One Less Jerk

The Tumbled version of onelessjerk.com

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Wow, 30 years since Murmur?

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Transportation and Tautology

It should go without saying that anyone who supports cycling as a viable means of transit would support public transportation (even if they opt to, you know, avoid taking it themselves).  And even though buses often feel like the enemy to me when I’m trying to get around one on a bike, I recognize their importance to keeping New York running (albeit slowly), so as I rounded a stopped bus near Grand Army Plaza this morning, I nodded in agreement at ad on the back of a bus claiming just a bit of the road from other users: “Bus lanes are for buses.” I noted a few words about new fines for driving in bus lanes on the ad, too, and figured that was probably okay. And then I thought little more about it, until about 1st Ave and 55th Street.

I’d missed the news last week, though, that in its new efforts to enforce clear bus lanes, the MTA has hired a firm to haul miniature billboards up 1st Ave and down 2nd Ave with bikes. As such, I was a little surprised to come upon the below sight on this morning’s commute:

I have to say, I’ve got mixed feelings about this campaign. For while I support keeping bus lanes clear, the caravan of billboard bikes very clearly took up the entire lane. And, yes, while I recognize (and frequently assert) cyclists’ rights to occupy an entire lane, if necessary, something about this just seems wrong. These billboards were not moving at the speed of traffic; they weren’t even moving at the speed of a moderately paced cyclist. Instead, they crawled along the avenue, creating a substantial traffic obstruction.

I should say here I’ve got nothing against the folks who are actually hauling the billboards. Everybody needs a job, and if that’s what you’ve gotta do, so be it. But for the MTA and the DOT, organizations that should be committed to alleviating traffic congestion actually create it in an effort to make a point, it would seem priorities are out of order. When I’m annoyed by it, and I’m on a bike, I can only imagine how the typically-bike adverse Manhattan drivers are reacting.

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The Littlest Terrors

Despite being an outspoken advocate for keeping bikes off sidewalks, I couldn’t help but feel a little troubled when I came across this story in the New York Times about a lawsuit stemming from a sidewalk bike-on-ped accident:

4-Year-Old Can Be Sued, Judge Rules in Bike Case

Citing cases dating back as far as 1928, a judge has ruled that a young girl accused of running down an elderly woman while racing a bicycle with training wheels on a Manhattan sidewalk two years ago can be sued for negligence.

I often take issue with reporting in the Times, but in this case, the reporter generally did okay, even if I question the ability of a 4-year-old to “run down” anybody. That aside, the story generally relates the facts of the case, including that the 4-year-old, while “racing” with a friend struck an elderly woman, who fell and broke her hip and, three months later, died. (The story does not make clear whether the suit alleges a connection between the woman’s death and the broken hip, though I suppose that it wouldn’t be a stretch that the required surgery for the hip could have weakened her immune system enough to succumb to her eventual death that much sooner.) The mothers of the children who were riding the bikes was nearby, though there seems to be some question of whether they were “supervising” their children, as they were after all permitting the racing.

Artist's rendering of an entirely unrelated yet similar incident

The details, as above stated, made me sad. It’s sad the woman broke her hip and eventually died, and its sad that her heirs are suing a 4-year-old in hopes of finding redress. The judge in the case believes that case law supports the 4-year-old’s being sued, which may be accurate, but also seems absurd.  The parents of the two children didn’t seek to dismiss the case against themselves, only their children. That seems reasonable to me.

What isn’t really mentioned in this story is that it’s okay for kids to ride on the sidewalk in New York. As such, it’s not clear what kind of liability a child, or, alternatively, a parent takes on when riding a bike on the sidewalk. Could an 8-year-old be charged with vehicular homicide if he or she knocked over someone who subsequently died? I’m not trying to suggest there’s an easy answer here, and it’s clear that parents have to take responsibility for their children. It just seems hard not to feel that there’s something wrong with this decision. For the sake of all the involved parties (and any children or parents who might be affected by legal precedents set by this case), I hope they can find some sort of resolution that doesn’t end up criminalizing kids at play.

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Things that make you go hmmm

So the Webernet is buzzing about a hip-hop group, Imperial Stars, staging a massive traffic jam in L.A. to promote their (presumably dope) rap jam. Everyone seems to agree that these dudes are ridiculous, and their attempt to garner publicity for their cause by throwing down a big ol’ mess of public inconvenience is absolutely worthy of the utmost scorn. So how come Critical Mass gets a by? They’re essentially using the same methods, right? Come to think of it, some Massites even sport the same look.

And don’t tell us it’s for a better cause; if you ask a dozen C. Massers (we’re trying out different names, here) why they’re riding, you’ll get at least six different answers, most of them fairly dubious. At least this crew was dropping some funky-fresh science for peeps to listen to while they were stranded; way better than the piratical yammering of the CritMa (Better? Worse?) horde.

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New World Delivery Order

Hey, did you see the DNAinfo report on the proposed new bike safety laws in New York? Probably not, unless you’ve got a Google alert that returns that kind of stuff to your inbox. As I do, however, I was a little concerned upon my first reading of the article, particularly this bit:

“The mayor is a great advocate of bike lanes and all that jazz,” public safety activist Lola Cherson said. “But you can’t have lanes without enforcing the laws.

