bikelane


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Protected bike lanes, ie. lanes separated from the rest of the roadbed by conctrete curbs and markers, are making a comeback in NYC on 8th and 9th Avenues, joining the one on 12th Avenue (the Joe DiMaggio Highway). Your webmaster is a bicyclist myself, and I applaud this new initiative by the Bloomberg Administration.

I am likely the most unusual bicycle advocate in New York City, however. I bicycle and walk everywhere because I am a card-carrying chicken.

I have bicycled since age 6 or so, and one of my early FNY epiphanies occurred at age 11 in the crazy year of 1968 when I finally broke out of Bay Ridge and made it all the way to the corner of Triton Avenue and West 6th Street. Of course, avid FNY fans know that Triton Avenue hasn't existed in decades but, on that one summer foray, I chanced upon its destruction. The street was being paved over and one lone cast-iron Corvington post, complete with humpbacked street signs reading "TRITON AVE" and "W 6 ST" was still in place. Triton was a one-block street running between Shell Road and West 6th Street north of Neptune Avenue; with the latter and Mermaid Avenue, it formed a ichthyic triumvirate of streets describing people who waved tridents and commanded armies of fish.

Beginning then I bicycled all over Brooklyn and other boroughs, filing away Forgotten things in my head when I chanced upon them but dumbly never thinking to begin taking pictures until 1998 -- a time when NYC began to ramp up its destruction of many relics of its historic past.

As a bicyclist, though, I have always been a man alone. I have jousted with drivers, battled with pedestrians, sped away from dogs, and increasingly in the past decade, done battle with other bicyclists.

I don't know about other cities, but I've found bicyclists in NYC to be among the, well, most avoidable people anywhere. On the Brooklyn Bridge, the unwritten rule is that bicycles are going to race as quickly as possible, and pedestrians and slower bicyclists had best get out of the way. The same holds on the DiMaggio bike path. What is it with the costumes? And, if you are a pedestrian attempting to cross the street on the green, look both ways, because if you don't you will be buzzed by a bicyclist. Needless to say, I ride with traffic, stop at lights when there's traffic, and stop for little old ladies. Mr. Nice Guy, I suppose. Drivers are no better. Arguments over doorings have nearly gotten violent on some occasions over the years.

I have no interest in the environmental, 'green' aspects of bicycling; I do not consider automobiles the Great Other or the enemy; I do not ride a bicycle to make a statement of any kind. I ride a bike to get places because I have always been frightened to drive. I have no interest in being flattened on the expressway by a maniac. Car commercials are insane, appealing to idiots who want to drive like maniacs -- a deadly combination. I want to be in the slowest of slow lanes. And that is why I ride a bicycle. And now the bike racers want to take that away.

Koch's bike lanes

During the transit strike of April 1980, I bicycled to work at a library in downtown Brooklyn. Anyone remember? One day, it rained like a monsoon and that was about as soaking wet as I have ever been. (I don't swim -- is that a surprise?) Anyway, in the aftermath of the strike Ed Koch actually had some separated bike lanes installed in places on 5th, 6th and 7th Avenues. I'll let King of Traffic Sam Schwartz take it from there about the fate of these lanes...

If I'm not mistaken I believe there's still a small piece of one of the original Ed Koch bike lanes left, on 6th Avenue. Julie A. Lobbia (1958-2001) was a housing reporter for the Village Voice who was a bicycle enthusiast. The lane was dedicated on August 22, 2003.

I had been under the impression that this was one of the leftover 'bike lights' from the Koch era, but on second look, it appears to be designed like a modern-era, wide-tire urban bikes.

Meanwhile here's a look at the bike lane on 8th Avenue, West 12th and Abingdon Square. The city's attempt to get bicyclists to follow directional signs is admirable, but such an undertaking is akin to attempting to herd cats. Here's hoping for some enforcement.

If protected bike lanes are successful, the graddaddy and prototype will be the one on 9th Avenue between West 14th and 23rd Streets, installed in 2007.

I root for their success, but I hope the city will also enforce traffic regulations and make sure that pedestrians' safety comes first in line before bikes, trucks and cars.

Photographed February 2009; page completed April 1, 2009

erpietri@earthlink.net