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The Economist has published an article (paywalled, sorry) on the state of cyclists in New York, which dropped the day I was leaving the city. It was the first time I had visited as an adult. I came away with some respect for it (loved the food, service, and how fast everyone walked). The point of the story is supposedly that cyclists are now being treated unfairly:
I’m a cycling nut, so the issue is close to my heart. In a T2 city, I feel like our role is that of a scapegoat. People fantasize about killing cyclists pretty regularly, and none of them understand the challenges and tradeoffs we have to deal with. At this point, I've just thrown up my hands in despair at this ever being better, so I just get on the road as little as possible.
The people on two wheels in NYC are a different breed. Each of the longtime residents I asked - 100% - are now more scared of cyclists than cars. My 3 day trip felt the same to me. Every car was attentive and respectful of me as a pedestrian. The cyclists were fast, heavy, and disregarded almost every crosswalk signal or red light, despite having their own lanes. What’s the quantitative danger?
Notice the sleight of hand here. What’s included are E-Bikes, scooters, and mopeds - each of these truly motorized vehicles. The number of people killed by analog cyclists nationwide has been, for many years, single digits. This is important. E-bikes allow users to achieve speeds and momentum totally beyond their skill, and are often part of poorly maintained machines that are part of sharing programs. My mind is blown that even 8 people have been killed - that's an enormous number even in a place as dense as NYC. It probably means a huge number of serious injuries as collateral damage.
Put simply, the fixie riders racing through the city are psychotic but not dangerous to pedestrians.
As you’d expect, the lede is buried, along with the Culture War. The cyclists zipping through the city on E-bikes are exclusively yapping in a foreign language on speakerphone, with DoorDash bags on the back of their cycles. Nothing should get in the way of private taxis for burritos.
To recap how insane this is:
It’s so similar to LA, albeit with fewer vehicle fires and bricks on heads. The fix just cannot be the obvious and correct one. Instead, it’s to hop on Reddit to “map police hotspots” or refuse to stop as a way to LARP civil disobedience.
I was a long term road cyclist in NYC from 2000 to 2017. I also kept a car in Manhattan the entire time, so I have the experience of all the major interest groups being discussed. I lived through the progression from bike messengers weaving in traffic to the design and implementation of stupid and dangerous bike lanes to this e-bike situation.
Nowadays I have a hard time defending “cyclists” without lots of “no true Scotsman” style gatekeeping and I have kind of given up on making the cyclist case. I am a road rider, I know how to ride with cars and around people, but my breed are the minority.
The difference I think is the e-bikes. People riding e-bikes are not cyclists. They haven’t learned the skills that usually go along with being able to maintain those 20+ MPH speeds. They’re dangerous electric mopeds. Now when I visit, it’s terrifying.
Why are NY bike lanes dangerous?
Good question. Frame of reference: I did the Lycra thing on weekends and early morning training, but I also commuted about 18mi each day in street clothes. Rode daily, weather permitting.
(adjusts jaunty cycling chapeau and assumes casually deliberate pose)
Before bike lanes, bikes rode with cars, between them, filtering up to the light at each stop. At lights, you’d safely be out in front of the cars, visible to all, front wheel just behind the crosswalk. Head start at the light so you’re seen, cars catch up, repeat. It was a thrill and required some guts but that kept tourists and entryists at bay. I can’t say whether fewer cyclists got hit by cars back then, but in any case all this stayed in the traveled lanes of the streets where wheeled vehicles belong.
(Aside: Food Delivery bikes were old mtn bikes back then and they just rode on the sidewalk (illegal but selectively enforced)).
Gradually the city added more and more bike infrastructure along with the (anti-car) street redesign / project zero in the 00s and teens. Cars got squeezed, and these new bike paths provided lots of space that might have been intended for bikes, but in reality just became multi-use space. Or more accurately no man’s land.
Litany of issues with trying to use a NYC bike lane: it’s the Wild West now. They’re laid out such that you have to cross 3-4-5 lanes of vehicles at opposite-way intersections; many but not all are between the sidewalk and the row of parked cars; all cyclist rightly fear getting “doored” by a parked vehicle; bike path use is not preserved for cyclists so inevitably there is a black SUV, a police car, a vending cart, an UBER, a yellow cab or three, and/or a hundred pedestrians using it as an extension of the sidewalk, driving you into the street unexpectedly; the aforementioned e-bikes are everywhere as are oblivious tourists on citibikes.
The worst part was that once these lanes showed up, expectations changed. It felt like a theft of the commons or eternal September or something like that. Bikes, formerly road users like cars, were in a weird place where the core users were squeezed out by all the above, but were no longer welcome or expected on the roads.
I would inevitably just take my chances in the streets. And if you’re quick enough you don’t really piss off the cars much.
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=bzE-IMaegzQ
I knew what video this was before I clicked on it. It's a classic.
Yep, and aside from the actual crashes, quite representative.
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