“Most people don’t understand that we have existing laws and they’re very specific.”

To help enforce current safety laws, Cherson and local council members are pushing to pass new legislation requiring a public database that lists violators of city laws covering bicycling.

The proposed law, which would make an Internet list searchable by name or business address, is important for residents to feel safe in their own neighborhood, Cherson said.

The notion of a centralized bike-offender database raised concerned me, a bit. It seemed like a needlessly complicated solution to the problem of enforcing cycling laws, and a particularly ineffective one, at that. Where on a database of sex-offenders, one can simply avoid the residence where someone lives, the nature of bicyclists is that they are mobile: were they going to install tracking anklets on all the bike offenders so people know where they are at all times?

Concerned, I read the text of the law,  to which original article had helpfully linked. After reading it, I breathed a bit easier. This proposed law would only amend  Title 10 of the Administrative Code of the City of New York, and, specifically, the section that deals with “Bicycles used for commercial purposes.” In short, this law is about delivery bikes. (It’s also about two years old, but I’ll trust DNAinfo that there really is a new push to get it through, even though I can find no reference to the “public safety activist” quoted in the story, nor her group, “Citizens Alliance for Pedestrian Safety (CAPS).” Perhaps there is a new push to pass it.)

I don’t want to suggest that delivery bikes aren’t important, and the article quotes Noah Budnick making that point. (Budnick, diplomatically, doesn’t say something like New Yorkers’ expectation of ubiquitous, free, and fast food delivery created the kind of delivery riding people now decry.) One gets the sense, though, that those calling for the enforcement of bicycling laws are the very people who would complain if their delivery order was any later.

Perhaps it needs to be stated that, yes, I’m in favor of better enforcement of cycling laws. I don’t expect to see such enforcement anytime soon, though. The laissez-faire approach the NYPD has taken towards those ever-multiplying electric bikes seems to suggest ticketing delivery guys isn’t high on their list of priorities, and has anyone ever heard of a delivery person getting popped for not wearing a helmet? But, hey, if a public interest campaign could cut down on dangerous delivery people, I’d support it wholeheartedly. Entering offending Chinese restaurants into some kind of centralized database, though, probably isn’t going to be the program.

The thing that sticks about this story, though, isn’t how ineffectual such a program might be. It’s how unclear to non-cyclists the differences that cyclists perceive amongst themselves are. Della Hasselle, the reporter, frames the story as one about a change in “bike safety laws.” The database, Hasselle writes, would include “violators of city laws covering bicycling.” The text of the law, though, covers only a small subset of those who ride bikes in New York: people who do so for commercial purposes. While complaints about dangerous delivery riders are perennial, the story’s ambiguity about who the law would really affect allows a non-story to be built on the increasing cycling backlash. Those increasing numbers of cyclists who aren’t riding for commercial purposes (whose numbers will presumably thin as the weather continues like it has today) are the ones seen as effete or wealthy or hipster or yuppie or whatever epithet you can throw at them. It’s really a fascinating contradiction. The class-resentment implicit in so much recent criticism of the DOT’s efforts gets used in stories like this to attack the very people not responsible for the image of cyclists as aloof fashionistas riding their rusty three-speeds on the sidewalk: the people who will bring their food when the rain keeps those people from leaving the house.

That seems like a pretty big distinction to me.

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Of Ladies Chic and Gray

New York Times reporters don’t read the New York Times. Or, maybe, New York Times reporters don’t think that people read the New York Times. How else could one explain their constant re-reporting of stories? The latest example germane to this blog ran in today’s Styles section: “Bicycle Chic Gains Speed.” (While this is perhaps different enough and far-enough removed from other cycle-chic stories in the times, unlike, say, the recent (hilarious) dueling Times stories about alcohol free dance parties, today’s cycling story doesn’t even have the excuse of running in a section different than the stories that came before it.) But, you know, there’s that news hole to fill, and it’s Thursday, so why not another story about stylish cycles? (Nobody could possibly remember the others, right? Or the Bikesnob-quoting origin of the species that ran in the the Observer way back in 2007?) Let’s plunge ahead, shall we?

Women, mostly young, have given the image of cyclists “an extreme makeover,” said George Bliss, who owns Hudson Urban Bikes on Charles Street in the West Village. His store caters to upscale New Yorkers whose aim it is to speed around town on a traditional Schwinn or three-speed Raleigh while sacrificing neither their decorum nor élan. They are a far cry “from the image of the adult cyclist as infantry solider with a helmet,” Mr. Bliss said, referring mostly to the athletes and messengers who whiz by in that all-too-familiar forward-thrust posture that has, he said, “alienated every pedestrian.”

“The idea now is to look like a pedestrian on wheels,” he added firmly.

