad. There’s actually a sign indicating you’ve found the bike/pedestrian path. It might be nice for tourists to say, “To Manhattan” or something. But I’ll let it slide.



The first signs of trouble is the bridge closed at night sign.
I can’t figure out if these closing are over. I think they are, but I’m not sure. Anyway, I try to get back before 10PM because the bus shuttle is impressive to have, but still sucks.

And notice the first of the “dismount” signs. On the bike path. Look, bicyclists simply aren’t going to dismount. It goes against everything bikes are. And asking bikes to dismount just makes biking wrong. Besides, the bridge is a-mile-and-a-half long. I ain’t walking, damnit. Why not ask something reasonable, like slow down? I’ll slow down to be considerate to workers.

On the Manhattan side another sign saying bikes must dismount and walk bikes. Uh, why? Of course, nobody does.


The damn closed gate. This gate makes bike (and pedestrians) go a block out of the way to get on and off the path when this is the ideal exit. It’s something to do with traffic flow from the bridge, but the traffic just hits a light either way it goes. Something could clearly be worked out here. And when the gate was open for weeks, traffic flowed just fine.


Then you get more generic warning signs (that could be avoided if the gate was open).


Woh! Truck crossing?! Looks serious, but it’s not.


Finally you get to Central Park (S.E. corner) and your welcomed with a sign saying “do not enter,” “authorized vehicles ONLY,” and “entrance closed.” But this in the entrance you’re supposed to enter. You see, all this refers to cars, not the people and bikes that actually use the entrance. How about a sign saying “Welcome to Central Park. Come on in. Open! (closed to vehicle traffic).” Just an idea.


So you bike around the park, next to cars, and return to Queens. Here’s the Manhattan side of the bridge bike path. Does this look like a welcome path?

The sidewalk isn’t closed. It’s open. And it goes to Queens! It’s like they’re trying to keep it a secret. And because the gate above is closed, the path starts in the middle of a crosswalk, just begging for bike/pedestrian problems and red-light green-light confusion (because coming off the bridge bikes have to go North, but there’s traffic coming from behind, and oh well, trust me).

Going down into Long Island City, you hit the Walk Bike signs again. This one is pleasantly covered with graffiti.

Dismount 100ft ahead! Blocked by construction. But then we’re already supposed to be dismounted for construction.


More reminders, just in case you were thinking of biking. Again, one word: why? It’s a friggin’ bike path!


And another:


And finally, a double whammy of stop and dismount signs. And then the gate blocks off an unused lane that could be a bike path. Instead we all bike the wrong way down a one-way street. The space is there for a bike lane. The lane is even there. And yet, they make us criminal.


So what’s my point? Not that you shouldn’t bike in the city. I love biking in the city. But it is frustrating (but then so is driving. So is the subway. Biking is better). It would take so little for things to be so much better.

On this “Class One” bike path, there is a sign saying “closed” and then at least nine signs telling you not to bike on the bike path. And this is a major bridge we’re talking about. Everybody from Queens has to cross it to get into Manhattan (well, you could go over the Triborough, but check out this latest report of the crack addicts on that bike path). Making the bridge bike friendly—and what you do before and after the bridge—would be the easiest way to make biking more friendly.

[see all posts about why bikes shouldn't obey the law]

Transit Strike 2005

Last day of the transit strike. It doesn’t really affect me too much, since I bike everywhere. But it’s kind of a pain when, say, you have to get your wife to the hospital. There wasn’t really any problem in Manhattan. There were plenty of cabs. But getting to and from the City was close to impossible, at least during the day, except by foot and bike.

There’s a kind of street-festival atmosphere crossing the bridges. I got to ride on the other (South) side of the Queensboro Bridge. A nice new view and there’s no ugly fence there (and they’ve just put up a nasty chain-link fence on the bike-path side for no good reason other than to ruin the view). It’s just annoying that pedestrians have no respect at all for the bike lane.


Bikes need so little space. And since we will get by, it would be better for everyone involved if people could say, just stay off two feet of the bike path.

Disaster relief.



Giving out hot chocolate.



It was nice of them to cone-off a bike lane coming off the Queensboro Bridge. This is one of the annoying parts of my normal bike ride home, because you’re forced to go against traffic for a short block. Even though the street is lightly traveled and there is plenty of room to say, cone-off a lane for bike.






Even more annoying there is a permanently closed lane they could use as a bike lane. Instead they block it off with Jersey Barriers (on the other side), keeping bikes out of a never-used lane and into oncoming traffic.



And then, quicker than I can say “Union” and you can say “Power,” they removed the cones so that the lane could revert to it’s normal function: space for illegally parked cars.



There are so many things the city could do to making biking better. Things that would cost nothing and have no downside. But they don’t. It’s very frustrating. The entrances around bridges are key, because every biker from an outer-borough has to use them.

The basic problem is the crappy Department of Transportation has the wrong prime directive: maximize number of cars on the road. Rather than say, trying to reduce the number of cars on the road. The fact that they still allow cars on the roads in the major parks, and it took them over a year to remove dangerous bumps on the Williamsburg Bridge bike path, doesn’t give me much hope or enthusiasm to fight City Hall.

It also doesn’t help that the good people at Transportation Alternatives are much more focused on Brooklyn to Manhattan access (I suppose because a lot of them live there). Don’t get me wrong, most things are getting better for bikes in New York City. It’s just a glacier’s pace. And there’s so much that could be done so easily.

But I took the South side, because it’s normally a (crazy) traffic lane. A new view.



South side path.



Sun over UN.



Roosevelt Island and Queens.



They also opened 5th Ave. to traffic today. Yesterday bikes and pedestrians had the whole street to ourselves. It was great. The right lane was for emergency vehicles.


Some cops shooed you off to battle with cars. Other didn’t care. There were no emergency vehicles. And if there were, I would have gotten out of the way. Bikes, unlike cars, can pull over and out of the way. It is not, or should not be: “same road, same rules.” Different vehicles, different rules. Rules that make sense for large and deadly multi-ton motorized vehicles, really don’t always make sense and shouldn’t be applied to bikes and pedestrians.

There was a long line for the just starting Q60 bus. A very long block-and-a-half line that went around the corner.






Some may wonder why Queens buses end at 2nd Avenue—where there are no transportation connection—when 3rd Avenue is so close, and there is a Lexington Avenue subway entrance there. Well, gentle reader, 50 years ago the Steinway Street Car ended here, at the 2nd Avenue Elevated. Never mind that neither exists anymore. The bus the replaced the streetcar still dumps people off where there used to be a El Train. And in 50 years, nobody has thought to reroute the bus to somewhere logical and convenient. It amazing how many buses still follow the routes of long-dead streetcars. Even when it no longer makes any sense. But you can’t fight City Hall.