I was one of the gazillion riders pedaling around the city in Bike New York’s annual Five Boro Bike Tour recently.  I know, anecdotally and through personal encounters, that some participants in the ride have traveled thousands of miles to the start, and that others only pull out their trusty (rusty) steeds for this once-a-year tour of the town.  Certain celebrants were clearly out to have more than the usual amount of fun, despite the drizzle: clusters of bedecked helmets (rubber duckies are a perennial favorite), costumed cyclists (a group of urban superheroes sporting capes drifted by), and a few bikes pimped out with things like boomboxes provided entertainment for those in their vicinity.  I am told by an eyewitness that at least one unicycle pedaled the 42 mile route.

Me, I was grumpy.  I had a cold.  It was raining.  I hate riding in dense crowds of amateur cyclists.  I especially hate crashing.  I was on a clunky borrowed bike, not my usual sleek-handling roadster.  Oh yeah, and I had a blind person riding on the back of this borrowed tandem, which meant I was doubly responsible for safety and paranoid about collisions.  (We emerged unscathed, whew.)  At times, the roads were so congested with bikes that we had to dismount and walk forward at a pace too slow to roll.  Let’s say it was hectic.  “Why are all these people doing this?” I wondered to myself.

On Sunday’s ride, there were at least fifteen tandems with visually impaired stokers on board.  (In tandem speak, the “captain” rides in front, navigating and operating the brakes and gears; the powerhouse on the rear seat is the “stoker”, at term reminiscent of coal-fired locomotives.)  We were riding as part of Achilles Track Club’s relatively new tandem program in New York City, which got its unofficial start a few years ago when visually impaired athletes snagged a few good souls who agreed to captain the obstacle course known as the 5 Boro Bike Tour.  Today the program is staggering under the weight of its own popularity; for the biweekly rides around Central Park there are always more stokers than tandems or captains.  And no wonder: for the many blind and visually impaired people in this country, certain activities are impossible or must be heavily circumscribed.  But this way, visually impaired people can experience “the exhilaration of biking,” as one stoker put it. “I especially take this on because it is possible,” he said, “when so many things seem. . . foreclosed to me for reasons beyond my control.”  The stokers in the Achilles Tandem program sing gushing praise for the captains, the exercise, the thrilling freedom of cycling through spring sunshine and gusty squalls alike.  They do the 5 Boro Bike Tour because they can; if you give our stokers an offer involving “bike” and a verb in the same sentence, they will agree without a moments’ notice.

For the most part, we ride one or two or maybe three circuits of the loop road of Central Park.  And there is usually an Achilles contingent participating in rides like the Transportation Alternatives Century, the Tour de Brooklyn, and similar mass rides.  I have taken an intrepid few on a furtive crosstown dash to ride on the Hudson Greenway, for a change of pace, but for the most part, our Achilles athletes pedal valiantly around and around and around the Central Park loop.  It is simply the only safe place to take an unwieldy tandem with vulnerable cargo when one’s de facto starting point is Central Park, where the bikes are stored.

This is the cycling equivalent of riding a merry-go-round and calling it equestrian training. 

And it would be completely unnecessary if our fair city were as cycling friendly as other major metropolitan areas who have managed to integrate bicycle facilities, and cyclists of various levels of ability and skill, into their transportation networks.

Overbearing NYC auto traffic is, in fact, one reason that the 5 Boro Bike Tour is able to field over 35,000 cyclists for a day of bicycle gridlock.  For that ride, the roads are almost completely closed to cars, including huge auto thoroughfares like the FDR Drive.   Closed roads mean that a serious collision is more likely to include a few scrapes, bruises and bent spokes, rather than death: a real risk of cycling on city streets in regular traffic.  This is a proposition that most cyclists happily accept.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of New York City residents just like the blind athletes circling the park.  They want to ride – they’d be thrilled to ride – all over the Upper West Side if it were a reasonable thing for a reasonably prudent person to do.  They do not dwell on their impairment, but the fact is that what is tolerated as normal city traffic presents an enormous obstacle to any person, visually impaired or otherwise, who might want to engage in normal activity like riding a bike. 