Speaking as a sometimes-pedestrian, I’ll say that I tend to be more annoyed by this supposed new breed of rider than I do by “athletes and messengers.” I have only anecdotal evidence to back this up, but it seems the women on vintage bikes in fancy clothes tend to be found going the wrong way more often than, say, the “athletes and messengers.” (To be fair, a lot of foppish men on vintage bikes tend to be going the wrong way, too.) It’s as if by aspiring to be “a pedestrian on wheels,” one can follow traffic laws like a pedestrian. Strangely, these cyclists don’t seem to understand that, actually, that kind of action alienates pedestrians.  Take Topaz Paige-Green, the article’s poster-child for this kind of cycling:

Ms. Page-Green, who likes to speed around on the sidewalk, has encountered hostility. “When you’re going too fast, people get mad at you,” she said. “I’ve had canes waved at me in the distance.”

Such complaints, though, go largely unnoted in an increasingly bike-friendly city. Last year, the city completed 200 miles of bike lanes in all five boroughs, contributing to an increase in the number of daily city cyclists to an estimated 201,000, up 79 percent from 2008, according to Transportation Alternatives, a bicycle advocacy organization.

Topaz Page-Green not riding on the sidewalk, where sometimes she has canes shaken at her.

Stop. Stop. Stop. No.

Pedestrians hate bikes on the sidewalk. (On the Upper East Side, those pedestrians have lobbied hard to get cops to ticket cyclists.) Responsible cyclists hate bikes on sidewalks. Bikes should not be on the sidewalk. In fact, riding bikes on the sidewalk has nothing to do with bike lanes or cycling advocacy. This paragraph, is the very definition of a non sequitur: its sense literally does not follow from the bemusement of Ms. Page-Green. Actions like hers are exactly what cycling advocates are trying to eliminate through education.

In fact, the whole story sort of reads like a “how-not-to-ride-a-bike” story, which is just as well. I don’t need any more encounters with this kind.

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The Hidden Persuaders

We’ve written in the past about the particular hazard that advertising poses to the bike commuter. Nothing new or insightful to add to this sentiment, but we feel compelled to note the arrival of one more ubiquitous streetscape abomination that’s driving us totally bananas. Who are these two people, and why do they look vaguely familiar?  Should we even know who they are? Are they married or just fornicating? Does one love the other, but not vice versa? What is the secret to their weird-ass half-preservation? How did this escape the clutches of the power-biddies over at Oxygen? Damn you, TV Land! Damn you!

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DOT Jerks Us Around

Well, it had to come to this. According to the Guardrail NYC blog the fine folks at the DOT have finally revealed themselves for the car-humping, bike-hating, oil-huffing bureaucrats we all knew them to be. All those protected bike lanes they’ve installed in the past four years? Smokescreen! All the pedestrian plazas and well-marked cycle paths and special intersection lights? How naive can you get?!

To think, if the DOT hadn’t called us jerks in a recent e-mail touting its new “Bike Smart” guide (no doubt some form of vile propaganda bent on keeping cyclists down,) we’d still have NO IDEA of their infernal machinations!

In fairness, the Guardrail doesn’t go quite that bananas. But it doesn’t really do anything helpful, either. Essentially, what’s happened here is that the DOT, no doubt carried away by all the hubbub about the “hipness” of cycling, got a little sassy, abandoning the staid, deadly dull style that has characterized government verbiage for decades. Really, they should be applauded for at least trying to be interesting, even if in a somewhat hamfisted fashion. But according to sensitive “streets for people” types, the city has no business urging us not to be jerks by riding in ways that are manifestly jerky.

You’d think that getting sworn at in a wide rainbow of languages  by drivers and pedestrians every day would give bikers a thicker skin. Truthfully, everyone’s a jerk some of the time–there are ineradicable jerkass molecules hardwired into the DNA of humanity. This shouldn’t be news, and it shouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. If we’re going to get up in arms about something, it should be about the asshats who ride on sidewalks, sideswipe pedestrians and do all the dangerous, stupid things that the DOT’s manual lightheartedly sez not to do. It’s time to realize that we don’t deserve extra-special consideration, whether we’re on the street or off it.

Contra DOT, we would argue that it’s impossible not to be a jerk; we can, however, mitigate our levels of jerkedness, and the new Bike Smart guide points out some commonsense ways to do so. Bottom line: don’t be upset if someone calls you a jerk. Just be one less jerk on the train.

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Of Studs and Duds

Everyone knows the New York Post hates cyclists. Even when Andrea Peyser isn’t stopping food delivery people on bikes, the paper tends towards the Archie Bunker end of things, practically asking cyclists “Why are you riding a bike, meathead.”

It was with some surprise, then, that I came across this story in yesterday’s Post about “The new cycle studs.” Nothing it reported was exactly new—wealthy men undergoing mid-life crises have been buying toys, bikes included, for years, in the hopes that these toys will signify their virility. Of course, these toys usually fail to do so in rather spectacular ways: the new sports car tends to bespeak overcompensation for impotence, be it of the social or sexual variety, and, as any male cyclist knows, riding a bike tends to invite inquires about what those long hours in the saddle do to one’s sperm-factories. Cyclists may be many things to onlookers, but virile tends not to be one of those things.

It would be easy to let the story pass as fluff, which, without considering the Post’s other cycling coverage, it would be. In light of its other coverage, though, the Cycle Studs story seems a bit more insidious.  It makes no mention to “bicyclist speeding through Central Park in full racing gear with a pack of other cyclists” who, the Post reported last month,  ”slammed into a 73-year-old grandmother,” though, based on the Post’s description, the guilty cyclist could well have been one of those cycle studs. That’s not very sexy.

