Prospect Park West Bike Lane Back in the News!
The inevitable backlash to last week’s report from the DOT that the Prospect Park West bike lane is a big success has finally arrived. That there video above from CBS2 shows Borough Prez Marty Markowitz disputing the DOT’s claims; Streetsblog fires back: “Marty seems to have either lost the ability to distinguish truth from fiction,…
The inevitable backlash to last week’s report from the DOT that the Prospect Park West bike lane is a big success has finally arrived. That there video above from CBS2 shows Borough Prez Marty Markowitz disputing the DOT’s claims; Streetsblog fires back: “Marty seems to have either lost the ability to distinguish truth from fiction, or his stubbornness is just all-consuming and he’s ceased to care about his public credibility.” Gothamist, meanwhile, has a quote from Markowitz in which the BP says that “we need an outside study—not one conducted by the DOT but perhaps by the NYPD—to get an impartial analysis of the Prospect Park West reconfiguration.” And, last but not least, the Brooklyn Paper is quick to print claims about how a conspiracy theory not imagined by Markowitz may be afoot: “One day after the Department of Transportation announced last week that the lane has improved safety for drivers and cyclists, two members of the city’s old guard — former Sanitation Commissioner Norman Steisel and former Transportation boss Iris Weinshall — struck back, claiming that the agency fudged numbers to make the lane appear more successful than it is.”
Markowitz on PPW Data: It’s a Vast Biking Conspiracy [Streetsblog]
Markowitz Says Activist Cyclists Distorted PPW Study [Gothamist]
Former Officials Slam City for Lying on Prospect Park West [BK Paper]
morralkan — “I doubt that all the visitors, both American and foreign, are flocking to NYC and Brooklyn to have coffee and ride bikes here.”
NO, they’re coming here to VISIT. This isn’t an issue of what makes fucking tourists happy. It’s an issue of what makes OUR city livable, pleasant (and sustainably so) for the LONG-TERM.
And the “If you don’t like it the way it is, why don’t you leave” attitude is fucking bullshit. We should all be concerned with making the city better… and not just for your own selfish interests. NYC of the 80s isn’t exactly something we want to return to, right? Where cesspools like old school Alphabet City were the norm. Why isn’t the city still like that? What was wrong with it? Is it bad that the city got better? Or should the residents of the city have said, “If you don’t like it, go live in Mayberry!”
If I’m correct, dibs, all that stuff you’re spouting is anecdotal too, and from a distance. Or is there a study you’re getting this from? lay off zinka, you’re not on the same page. And falling further behind with every post.
zinka there’s a reason that anecdotal observation is called “anecdotal.” A stopped clock is correct twice a day. But of course the numbers that you choose to believe have to be the correct ones, without any further discussion or validation.
You denseness becomes more amazing with each post.
DIBS is off his meds today, he’s not usually so weird (well..)
Since you have such a poor opinion of American cities, jan van flac, why oh why do you reside here instead of in your dear, drug-infested Amsterdam? I doubt that all the visitors, both American and foreign, are flocking to NYC and Brooklyn to have coffee and ride bikes here. As to that “1000x worse,” perhaps you are engaging in just a wee bit of hyperbole.
While I am hardly a Marty supporter and was totally against his ass-kissing of Bloomberg as it related to the overriding of term limits and endorsement of Atlantic Yards, I’m sure also that any and all stats the various Bloomberg departments promulgate are suspect. In the case of the Manhattan malls, Sadik-Khan admitted that there were some slight slowdowns with traffic, but totally overlooked the much larger slowdowns that resulted on other, slightly removed crosstown streets because they did not agree with her prejudice toward these malls. (And I’m sure they’ve been VERY useful these past few months.) In the case of NYC schools, Bloomberg and Klein touted superb progress on standardized tests. Yet, they were falling all over themselves to explain away the relatively minimal progress once the state re-normed the exams. National Assessment tests, for which NYC students were NOT prepped, showed very little progress during Klein’s tenure.
In the case of the PPW bike lanes, DOT says that the reason that the opposition’s stats diverge from their own is that they cover a different stretch or were taken at different times of the day. As posters (in favor of the bike lanes) have pointed out here, PPW is a rather short stretch, so there should be little difference in bike usage or traffic speeds from one section to another. An independent evaluation of usage, speed, accidents, etc would seem to be a reasonable request. DOT will promise one thing and then do quite another. Why are they suddenly trustworthy in this particular case?
Um, wow. It seems to me that the onus is on the people who are completely ignoring all the data about how well this project is working.
DIBS, I have personally observed the new PPW on a number of occasions, and it is perfectly consistent with the data. You’re the one who seems to somehow deny that 2 + 2 might equal something between 3.9 and 4.1.
I was hoping that would be caught, dh.
It should be good for another 40 posts.
“I’m above bike riding ”
lol
I’m quite certain that my IQ is far higher than all of you calling me an idiot. Most of you don’t take the time to read properly or are capable of really understanding what I wrote. I think most of you suffer from a form of attention deficit in your reading skills.
zinka (no, not vinca) has shown us today that she can’t put together any sort of argument based on anything other than what she herself believes. southbrooklyn and cmu don’t get the jist of how difficult it is to really get hit by a car if YOU ARE ACTUALLY PAYING ATTENTION.
I think the discussion here proves that arguing any point with most of you is stooping to an intellectual level that I really don’t want to bother with anymore.
I actually have no skin in this ridiculous discussion. My cars are not in NYC and I don’t ride a bike. I take car service or a subway. I’m above bike riding and driving yourself from place to place in NYC is really stupid given the time you all waste on parking.
What really shows though is that too many of you lead simple, argumentative lives and can be pushed over the edge by even the smallest of issues. Get a life.