Great news, everybody! America's Most Bike-Friendly City officially has 1,000 miles of bike lanes now!!!
After an aggressive expansion in recent years, the city will reach a thousand miles of bikes lanes Tuesday when it finishes a new stretch on the Lower East Side, data shows.
The city's network will reach that milestone with a two-way bike lane on Clinton Street, between Grand Street and East Broadway. The path runs from Williamsburg Bridge to South Street.
The city has added 485 miles of bike lines since 2007, about 80 of which have been built under Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration. Twelve of those miles are protected on-street bike lanes, while others are off-street lanes like the Hudson River Greenway.
Sure, most of the bike lanes were built by the previous administration (that's Michael Bloomberg and Janette Sadik-Khan), and of the lanes built under this one only twelve (12) miles of them are protected on-street lanes, but whatever, just go ahead and take credit for it all:
("Hey, Polly, we can hear you, you know.")
Indeed, the deeper down you drill into the announcement the less impressive it gets:
The 1,000-mile bicycle facility number includes “shared and signed routes” like sharrows, extra-wide parking lanes and signed routes, which account for 24 percent of the total.
Another third of the total is managed by the Parks Department, said Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver, including everything from major greenways to boardwalks and dirt trails. Much of these off-street paths are high-quality bikeways, but the Parks Department doesn’t manage them as transportation routes, meaning they tend to be closed at night.
In other words, when you think "bike lane" you think of something like this:
But they're also including this:
(This tells the aliens where to land.)
And this:
(This has to be from at least the Lindsay administration.)
And even this:
Which, while awesome, is a dirt road through a park that is usable maybe half the year.
I'm surprised they didn't also include any arterial within half a mile of a bike shop.
I'm surprised they didn't also include any arterial within half a mile of a bike shop.
And then there was the heckling:
The event was held along the Clinton Street bikeway, which is being installed after receiving support from Manhattan Community Board 3 earlier this year. Older residents of the Seward Park Cooperative apartments, which has buildings on both sides of Clinton, crashed the press conference to oppose the new bike lane and the 2012 change that moved some Williamsburg Bridge-bound drivers to Clinton Street. “The blood is on your hands when I get hit by a bike!” one audience member yelled at Trottenberg.
Well that seems a bit melodramatic, especially when you consider that seniors are getting creamed by drivers left and right. Seriously, it's a press conference about bike lanes for chrissakes. That's something you shout when John Snow is proposing an alliance with the wildlings:
And of course the big question is how much of this vast, cobbled-together network of bike lanes, misshapen sharrows, and vintage signage is rideable at any given time, since the bike lanes are usually blocked anyway. Well, now you can find out for yourself in real time, or even report a bike lane blockage yourself, thanks to this cloyingly smug interactive tracker:
"These streets are already narrow as it is," car service driver Anthony Rosario said after temporarily stopping his car in a bike lane in Prince Street in Soho. "Look how narrow this street is, and it has a big bike lane. For New York City, bike lanes really don’t make a lot of sense in small streets.”
Why are people so stupid about the concept of size? Take a look at the vehicles themselves. Which one takes up more space? Try it this way, Tony:
"These streets are already narrow as it is. Look how narrow this street is, and it's full of cars. For New York City, cars really don't make a lot of sense in small streets."
Makes more sense that way, doesn't it?
That being said, it's worth noting that drivers don't just block bike lanes. They block everything. They block the streets so other drivers can't get through. They block the bus stops, bringing public transit to a halt. They block the crosswalks. They block the train tracks. They even drive on the fucking train tracks.
So by all means, my fellow cyclists, keep complaining (I believe strongly in complaining), but don't for one second think that you're special just because you had to steer around a Hyundai. This is the biggest metropolitan area in Canada's chamois. Everybody has to do it, all the time--even pedestrians on the sidewalk.
Speaking of complaining, kvetching technology has come a long way. Not only can you report blocked bike lanes, but a reader tells me you can also fire up the Kvetch-O-Tron 9000 and flag potholes with spraypaint:
Auto-Complain from Florian Born on Vimeo.
You've heard of training rides, and "epic" rides, and gravel rides. Now, there's the "complain ride:"
Though if you're me, every ride is a complain ride.
Next, you ride over bumps and spraypaint them:
Presumably they also offer a system for pedestrians to report cyclists who ride around on the sidewalk spraypainting stuff.
Then, your complain ride is completed:
Though if you're me the complaining never stops, and when I get home from a good complain ride I just walk around the house spraypainting everything that annoys me:
("CLEAN ALL THIS SHIT UP!!!")
In other complaining news, it's a good old-fashioned race-and-class war in Brooklyn, where some rich kids may have to go to the poor kids school:
To the city, the solution for the overcrowding at P.S. 8 seemed obvious: move those two neighborhoods from P.S. 8’s zone and into that of P.S. 307, which is nearby and has room to spare. The proposal, however, has drawn intense opposition, and not only from the families who would be rezoned from the predominantly white P.S. 8 to the mostly black P.S. 307. Some residents of the housing project served by P.S. 307 also oppose the rezoning, worried about how an influx of wealthy, mostly white families could change their school.
Which I only mention because look who's representing the rich white people:
Of course it's a goddamn Xtracycle.
You know, it's precisely this stereotyping of people who ride bikes as wealthy white integration-averse gentrifying yuppies that's holding us cyclists down as a people.
Even if it's mostly true.
Still, I have faith in New York City and humanity. Sure, there will be some heated community meetings, but in the end families from both neighborhoods will come together over their children's future--just as long as they don't put a Citi Bike station near either of the schools, of course.
OH MY GOD IT'S TOO LATE!!!
Holy shit we're all gonna die.
By the way, you'll notice the station by PS 8 is empty:
That's because the families took the Citi Bikes and fled to Westchester.
(Never forget.)
Lastly, remember that German car that used to come free with a Trek?
Well you've no doubt heard about their recent emissions scandal, but don't feel to smug about it, because the bike industry is not immune. In fact, I was disgusted to learn that the WorkCycles KR8 bakfiets contains a false bottom:
Which can be used to hide contraband such as organic groceries, smuggle the illegal aliens who are destroying America by working themselves to the bone for a better future, or even create the illusion of sawing a lady in half:
Maybe that's where Trottenberg is hiding the rest of our bike lanes.