It’s all a very different picture than that given in the New York Times’ cycling coverage.  To read the times, cyclists are either dreaming of wobbling along on Dutch cargo bikes while explaining to their children the flavor cave-aging imparts to raw-milk cheeses, or racing inunsanctioned late-night races when they’re not getting tattooed.  (I’m extrapolating a bit, but I’m pretty sure that those stories had quotes about all those things that were cut in the editing process.) That those two images are flip sides of of the same lifestyle seems to be understood by the Times: everyone’s upwardly mobile, whether or not they can admit it yet.

These are the very people Archie Bunker hates, and who could blame him? That was the thing about All in the Family that always annoyed me: sure, everybody other than Archie was right, but who were you going to side with, Meathead? Even as you knew he was right, he was insufferable.   I wonder what Archie would have made of someone who dropped north of $5,000 on a bike they didn’t race. I can’t imagine he’d have much liked them, either.

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Broadway Unbound

A recent article in the New York Times about the transformation of Broadway from traffic-clogged dystopian shitscape to mildly unnerving terrordome has aroused some criticism inthe blogosphere, mainly objecting to the piece’s adherence to the cars vs. pedestrians dichotomy and its neglect of bicycles.

We here at Jerk HQ are all for taking a swing at the old Gray Lady, but this seems a bit much. True, the NYT article is undeniably “car-centric” in tone, but does that really merit such a fuss? Broadway is and always has been the undisputed realm of trucks, buses, cabs, tourists, shoppers and NYU students, all things which, as a serious bike commuter, I go far, far out of my way to avoid. Given a choice, I’d rather have more pedestrians than traffic, but I’ll be filibustered if I’m going to wend my way through the teeming masses if I can just go an avenue or two west and be speedily upon my way.

So why do bikers feel the need to be “considered” every time the city makes infrastructure changes or a newspaper writes about it? Visibility plays a part, certainly; as a minority group we have to insist upon our presence to the powers that be in order to make any progress. At this point in our increasingly bike-friendly era, however, it shouldn’t be a zero-sum game — we don’t have to get our sticky mitts into every transportation development that pops up.

The truth is, Broadway isn’t much good for traveling at all, by bike or by car; the city knows this, and that’s why it’s gradually surrendering the pavement to the footbound consumerist masses. Let the tourists wander haphazardly through the morass of Times Square; we don’t need it. We’ve got better things to do elsewhere.

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Getting Pissy: Scooters v. Cyclists

If I’ve ever suggested that, perhaps, cycling advocates have overplayed the oppression card, I apologize, because while I sometimes feel that such tactics may alienate non-cyclists, I now realize that cycling advocates are far from annoying when compared with those in favor of another non-car transporation method that’s gaining in popularity. I’m speaking, of course, about scooters.

Like any cyclist, I’m a little annoyed by scooters, but not much more annoyed than I am at cars. I dislike that they ride more erratically than cars drive, yet have the acceleration from their gasoline engines to do some serious damage to pedestrians or cyclists, but, largely, I don’t give scooters that much thought. That changed, though, after I came across yesterday’s WNYC report on scooters:

There’s a whole scooter culture I was never aware of!  I mean, I was aware of the wholescooter culture that restored old Vespas and Labrettas and rode them around while wearing anoraks and listening to the Who and the Jam, but none of the people in this video have that mod vibe to them, so I think they’re of another scooter culture.

Take, as evidence of this culture, the existence of scootering activists, like Jesse Erlbaum of the New York Motorcycle and Scooter Task Force. (Task force? This seems nearly military, doesn’t it?)  He explains his point of view thusly: “There is a fixation on three modes of trasnportation in the city: you can walk, you can take mass transportation, you can ride a bicycle.  And those three are all fine ways of transport, but so much single-mindeness that it’s to the exclusion of a scooter or a motorcycle.” Oddly, he doesn’t note the DOT’s focus on providing roads for motor vehicles, but perhaps that was just an oversight, given how little motor vehicle traffic one finds in New York.  Indeed, with the recent upswing in cycling, one rarely even sees a car in Manhattan! Given such political and social opposition, I understand why it would be necessary to advocate for the presence of “paved roads” for “motor vehicles.” To this, he opened my eyes.

Like Erlbaum, most of the scooterists in the video play the oppression card. Of all of them, though, Kevin Kossi is my favorite. Here, I’ve made a little picture of him! It’s even got his name on it!

Kevin’s first explains his special perspective on scooter rights when he explains that he parks his scooter on the sidewalk, but removes the licence plates—they’re affixed with velcro—so that he can’t be ticketed for doing so. This would seem itself to be a pretty serious violation, but as I’m not a traffic attorney, I can’t really say.

