City Planning Pushing New Bike-Friendly Rules
Prompted by an email alerting us to the creation of a new Department of City Planning portal, we stumbled across an announcement from earlier this month of new regulations regarding bicycle parking in new building in the five boroughs. Citing a lack of adequate and safe parking as a major factor in people not biking…
Prompted by an email alerting us to the creation of a new Department of City Planning portal, we stumbled across an announcement from earlier this month of new regulations regarding bicycle parking in new building in the five boroughs. Citing a lack of adequate and safe parking as a major factor in people not biking to work, City Planning approved a text amendment on March 4 that would “require indoor, secure bicycle parking in new developments, substantial enlargements, and residential conversions.” In addition, “the regulations would apply to multi-family residential, community facility, and commercial buildings, including public parking garages, in all zoning districts.” For more details, check out the slide show presentation or the text amendment. As Streetsblog pointed out at the time, the City Council has until late April to vote on the measure.
When I was about 5 years old, I was run over by a bicyclist on the sidewalk who didn’t see me. As an adult a few years ago, I was almost run over in a crosswalk by a bicyclist turning against the light, the wrong way on a one-way street. Fortunately, I had just enough room and time to sidestep the front wheel, grab the handle bars and bring him to a stop (he told me I should have looked where I was going!) As I tell my kids, look both ways before you cross, even if it is a one-way street; don’t ever assume all the traffic will stop just because there’s a red light (forget about stop signs). I don’t “hate” bicyclists. I just recognize them as one more hazard I’ve got to be alert to when I’m walking around this city.
I’d love to see statistics for pedestrians injured by bicyclists riding on the sidewalk. There’s that one story about the elderly fellow who died after a chicken delivery bicycle knocked him down, but I can’t remember hearing any similar tales. Meanwhile, there seems to be a new auto-on-cyclist fatality every month or so.
Personally, I only ride on the sidewalk when construction and/or traffic insanity makes it too dangerous to ride in the street. In those instances, I always ride slowly. I’ve only hit one pedestrian in my cycling life; it was twenty years ago, during a rainstorm. A woman darted off an island in Park Ave South directly in front of me, and there was no way I could avoid hitting her. She went down on her behind, immediately got back up, and skittered away. I still feel bad about it, but at least we both walked away unhurt. Try walking away after an SUV hits you.
If we’re interested in making the streets safer, we need to focus on the automobile. EVERYONE is endangered by drunk driving, road rage, drivers yapping on cel phones, lax enforcement of traffic violations, etc.
nsr: are you serious? you actually think it’s ok for an over-60 to drive a car but not cycle? I totally disagree that it’s easier to drive than cycle; any competent person can cycle w/o danger to anyone. I think this attitude, that ‘anyone can drive’ is why we have 50,000 vehicle deaths per year in the US.
Weather is the only reasonable reason you’ve mentioned, and again, if you check out cities where cycling is the norm, they do so in late fall and early spring.
bxgrl, we finally disagree on the visibility issue. But I was stating it more narrowly, that “noticing” a cyclist is just as easy as “noticing” a car.
nsr can babble on about physics and whether or not a larger object is more “visible” but that has little to do with traffic. I guess he thinks traffic lights and signs are not “visible” either due to their size. In this traffic engineers agree with him…notice that the standard for signage/lights has steadily crept up in size; compare, for example to Parisian lights.
northsloperenter- did you have an accident and are now addled from falling on your un-helmeted head? 🙂
I agree, the bike lanes as they are now set up are a waste. And I think we are not set up in this country to have biking as a major form of transportation, like they do in China- unfortunately for us. That brings me back to my other point- it makes no sense to worry about bike lanes when the public transportation system all but insures the heavy use of cars in NYC. Not to mention wasting 15 billion on a short section of subway on the upper east side when whole sections of the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn have next to nothing by way of public transportation.
*walking there is dicey…
I’m done for the day. Can’t type.
P.S. About Flatbush during rush hour… The place is a menace. It’s like Herald Square stretched out over several miles. Walking there is dice. Biking there is dangerous.
And how can the city promote bicycling as a transportation alternative if a major artery like Flatbush is pretty much not usable by sane cyclists?
FWIW, if the city were going to invest in cycling options, I think they need to do away with bike lanes and close down entire roadways (or 1/2 of a roadway with a physical barrier preventing cars from getting to the bike side) for bicyclists to create a truly safe and usable bikeway.
But that brings me back to the weather… does it really make sense to have, for example, Pacific Street, designated “bike only” from November to March?
Truth is not an ism.
It’s possible that I’m wrong and that a high percentage of seniors have the strength, reflexes, and judgment to safely bike around the city, but in that case I’m make a factual error (overestimating the deterioration of human strength, vision, and reflexes), not a prejudicial judgment.
Driving requires less skill than bicycling. I think there are plenty of people who can safely drive but who cannot safely operate a bicycle on city streets (ride in the park is a different thing altogether).
There are plenty of people in the 30s and 40s who should not be bicycling either (bad visions, bad knees, bad back, badly overweight, believe they are invincible, believe pedestrians should get the @#$$ out of their way, etc.)
And, yes, I think as we age we should at the very least get our vision checked every time we renew our driver’s licenses.
I again agree with your points, northsloperenter but stil bothered by the ageism. I understand the lessened reflexes, etc. but in that case allowing anyone over 60 to drive is considerably worse than letting them bike- in your book? One thing I’ve learned in life- never stereotype. All the exceptions come crawling out of the woodwork just to make you look foolish 🙂
Actually- Anyone biking down Flatbush in rush hour is taking a huge risk.
weather or not… sheesh.
Got weather on my brain.
Sick to death of this cold, long, lingering winter…