In a perverse chicken-and-egg problem, the Upper West Side has relatively few cyclists because the roads are inhospitable for cyclists, which creates the appearance of low demand for cycling facilities, although the true story is that cyclists who value their lives and limbs are simply afraid to ride on the roads.  Those of more limited skill or physical ability simply cannot improve their riding skills here without running an unacceptable risk of serious injury or death by careless motorists.

This is not how a city that cares for its residents is supposed to behave.  This is not a tenable state of affairs for any city anticipating growth in residency and traffic, like ours.

The solution to this problem is both bold and simple: a physically protected bike route, running on honest-to-gosh city streets, where people might actually want to, you know, achieve something more than one more loop around the park.  A bike is a great way to run errands, check out that new coffee shop eight blocks away, or pick up a quart of milk.  (What?  Your bathroom light bulb just burned out and the hardware store closes in eight minutes?  Quick, Bikegirl, grab the two-wheeler!)  And many cities around the country and the world have managed to integrate bikes into the fabric of everyday life, without relegating cycling to the fringes of town where very little commercial activity takes place.  Cycling is a non-polluting, quiet, lower-speed, space-efficient, healthy, happiness-inducing means of transportation.  Cycling facilities that encourage cycling, protect users, and draw motorists’ attention to more vulnerable users like bikes and pedestrians, benefit all citizens.  One year after installing a physically protected bike lane on Ninth Avenue, the Department of Transportation found that injuries from all kinds of collisions were down dramatically, despite an astounding 57% increase in cycling in the area.  Sidewalk cycling was down by 80%, demonstrating that many people who ride on the sidewalk do so because they don’t have a safe space to do so on the street, where they belong.  Consult your handy copy of the NY Vehicle and Traffic Code: bikes belong in the street.  It’s hard to tell that given the current state of speedy affairs on Upper West Side avenues.

Cycling routes like those in Central Park and the Hudson River Greenway are valuable and well loved, but they highlight the lack of truly useful and sensible bike routes that have been integrated into city life.  If you want to bike here, you may either go around in circles, ride up and down along the river, or risk your life.  That these are our choices indicates we are suffering from severe civic disabilities.

Surprisingly, it took an encounter with blind people to truly open my eyes.

http://newtasteuws.com/ 

I’m involved in an effort at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, one of the largest and most influential synagogues on the Upper West Side , to develop a plan for greening our street, the 200 block of West 88th Street , between Broadway and West End Avenue . The Environmental Action Hevra, one of several committees in the synagogue’s social justice/social action program, has adopted this as its primary objective for this year. Using the UWSSR Blueprint as our handbook, we’re examining various options, including chicanes to divert through traffic, angled parking to replace parallel parking, secure bike parking, curb extensions, etc. In short, pretty much the whole set of street modifications for a residential side street that are depicted in the Blueprint. We hope to make ours a model block and hopefully to extend the redesign to neighboring blocks.

Before devising a specific proposal to the DOT, which we expect to pass through the Community Board, we plan to build local support by meeting with other residents and businesses on the block to explain the project and its benefits in terms of greater safety for pedestrians and cyclists, cleaner air, reduced noise, and an altogether more pleasant and congenial environment. With a lot of work, we hope to see a proposal before the DOT within six months.

Meanwhile, Hazon (www.hazon.org), an organization that promotes environmental awareness and action in the Jewish community, has recently begun working with other Upper West Side synagogues to promote similar Livable Streets initiatives appropriate to their particular locations, though none are as far advanced in considering such projects as B’nai Jeshurun. They are also being encouraged to show their support for improvements like protected bicycle lanes by sending post cards and signing petitions to Community Board 7 and the DOT. Stay tuned for more developments.

At the last meeting of the Green Committee of Community Board 7 of the Upper West Side we watched a documentary about the transformation of Curitiba, Brazil.  It’s called “A Convenient Truth” and I highly recommend it, though you must not watch the trailer on Youtube which makes it seem like little but talking heads with cheesy music in the background.  