Kevin’s coup de grace, though, comes when he explains his view on bike lanes. “I use the bike lanes and they get all pissy,” he explains,  ”But when they use the street and there’s no bike lane, I don’t get all pissy.” I’m glad that Kevin doesn’t get all pissy when I ride in the street and there’s no bike lane since my actions at times like those are legal and just: I have a right to the road. The reason cyclists get all pissy when he’s in the bike lane is because we’re already tired of fending off pedestrians, double parked cars, salmoning riders, and dogwalkers. Oh, and that he’s a motor vehicle who doesn’t have a right to the lane. That has something to do with it. (To that end, Transportation Alternative’s Noah Budnick seems, rightly, almost confused by the reporter: scooters are motor vehicles. Is this unclear to anybody?)

I confess, though, that despite the annoyance I felt watching this video, I don’t oppose scooters outright. If single-occupancy-drivers would use scooters for around-town errands, that would almost assuredly be an improvement. What chafes, though, is the sense of entitlement expressed throughout this video. Scooters are motor vehicles; if you can’t handle that, you probably shouldn’t be riding one. Go buy one of those electric bikes. I’m sure the Times is due for another trend piece on them any day now.

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Adventures Close to Home: The Enigma of Randall’s Island and Wards Island

Last weekend, I traveled to Randall’s Island and Wards Island, which are effectively a single landmass, to attend a friend’s birthday celebration at a golf center. It was, suffice it to say, an odd location.

Historically, Randall’s Island has occupied an odd place. It was the seat of Robert Moses’ Triborough Bridge Authority, which, for a time, answered to neither New York City nor New York State governments. Wards Island houses a number of psychiatric facilities, and their presence, together with the lack of other residents, lends a somewhat disconcerting feel to the conjoined islands. One who’s grown used to the dense population of the rest of New York City will immediately note how much open space there is on the islands, even if much of that open space seems occupied by construction machinery. This machinery, though, doesn’t seem to be building anything. While I’m an avowed unbeliever in supernatural phenomena, I sometimes feel that those islands are haunted. Why they feel that way is an enigma. Evidently, another visitor to the island agrees with me on this point, and left evidence on the 103rd Street pedestrian bridge:

That the island is an enigma, of sorts, is, apparently, not a universal sentiment, as this message from another visitor makes clear:

Yet others seem altogether unconcerned with the enigma, or lack thereof, and instead seem focused on the goings on in their iPants, which are, presumably, forthcoming from Apple after their iBike is released:

I show these images only to suggest that Randall’s Island and Wards Island are many things to many people. To some, apparently, they can even stand in for Staten Island:

Suffice it to say, I was confused about the islands before even setting foot on them. My confusion grew, however, upon encountering this bike rack:

Initially, I thought the rack to be the product of some DOT sponsored initiative to make bike racks more interesting by holding a design contest or commissioning David Byrne to design racks. I quickly realized, though, that this was no defective design but the work of a thief—both ends were, originally, set into the concrete. When I got closer, I could even see, in the hole in the concrete, the pipe inside it. While I don’t support bike theft in any form, I had to hand it to this thief that he or she had done a nice, clean job of it.

The rack’s location, cut or not, also proved enigmatic. There are no real residential units on Randall’s and Wards Island, and there were no attractions to speak of near this rack. Instead, it was along a (very nice) path, in the shadow of one of the psychiatric facilities. It was not, however, near the entrance, it was near a fence. From what I could tell, one would have no good reason to lock a bike to the rack, and yet someone clearly had, as the cut rack clearly showed. A little ways down the path, I encountered what I suspected to be more of the same thief’s handiwork:

While it lacks the formal audacity of the thief’s other work, this rack’s modification is clearly just as effective for the purpose of stealing bikes. Again, the rack’s location seemed an odd place to lock a bike, yet, again, someone clearly had. Given the proximity of one cut rack to another, it seemed likely that, before both racks had been cut, anyone who had locked their bike to the uncut rack would have noticed the other cut rack and thought twice about leaving a bike unattended but, again, the presence of two cut racks put the lie to this theory. Truly, I could not understand why the destroyed racks were left there; they served as little more than evidence of past crimes.

Between the broken racks, the psychiatric hospitals and my general belief that the Islands are haunted, if only with the hateful ghost of Robert Moses (who, incidentally, afforded for no legal bike access to the islands, despite the many bridges), I continued to my destination. There, I discovered that Rick Nielsen has apparently been living a double life:

How that happened might have been the biggest enigma of all.

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Dog Days

I hope we can all agree that this has been the worst summer ever (especially for those of us who can’t seem to care about the Arcade Fire, whether because of the vagaries of taste or, as a fellow Jerk suggests, the ravages of age).

Oh, sure, there have been some good rides, when the heat hasn’t been too oppressive, and Summer Streets has so far proven successful. But the local news here in New York’s been anti-bike as all get-out, and even the improvements in New York’s bike infrastructure like bike lanes on 1st and 2nd Aves has meant a more annoying commute while they’re being installed. (To that end, I’m still not riding in the 1st Ave lanes — I’ve almost gotten hit one too many times by left-turning taxis when riding in them. )

I mention this only to attempt to explain the relative silence here lately. Something about this time of year saps one’s energy to do much of anything. It may be the knowledge that the season will soon change, and that with the autumn leaves we’ll all look back on the stifling heat wistfully. It might be the general economic insecurity we’re all experiencing. It may also be an inability to sleep when it’s so damn hot.

