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.
As a non-biker, all this hate directed at bikers is weird. Yes, bikers do all those annoying things, and I have a special beef with you, cmu, because I have nearly been hit several times by bikers going the wrong way on a one-way street. Call me crazy, but it doesn’t occur to me to look the wrong way before I start to cross.
Still, the big enemy out there is mechanized vehicle drivers. When they violate laws, and even when they follow them, they menace everyone around them, pedestrians, bikers, and even fellow drivers. Traffic law enforcement should be a bigger priority in NYC, especially in areas with a high volume of mechanized vehicle traffic. The City could make up a good portion of its lost real estate tax revenues just by enforcing through-truck regulations.
You bike haters sound like my curmudgeonly dad. To say that one group (drivers, bikers, pedestrians) is always in the wrong is just ridiculous. For one tiny example, for every biker on the “walk” of the Manhattan Bridge, there is a walker on the “bike” side.
I don’t ride a bike. But there’s a phrase for motorcyclists and probably bikers as well who don’t wear helmets: “Organ donors.”
cmu – natasha richardson was wrong. a guy in my peloton that was coming to a stop, fell and hit his helmetless melon on the curb’s corner and went into a coma, was wrong.
all fun and games till you die b/c you were too cool for a helmet.
Amazing how the haters come out on even an innocuous post about bike parking. No wonder the majority of people wouldn’t even think about cycling with attitudes like this.
Listen up, folks: as a regular biker, non-spandex-clad, looks-like-your f*&(ing neighbor, is-respectful of pedestrians and goes by quite slow on my errands, it’s people like you driving too fast, coming too near and honking that make me occasionally skip by on the sidewalk.
I mostly obey traffic laws. But I won’t endanger myself. And yes, I go the wrong way on Carroll St to my house.
And as or helmets, check out the rest of the world…400 million cyclists can’t be wrong.
If we’re going to hand the roads over to the bicyclist, at least enforce the laws a little bit.
I just wish the NYPD would spend 1 weekend actually enforcing traffic laws against cyclist. Go after them with the same zeal they’re going after hands-free offenders now. I bet that would go a long way toward ‘educating’ bikers. The only problem is, how does one go about enforcing traffic laws for cyclist?
Since you don’t need a license to ride a bike on the road and we don’t require mandatory ID, how would officers actually go about writing citations, John and Jane Doe citations?
I’ve been in countries in Europe where enforcement of traffic laws on bicyclists are no joke. In Switzerland, i saw a guy get cited for improperly signaling a right turn. He signaled with his right arm, instead of giving the left arm up signal. I’ve also seen cyclists issued speeding tickets as well.
I’ve thought more than once what a great new use for my folded up umbrella when some moron on a bike comes racing through the intersection. If you hear about it happening, it’ll likely have been me that did it, inadvertently of course. “Why I was just crossing the intersection and the bike must have caught my umbrella when he came roaring through against the light.”
@Colonel Steve Austin: When are they going to pass some regulations cracking down on drivers that have no regard for traffic laws? I’m sick of cars who run red lights, block crosswalks, make midblock u-turns, fail to yield to pedestrians in the walkway, park in bike lanes, while talking on phone and fiddling with their ipods. Not to mention countless other violations.
Agreed Steve Austin.
And if you look up the regs within the DOT (which I’ve done for a different forum) it clearly states bicycles are bound by all motor vehicle traffic laws.