“A Convenient Truth” describes Curitiba’s instituting the best of cutting-edge urban design, and doing so with such speed and executive authority that in one example residents went to sleep beside a traffic-choked noisy nightmare of a main thoroughfare, and woke up to a pedestrianized street with benches and birds singing. The pedestrianized street quickly became a success with business owners (because people buy more when they are strolling than when they are driving by at 30 mph) and residents.  

Here are a couple other examples:  Curitiba took away traffic lanes from cars in order to create one of the most advanced bus rapid transit systems (BRTs) I’ve yet seen. The BRT was much cheaper to build than a subway, and it now moves a huge proportion of the City, cuts down on air and noise pollution, lessens traffic and helps people get from one part of the City to another faster and with less aggravation (less traffic jams and noisy streets).  

Curitiba paid residents of an easily flooded urban lowland to move to higher ground, and then restored the flood plain to a wetland that protects the City from dangerous floods.  The wetland and flood plain became part of a huge park that offers recreation and green space.  

Note that there could be environmental justice aspects to this action: I would like to know what the class was of the residents of the flood plain, and if the City paid the flood plain residents adequately for their dislocation and displacement to other neighborhoods.  If those issues were treated with sensitivity and justice, then this big new park - where people eat their lunches, canoe and picnic while the wildlife habitat filters flood waters safely and saves the city money - is a true accomplishment.  

Overall, A Convenient Truth describes can be done when a government decides to use the best of modern urban design to make itself more livable.          

My friend, Julie Margolies, came to me one day and said, “the intersection near my kids’ school is really dangerous. What can we do about it?” We met on the corner of 95th and Amsterdam and witnessed what it was like to cross this awful intersection. It was especially daunting to cross with a stroller or a young (read: short and hard to see) child in tow. Julie took the initiative to write a letter to Gale Brewer and ask for a Leading Pedestrian Interval and signage to alert drivers of a delayed green. Julie is willing to organize her school and get a petition started. This is the way to ask for change. I hope others will do the same. Thanks Julie!

February 5, 2009

Dear Councilmember Brewer:

I write concerning a dire safety issue in your district that needs to be addressed. As the mother of three young children, two of whom attend The Studio School on 95th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, I witness this frightening situation multiple times per day.

As you are likely well aware, the intersection at West 95th Street and Amsterdam Avenue is dangerous for pedestrians. This intersection’s traffic pattern is unusual in that traffic travels west on 95th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus and east on 95th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam. What results is a deadly convergence of traffic in the crosswalk at Amsterdam Avenue. The situation is exacerbated by the facts that 96th Street is a major crosstown thoroughfare, and that 95th Street is a major outlet for cars coming off the West Side Highway.

As I mentioned, my children attend school on 95th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus. We and many other families from our school regularly cross this intersection at Amsterdam Avenue multiple times a day, with young children in tow. Many parents, including me, are often pushing strollers. At busy times of the day, cars routinely block the crosswalk so that pedestrians are unable to cross in the crosswalk and must walk into traffic just to get across the street. Even more frightening, drivers often catapult into the furthest lane of traffic without looking – e.g., a driver coming east on 95th Street wants to continue east on 96th Street and swings into the lane furthest to the right, and vice versa for those traveling west – nearly hitting adults and young children. I have had to stop short with a stroller or pull my children out of the way of cars on more than one occasion when cars suddenly barreled around standing traffic into the lane where I was crossing. Families at our school routinely experience the same, and we are not the only school on the block.

It seems that the situation could be helped considerably by installing a Leading Pedestrian Interval to give pedestrians a head start getting across the street, with signage alerting drivers to the delay for pedestrians. A more ambitious change that would eliminate the problem entirely would be to direct traffic eastbound on West 95th Street from Riverside to Central Park West.

I am confident I can organize other parents to show their support by signing a petition or writing letters, if you think such efforts would be useful to persuade the Department of Transportation to make either enormously effective change.

Thank you very much for your assistance. I look forward to hearing from you.