Whatever it is, it’s left me tired. With any luck, in a few days, I can return to a state of perpetual ambivalence towards cycling in the City. Sometimes, such hope is enough to get through days like these.

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Motor Away: Electric Bikes, Here and There

New Yorkers like to remind themselves that their city is different than any other city. While many if not most would probably say New York is “better,” too, I think everyone can at least agree on the different tag. Things common elsewhere in the country like multi-car homes and driveways are, in New York, rarities; things common in New York are less common elsewhere.  When I think of the things I’d miss were I to leave New York, it’s often not the grand cultural institutions that first come to mind, but the less glamorous things.  Things like ubiquitous food delivery.

This isn’t to say that food delivery doesn’t exist outside of New York City. Nearly everywhere, of course, offers pizza delivery. I was reminded, though, of how even pizza delivery, outside of New York, is different, when I glanced at the “Pizza Delivery” entry on Wikipedia, which authoritatively stated above the contents that “Delivery is normally made with an automobile or motor scooter.” Of course, as everyone in New York knows, deliveries here are usually made with bicycles or, in some cases, motor scooters. (I’m sure I’ve seen a delivery car, but I can’t remember when.)

In the last few years, as anyone who has ridden (or walked) in New York knows, there’s emerged a new kind of delivery vehicle on the streets of Manhattan: the electric bicycle.  Skirting the line (and the law) between motor scooter and bicycle, these are usually seen riding the wrong way directly towards other cyclists, with their riders sitting upright and smoking a cigarette. Their trajectories, in this regard, aren’t all that different from the crappy mountain bikes that usually served as delivery vehicles before the increasing ubiquity of electric bikes, but their added heft and horsepower makes them a good deal more threatening to other cyclists and pedestrians.

Apparently, though, elsewhere in the world, electric bicycles are not associated solely with Chinese food delivery. I read with interest this recent article from the Edmonton Journalabout commuting on an electric bike. It begins:

Darrell Derk is a self-professed “bike guy” and has five rides hanging from the rafters in his garage, but until two years ago Derk would drive his car, even on warm summer days, from his home to his haberdashery near Whyte Avenue.

Already, the subject of this story is shown to be little like the delivery person. He is, implicitly, wealthier than the delivery person, as evidenced by his five bikes, his car, and the home within which to garage them all. His vocation of haberdasher, too, suggests a somewhat loftier class than that of the food delivery person. Derek is further set apart from the delivery driver because, despite being a “self-professed ‘bike guy,’” he rides only for recreation, and not commuting or work, or, rather, he used to only ride for recreation. For now, as the headline suggests, Derek has purchased an electric bike.

Figure 1: The haberdasher and his electric bike.

Derek now speaks of the fresh air and exercise he now gets by commuting. “I was coming home after work and having to push myself to go out and have a ride,” he explains, “whereas with this, I can work it into my day.”

What will most strike anyone who commutes by bicycle is how similar Derek’s praise of his chosen mode of transport will sound to their own rationale for commuting. Indeed, the exercise and general peace of mind I get from riding to work are high on my list of reasons to do so, just behind my seething anger at rude subway riders and MTA fare hikes. And while, yes, I do have to change when I get to work, I can’t quite imagine achieving what Derek calls “that bikers high” were I on an electric bike.

I’m not completely opposed to electric bikes, especially if it’s a choice between one of them and a car. What concerns me, though, is when I encounter electric bikes on a bridge crossing, when, thanks to their motors, they speed along the narrow bikeway, paying little heed to other cyclists, or speeding the wrong way in a bike lane with bags of food hanging off of a set of wide handlebars.  While I haven’t started to see dandy commuters of the type described in the Edmonton Journal article in New York, if mainstream bike companies like Giant are making electric bikes, that’s probably only a matter of time. When an electric bike speeds towards me, I don’t feel all that different than I did the other day when, crossing the Manhattan Bridge, a gas-powered moped cruised along the bikeway. I turned to the cyclist behind me, and we both threw up a hand in acknowledgment that the moped had no place on that path.

The thing is, the physical aspect of cycling is integral to the behavior of the cyclist. The effort one must expend to move forward creates a kind of humility, and a reminder that, even at full speed, one is not indestructible. To remove this aspect of the cycling experience leads to more reckless riding, as evidenced by the proliferation of electric delivery bikes.  And if these electric bikes begin to cause more accidents involving pedestrians and other cyclists, they will only bring further legal scrutiny down on all cyclists. While I often say under my breath “There ought to be a law” when I’m nearly killed by an electric bike, I quickly correct myself: a law, even if it were directed explicitly towards electric bikes, would likely affect all cyclists. The last thing we need is more regulations.

But, as I said, I don’t outright oppose electric bikes. For the elderly, say, I’ve got little problem with them (though if one is too weak to ride a regular bike, I do wonder whether having a 40 pound behemoth between one’s legs is a good idea). And even for the delivery bikers, however erratic their behavior, I have a hard time opposing the electric bikes outright, for it is their willingness to skirt the law that allows such a wide range of delivery options for the consumer. Further, given the low, low pay most of these delivery people rely on, it’s hard to begrudge anything that makes their job a little easier. Really, I could care less what other people do, as long as their actions don’t negatively affect me. In this sense, electric bikes wouldn’t bother me, as long as their riders would act more like bicyclists who obey the law rather than motorcyclists who don’t.

