City Promoting Bike Lanes More Aggressively
Today The Times covers how the city has set out to make its case for bike lanes, saying it hasn’t been “aggressive enough” in promoting and defending them. The PR push comes after the lawsuit filed over the Prospect Park West bike lane. The lawyer repping the plaintiffs in that case has been on a…
Today The Times covers how the city has set out to make its case for bike lanes, saying it hasn’t been “aggressive enough” in promoting and defending them. The PR push comes after the lawsuit filed over the Prospect Park West bike lane. The lawyer repping the plaintiffs in that case has been on a media blitz himself and says “the Bloomberg administration had still not addressed concerns about its closeness with bicycle advocates and its interpretation of statistics.” Meanwhile, the article notes that the bike-advocacy group Transportation Alternatives has hired a PR firm for the first time in its nearly 40-year history: “‘It’s all hands on deck because the future of our city does, quite frankly, hang in the balance,’ said the group’s executive director, Paul Steely White. He framed the recent ruckus as a turning point in whether the city continues to promote pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly policies.” The story also highlights that the city’s defense of bike lanes comes amidst the mayor’s low poll ratings “and a fair amount of resentment from those who live outside Manhattan, who tend to be less in favor of bicycles.”
Promoting Bicycle Lanes as if They Were on the Ballot [NY Times]
Photo by Graham Coreil-Allen
The Flatbush Avenue project is NOT DOT! It’s an EDC project. You can look it up. It’s completely irrelevant to this discussion.
I’ve only just begun.
Good points, hairyone!
Of course, now you’ll be a pariah around these parts.
As for cmu (“Sometimes better to lie for a cause you believe in.”). I guess you believe the ends justify the means.
cmu and all
“Anyone who makes a statement so strange deserves what he gets. “protecting” from what? Other idiot drivers who go too fast and can’t drive? or from the maddened cyclists? Or old ladies with walkers who don’t cross fast enough?”
Hey cmu, you don’t drive, do you? That must be it, none of you who comment here on Brownstoner actually drive. You have all day to sit at home at your computers and post inane comments. Then maybe go out for a little cycling trip. Leave the driving to the poor middle-class slobs who can’t afford the luxury of biking to work. And if they can’t get to work — for any number of reasons, including possibly the reason that public transportation has been cut back — well then they deserve what they get. And the old ladies? — hey there’s always Green-Wood.
Drivers need protection. Bicyclists need protection. That’s what DOT is supposed to be doing. Leaving Flatbush Avenue an unpaved free-for-all is a derogation of their duty.
tybur6
“Yes, I’ve driven the length of Flatbush several times (at different times) in the recent past. All seems fine enough. Traffic sucks.”
Then you haven’t noticed that there are no LANE MARKERS between DeKalb and Myrtle Avenues? Then you haven’t noticed the bollards they leave, every so often, straddling the left hand lane of traffic, so that you have to merge right into oncoming traffic from behind you? Then you haven’t noticed that there are absolutely no shoulders anymore? Why have shoulders when you can have a beautiful and calm planted island in the middle (which is not planted, looks pig-ugly, and will most likely ALWAYS look pig-ugly.) Then you don’t remember the 6-week stretch when the intersection of Flatbush and Myrtle was completely unpaved? DOT at work.
>”I would think that very few are replacing their car with a bike. Most who use a bicycle for transportation in NYC are those who would otherwise be walking or using public transportation.”
Wrong. I ride my bike instead of driving whenever possible. I do use a car to drive around parts of Brooklyn (I’m in sales) as it’s cumbersome to take the train to several places in a day. But I MUCH prefer biking, and so so whenever possible (that is when it’s not raining or snowing or 20 f-ing degrees.
Guess I’m a pussy. I prefer a (dedicated) bike lane to dodging the fatasses on the phone in their SUVs.
>I am a supporter of the bike lanes, but even I think the “better for the environment” argument is silly.
Here I absolutely agree. But its the only way to sell this sort of thing. The main advantage of bike lanes is to calm traffic and wrest back some asphalt from the almighty car, but one can’t say that, can one? Sometimes better to lie for a cause you believe in.
hairyone:Transportation doesn’t consider protecting automobile drivers as a high priority…
Anyone who makes a statement so strange deserves what he gets. “protecting” from what? Other idiot drivers who go too fast and can’t drive? or from the maddened cyclists? Or old ladies with walkers who don’t cross fast enough?
Hairyone — Yes, I’ve driven the length of Flatbush several times (at different times) in the recent past. All seems fine enough. Traffic sucks.
What do you mean by free-for-all? I don’t see it. The lights are functioning. The roads are all passable. Are drivers going crazy in your experience? Is this a police/traffic *enforcement* issue?
But seriously — Compared to *what* are the pot holes not being filled quickly enough? Compared to winters where there was very little snow/plowing? Compared to 3 weeks ago?