The Indignity of Commuting by Bicycle: Community Boards

You may recall that not too long ago I attended my local community board meeting in support of the city's plan to upgrade the deadly drag strip that separates me from the city's third-largest park:

Well, last night the board met again to vote on an idiotic resolution designed to basically scuttle the whole thing, and with the taste of stupid still lingering in my mouth I hopped on the WorkCycles headed on down to the shitshow.

To give you an idea of how New York City community boards work, imagine being really, really hungry and deciding to order a pizza.  Now imagine that before ordering your pizza you first had to consult with a group of 30 people.  Of these people, ten have severe gluten allergies, another ten have religious dietary restrictions, and the remaining ten have never eaten a pizza but have seen them on TV and therefore have very strong opinions about them.

Sounds annoying right?  Sure it does.  And when you're talking about a city street that people can use without dying it's downright infuriating.

Anyway, after about two hours of congratulating themselves for their service, denying various permits, and doing everything they could to keep the neighborhood preserved in formaldehyde, it was finally time for the board to vote on the resolution to sweep the bike lane under the musty, dated rug of which they are so fond.  But first, they each had to unzip their pants and dangle their stupid opinions.  It's hard who was the dumbest, but the top contenders have to be:

• The bloviating parody of an elder statesman who grumbled on and on about the city's conspiracy to create motor vehicle traffic, and how if people can't drive here from other places then the entire economy will collapse;
• The hateful woman who blamed the 12 people who have been killed on Broadway since 2010 for their own deaths;
• The guy who rejected comparisons to successful projects of a similar nature in Brooklyn because this is the Bronx, and "we're not close to New York City like Brooklyn is."

That last one in particular was a special kind of stupid.  I mean sure, as someone who's experienced with stupid I get what he's trying to say in the same way I can tell that dark spot deep inside the Jell-O is probably a raisin.  See, while the Bronx is obviously a part of New York City, it is common in the other four boroughs to refer to Manhattan as "the city."  Furthermore, there are also people who do refer to Manhattan as "New York."  However, those people tend to be no younger than 70 years old, whereas this guy seemed to be around my age, making him a real whipper-snapper by community board standards.

Regardless, let's look at the statement that "we're not close to New York City like Brooklyn is."  Here's New York City:

(From Britannica Kids, fittingly.)

Here's what's colloquially called "the city," or "New York" if you were born during the Wilson administration:

Now here's Brooklyn:

As you can see, some of it is very close to "the city," and some of it is farther away.

And here's the Bronx:

Like Brooklyn, some of it is very close to "the city," and some of it is farther away.  (City Island and Coney Island are roughly equidistant to Times Square.)  Both boroughs also share a similar population density and low rate of car ownership (under 50% for both).  However, being smaller than Brooklyn there is simply less of the Bronx that is geographically removed from Manhattan.  Furthermore, the Bronx is part of the same street grid as Manhattan, and certainly in the western half of the borough it bears more resemblance to Manhattan than any neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Perhaps most vexingly, the meeting took place here, just a few blocks from Manhattan

And the very board on which this guy sits literally represents a neighborhood in Manhattan:

Of course the raisin in the Jell-O here is that our neighborhood is farther from downtown Manhattan where all the shiny tall buildings are than, say, Brownstone Brooklyn is, and this is the concept he was awkwardly trying to extricate from the misshapen Jell-O mold that is his brain.  However, not only are we all part of the same city, but our bodies also react similarly to being hit by a car, which is what makes this sort of isolationist thinking so goddamn toxic.

Indeed, one wonders why instead of fighting the city they live in and maintaining deadly conditions for the people they supposedly represent (inasmuch as a group of people who aren't elected and serve until they die can represent anybody) these people don't just move here and be done with it:

In the end, the community board passed the cockblocking resolution, with 20-something people voting for it and I believe five voting against it.  (In all fairness, there were two board members who expressed their support of the plan, one of whom in particular did so eloquently and with an unerring logic that was no doubt completely lost on his fellow board members.)  The community board's role in all this is merely advisory, meaning the DOT can go ahead with this anyway, but of course the board holds political currency so this will almost certainly result in delay.  And while the local officials who are actually elected are in favor of this plan, who knows what will happen in the wake of this vote.

Hopefully nobody else dies due to all this dicking around.

(Ironically, only now that I'm an old fuddy-duddy myself do I truly recognize the importance of making your voice heard at your community board meetings.  Unfortunately it's hard to attend them unless you're retired.)

Lastly, in more dispiriting news, the city has experienced its first bike share death.  The media responded by perpetuating a victim-blaming narrative, and the NYPD responded by ticketing cyclists.

And so it goes.