Except, of course, when I’m waiting on my lamb vindaloo and vegetable pakora. At those times, all bets are off.

[onelessjerk-blog]

Street Logic

We’ve never trusted the anti-car slogan: “The streets are for the people!” for a couple reasons. One: it implies that motorists are something less than human, and two: it just ain’t true. In a hypothetical car-free world, (which would be a grim and cheerless place, no question) there would be no need for streets at all, just a bunch of sidewalks, trails and paths, presumably rutted by wagon wheels and strewn about with horse feces.

The slogan also lumps bicyclists in with pedestrians in the Valiant Struggle Against the Dread Auto, when in fact we’ve got a lot more in common with cars. We need the same things: smooth pavement, graded hills, convenient routes, controlled intersections, bridges, lots of space to go fast, etc, etc. – in short all the benefits of infrastructure that a car-centered world has created for us, and that we blithely use every day, while  cursing the four-wheeled behemoth that made it possible.

And it’s certainly not like removing cars from an area always helps bikers. The de-autoification of Times Square has been an inestimable boon for strollers, and has gone a great deal toward making the neighborhood close to tolerable. But anyone who’s tried to bike through the aimlessly meandering throngs there has surely experienced the true stuff of nightmare. Threading through the traffic jams that previously occupied the vicinity was a breeze in comparison.

I don’t mean to carp at the earnest proponents of traffic calming and pedestrian plazas; we here at Jerk HQ are staunch supporters of a more modestly scaled and less polluted cityscape. But as much as Henry Ford and Robert Moses are easy villains, demonizing the motor is a shortsighted and ultimately self-defeating strategy. Bicyclists prefer to feel like the good guys in this fight, but seem confused when  backlash occurs: the truth is many pedestrians see us as aggressors, and no wonder; barreling through Prospect Park in an M.C. Escher-inspired helmet, insistently swearing at ambling families to get out of the way, doesn’t exactly scream, “I’m just like you!”

But back to streets, which, contrary to the rhetoric of some, weren’t intended for folk-art fairs and organic-vegetable stands, but  for the easy transport of goods, services and  the people to buy and sell them. (And emergency services, in a close second.)

Granted, having thousands of folks choke the expressway on the way to work isn’t the best way to use the grid, and efforts to make streets more amenable to large numbers of non-driving users are certainly a must for any sort of sustainable urban future. But let’s remember that streets are there for a reason, and those reasons have wheels.

[onelessjerk-blog]

Poor, Poor Park Slope

Growing up, I thought for a time that I wanted to be a reporter. Every morning, I’d read the newspaper while eating breakfast, and, when I reached high school, I joined the school paper as soon as I was able. I loved the act of producing the paper, the editing, the brainstorming, the writing. I learned soon, though, that I didn’t like one thing: the reporting. Taking the time to determine whom to ask about various issues, and worrying about whether I’d treated them fairly or used their words representatively dogged me even as a teenager. I soon decided that even if elements of the news media appealed to me, reporting wasn’t one of them.

Sometimes, I wonder whether I wasn’t too harsh on myself. I usually think this when confronted with news reports or articles in Real Media Outlets that seem, to my eyes, to disregard the notions of journalistic rigor that I, even at a young age, aspired to.

On Saturday night, trying unsuccessfully to turn in early before heading upstate in the morning for a long ride with the rest of the Jerk brain trust, I noticed this segment on the evening news about the Prospect Park West bike lane:

This segment seems to represent everything about lazy journalism I’ve always abhorred. It shows little interest in getting the whole story, and instead seems content to serve as a platform for those who oppose the lane. Granted, a few supporters of the lane are shown, but they are, primarily, on their bikes, using the lane, and likely hadn’t worked up statements, as the lane’s opponents clearly had.

What’s interesting here is that the first charge levied against the lane is that it’s ugly. “Biking is wonderful,” says a concerned resident, “but this is bizarre.” I don’t know what’s bizarre about it — like all of the recent bike lanes that have been installed in NYC, it’s been discussed at community board meetings, and publicized by the DOT and PlaNYC. But, okay, perhaps what the citizen is calling “bizarre” is the notion of a separated lane. Indeed, such design is not the norm in New York, but it’s hardly bizarre. There’s of course 9th Avenue in Manhattan’s separated lane, and that’s worked out quite well, even if a least one person thought that lane wasn’t gay enough. There are also, of course, the new lanes on 1st and 2nd Avenues, though I’ll allow that those may be new enough that a lot of people who don’t ride bikes in the area wouldn’t have noticed them yet. Still, bizarre, as a charge, seems wrong.

