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]
I swore when I saw this thread this morning that I would not read, but here I am, late to the mudfight. DIBS, you’ve conflated Zinka with me. I assume it was a typo, but if not: I’ve never served with Zinka, I don’t know Zinka, Zinka’s not a friend of mine, I am not Zinka (…and, neither you, I, nor Zinka are Jack Kennedy).
I support the bike lanes. I support them not because I’m a cyclist (which I am, on occasion), but because this city should continue its efforts to be usable and used by all its citizens: pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, public transport users, able- and other-than-able-bodied (a class that includes many elderly, veterans, some driveby victims, people who are injured or ill, distracted, drunk…the list goes on and on).
Two of my immediate family members were killed while driving, crushed by the car of a new driver without proper skills. My family members were not drunk, and neither was the young driver. The stupidest thing in all these Brownstoner bicycle threads is the refusal of all parties using the same road to yield; the ridiculous assertion that only one class of users should be blamed in any given accident or that some favorite class is more deserving of use, access, right-of-way, etc. than another; the self-righteous unwillingness to share the road. Beyond that, I refuse to get drawn into this thread—so completely sick of the ‘dialogue’ that pervades the Brownstoner site.
Fat Marty whines
“why do they want to make Brooklyn more like Amsterdam?”
Has he ever been there? The only thinks that make Brooklyn tolerable are precisely those “European” qualities like decent coffee, and yes, the ability to get around on a bicycle. Otherwise it would be just another grim, SUV infested, corn fed sh*thole of a US city.
and by the way…as both an avid cyclist and a car owner, I can tell you that car drivers commit 1000x more egregious, life-threatening infractions than the most out of control cyclists ever could.
> the reason for Marty’s bias?
Because his ample tuckus hasn’t graced a bicycle seat since he was twelve years old?
Did I read the thread too quickly or has no-one commented on the reason for Marty’s bias? He lives very close to PPW (on 8th Ave I believe) and has a fleet of super-sized black SUVs at his beck and call to take him wherever whenever. You can see these monsters any day blocking the sidewalk at Borough Hall and in front of the court bldg. No doubt he’s ticked off that his drivers can’t do 50mph any more on PPW as he heads home from yet another vital-to-the-welfare-of-his-constituents social function.
We also know that many bike/ped accidents go unreported.
and, here is a great example of statistic misuse:
“And since there are probably 100x more car-ped accidents than bike-ped”
we would need to have a control area and know how many cars there are at a given time and how many bikes and pedestrians as well. Then the worthy outcome would be in percentage form.
just stating there are more car/peds accidents is just the law of averages. more cars than bikes, of corse more chance for accidents. Not necessarily more law breakers.
If the numbers were equal, I’d put money on more bike/ped accidents.
I will not post on the bike lane thread… I will not post on the bike lane thread… I will not.. DOH! Suckered AGAIN!
dibs has shown he’s just not worth arguing with, with that asinine comment about people who get hit by cars having it coming. Ludicrous.
“If you can’t avoid a bicycle you probably should not be walking about.”
I guess all the old people should just stay home. and people who look in the direction of travel on one way street then get hit by a cyclist going the wrong way. and…
I guess it would be equally stupid to say if you cannot avoid a pedestrian you should not be riding a bike?