­ I want to begin by thanking profusely the city for repainting West 106th Street with such an excellent bike lane. I ride over it several times a day, and feel much safer. But — there’s always a but — the section of 106th Street in front of the Jewish Home and Hospital is exceedingly dangerous. In more than 90% of my trips east bound on this street, there­ are vans and cars parked in the bike lane. Almost every time. This requires me to ride in the car lane, which then forces cars to drive in the median, which they are happy to do at full speed.­

This cannot be the safest way to get my son to school, nor can it have been the intentions of the design of the bike lane designers. I propose, therefore, that the car parking in front of the hospital/ residence be eliminated and in its place, put a loading zone, so that all those double parking transportation vans have somewhere to go. The fact of the ­matter is that they have to be there to pick up and drop off residences, and no matter what happens, they are going to park there. Why not give them a place to go, instead of in our bike lane?

Dear Upper West Siders:

I want to thank you again for coming out last Thursday for the launch of the Blueprint for the Upper West Side.  It’s been almost exactly a year since the birth of the Upper West Side Streets Renaissance (UWSSR) and our celebration at PS 87 was a terrific way to begin year two.  If you haven’t already, take a look at the great StreetFilm about the event.

But now what?  How do we move forward with the agenda outlined in the Blueprint?  The short answer is “start talking”.  Let your neighbors know what the UWSSR is doing for the neighborhood you share. Are you part of your block association?  Bring blueprint copies to the next meeting and suggest that the association get involved.  If there’s not a block association on your block, start one!

As you know, the UWSSR website has a ton of information, including templates for advocacy letters, a community blog, and discussion lists that let you easily connect with fellow residents.  Get involved with your local Community Board – we’re having a Community Board Signup Meeting on November 24th, and we would love to see you there.  Write letters to the editor at your local paper.  But most of all, just start talking to the people around you – the teachers, neighbors, workers, friends and family who make your neighborhood what it is.

And if you want to get involved, but would like more information about the contents of the Blueprint for the Upper West Side, you can request an informational session with our Community Liaison, Tila Duhaime.  Contact her at tila@transalt.org to schedule a time for her to meet with your group.

Ultimately, it is Upper West Side residents who will decide the future of the neighborhood.  For years that privilege has been in the hands of those who prioritize the movement of automobiles over the safety of our children and our seniors.  It’s time that we take it back.

Yours,

PG

We’ve added a new page of letter templates to the site to make it even easier to make yourself heard on the UWS issues that matter to you.

They’re separated by individual letters, that you send yourself, and group letters, which you can use to gather support from other people in the neighborhood.  

So take them, use them, re-write them, customize them.  The important thing is to make sure the people that represent our neighborhood are hearing about these issues.

If you’re reading this, chances are the answer is  yes! So here’s the deal: apply to join your local community board (CB).

This year I had the opportunity to witness my local CB first hand, and testified alongside others in support of the cross-town bike lane on 106th Street.  We won, and while it’s far from perfect, it’s a start.

One would think that on the Upper West Side, a bastion of progressive voices, getting this bike lane improvement would have been a no brainer.  Think again!  DOT worked hard to win the hearts and minds of the CB at several meetings, and so did those of us in the neighborhood who supported the improvement. What was clear from the interaction was that DOT takes CB input very seriously, and that a “livable streets positive” board will get things done faster with DOT than one that is not. We won, but it was close.

Any reader of StreetsBlog knows the score: it’s time that more people are heard at our CBs who want to increase and improve pedestrian and cyclist spaces. And now’s your chance to do it by applying to join the transportation committee of your local board.

CB members are appointed by the borough president, and in Manhattan that’s Scott Stringer. You’ll need to commit to attend full board meetings once a month and the committee meeting (ideally transportation) that meets once a month too. The real opportunity is to  take advantage of being on the board and make the values of Livable Streets heard and felt!

If you think you can help and make a difference, you must apply by Jan. 15th. for a 2-year term that starts on April 1.  There are 25 vacancies to be filled, so chances of getting on a board are very reasonable.

Please consider joining. 

Application to join a Manhattan Community Board

More information about Community Board Membership

 

We can have more and better Livable Streets.  And you can help!