Bikes, Bike Riders, and the Rest of Mankind

Now let me start by saying I ride my bike every day, almost. It has been a tough winter so one uses reason and does not ride when the street is covered with ice and snow. But otherwise, I am out there. But I live 25 west of New York City and I have my 7 to 10 miles of local streets. You see the deadliest weapon in the western world is a woman in an SUV at rush hour on a cell phone, now texting, putting on makeup, and drinking coffee. It leaves little room for looking, and in fact I believe that they would not think anyone else exists any how. So I watch as if I were in the jungles during war time, you never know where the "enemy" is hiding, and they will kill you.

Now why the build up, a piece by Cassidy and the retort in Reuters. Cassidy is somewhat out of joint over the what appears to be dictatorial person mandating what appears to be her one world view of bike lanes in NY. I take the train in and walk and use the subway, found it is really better, so I do not have a hand in this game. But Cassidy has a point. As I walk across Manhattan there are now wasted lanes for the infrequent bicyclists. I somehow wonder who would bicycle to work. If you have a real job as some do, or you are trying to do a deal, or even look presentable you wear a suit, good shoes, and an overcoat! Try riding a bike in that? No way. So when the temps drop below 20 F as they have all too frequently this Gorian winter one would only approach cycling with a bit of warmth. For 10 miles of fast cycling may warm you a bit but not that much.

Now one must understand a major fact about New York, there are no alleys! There are alleys in almost all the other cities I have lived in over the ages, but not in New York. Also they prohibit night time deliveries, the noise. So it throws everybody out on the street from 9 to 5! Smart.

The Reuters commentator says:

Cassidy has no problem with the vast number of parked cars which take up precious road space in New York because he regularly aspires to transcending his bipedal nature and becoming one of them himself. But if you replace those parked cars with a healthy, efficient and effective means of getting New Yorkers safely around town, then watch him roar. Jaguars — whether they have four wheels or four paws — are good at that.

Well,  he clearly fails to understand New York. My relatives settled here from Amsterdam in 1649, in Brooklyn. No cycles then, just cow paths. So genetically I know a bit of the city, not like these two Johnny Come Lately. It is not the parked cars which take up the space it is the double and triple parked trucks! Try 56th Street some time!

Cassidy makes his point validly as (from The New Yorker):

Today, of course, bicycling is almost universally regarded as a serious, eco-friendly mode of transport, and cyclists want it easy. From San Francisco to London, local governments are introducing bike lanes, bike parks, bike-rental schemes, and other policies designed to encourage two-wheel motion. Generally speaking, I don’t have a problem with this movement: indeed, I support it. But the way it has been implemented, particularly in New York, irks me to no end. I view the Bloomberg bike-lane policy as a classic case of regulatory capture by a small faddist minority intent on foisting its bipedalist views on a disinterested or actively reluctant populace.

Yes, it is a heavy handed implementation. It has never worked before in New York, except in the Cross Bronx Expressway which is a Moses disaster and now one of the worst roads in the world! No cyclists there, yet.

I side with Cassidy, first I would never cycle in New York, it just does not make sense. It is like those Gucci dressed suburban groups of weekend cyclists who get on the $5,000+ bikes and then cycle on the rural roads three abreast. They become indignant even though they are breaking the cycling laws, which allow one single file. Somehow cycling has become a religious cult. They have religious garb, they band together in celebration of their belief, they see those who are not as committed as non-believers, and at times worse that the typical Islamist Terrorist. Cults perhaps that should be brought up before Congress, a threat to our very civilization, perhaps, who knows.