This resident (or at least I think he’s a resident, since who he is, or why he cares is never really explained), compares Prospect Park West, in its beauty, to that of 5th Avenue or Central Park West in Manhattan, and suggests the DOT wouldn’t place such a lane on one of those streets. This bike lane, then, isn’t a transportation or environmental issue, it’s a class issue. Let me repeat that: the argument here is that residents of Park Slope, and Prospect Park West, are being oppressed by the DOT, because they’re not wealthy enough.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty  “Marty Mark” Markowitz makes this argument, but it’s all in his tone, and not his words: “The Department looks at those folks that live on 5th Avenue or live on Central Park West a little different than they look at at folks in Park Slope and Prospect Park West.”  To which I’d say, of course the DOT looks at people who live in Park Slope differently than they look at people on the Upper West or Upper East Side. After all, Park Slope is the home of tote bag chic, of strollers and Brownstones and general smugness. Park Slope residents are the very people who call out for bike lanes.

And, of course, people who live on Central Park West already have bike lanes, and have for some time. (Nearby Columbus Ave will sport a protected lane, soon, too.)

But the reporter here doesn’t challenge the allegations put forth against the bike lane. He quotes the DOT’s assertion that the Prospect Park West lane was voted for by the Community Board, but makes sure that, rather than simply noting it as a fact of the debate, it’s a quote from a DOT spokesperson. In so doing, he puts audible scare quotes around simple facts, while giving unfounded allegations the spotlight.

I shouldn’t be so harsh here, though. It’s sometimes easier to get people to speak up when they’re discontent than when they’re happy. (Look at this blog post, for instance.) The people who like the lane, too, are probably happily using it, rather than calling channel 4. And, truly, I should thank this reporter, for allowing Markowitz to suggest that residents of Park Slope are oppressed because of their social class. I’d been needing a laugh.

***Edit: Looking at the NBC New York website, I noted that the above-clip was dated July 22. Either they’re airing these segments early online (which kind of devalues watching the actual newscast), or it’s such a big deal, they aired it again during Saturday’s broadcast, and used it to advertise the Saturday evening newscast throughout the two hours of Law & Order that proceeded it.

[onelessjerk-blog]

Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle

Dedicated readers of bike-media (and dedicated readers of terrible New York City newspapers) may have noticed last Sunday’s opinion piece in the Post about killer cyclists. It probably goes without saying that I disagree with most of the author’s points therein, from his assertions about slowed traffic as a result of increased cycling to the final bit about the cyclist who was “accidentally” doored.  (We call them car “accidents,” but that doesn’t mean nobody’s at fault.) But, really, none of this is surprising. While Murdoch’s Journal reports on the increasing bougie respectability of urban cycling and offers a handy buyers guide to boot, Murdoch’s Post shakes its fist at all those new cyclists: this should surprise no one.

What interests me about the piece in Sunday’s post is how familiar it seems. I’ve recently been doing some research on the history of cycling in New York City, and many of the views expressed in the Sunday Post piece echoed views I’d read before. Indeed, the current bike boom in New York is not the City’s first. In 1869, the Times reported on the “velocipede furor” that had gripped the City, and probed the issues surrounding this furor, like access to the Central Park trails for these intrepid velocipedists.

By the later decades the 19th century, though, one finds a new kind of story about early bicycles starting to emerge. One of the more interesting articles I came across was in the now-defunct New York Herald. As the Herald does not offer online archives, I have transcribed the story below. I offer in the way of commentary only that those of us concerned about the future of cycling in New York had best consider cycling’s history before looking ahead. It would seem many of today’s issues were yesterday’s, too.

“Plague of Pedals” (August 3, 1883)

Dwellers of Manhatta, upon crossing the Broad Way, would be forgiven for mistaking the boulevard for a racing-track, so manifestly clogged have these urban thoroughfares become with penny farthings and their riders. Huggle-muggle through the streets do these figures speed, until the rutted cobblestones or a muddy ditch puts a stop to their conveyance, flinging the doughty rider madly asunder. This, sadly, is the best possible outcome, for the rider has only hurt himself. But what of when the obstacle he meets is not topographic but the figure of a business-man, or, worse-yet, a woman? Dear readers—have not many of you witnessed such scenes, and looked on in horror at the unfolding carnage of soiled petticoats and muddied overcoats?

Artist’s rendering: Such scenes are oft-sighted on Manhattan boulevards

These two-wheel-d jackdaws, far from showing contrition, display sinful pride at their mode of transport. (One must imagine them unfamiliar with the meaning of the Gospels, as I suspect many of these riders to be Papists, as evidenced by their fiery red hair and constant inebriation.) The have customized their bespoke-ed beasts with labels displaying their Tammany allegiance, or their conviction that by terrorizing good citizens astride such monstrosities they represent “One Less Carriage.”  They are indeed an affront to decent yeomen everywhere, and a threat to our social fabric. Should we fail to act, we shall watch such fabric be rent by these impertinent hellions.

The imminent opening of that great span of steel and stone across the East River further threatens the upstanding citizenry by allowing a path for those from that sprawling city of Brooklyn to wobble across the bridge as they stream in to pollute our fair and unmolested paving stones. Before our lanes and byways become further inhospitable, let us impress upon our leaders the importance of holding back this plague, be it through inspectors, or, perhaps, registration requirements for these conveyances, and limiting such registration to those in possession of United States Citizenship and demonstrable literacy. Such requirement would surely return a modicum of peace to our quailing hearts.