Are you a data geek? I married one…but Shaun Jacobsen is waaay into it and parlayed his love of graphs and numbers into a public online transportation data base. Shaun is a slight academic, graduate student of Sociology, French, Economics, and Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin and in his spare time he [...]
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This just in, the financially struggling Citibikes (Citibikenyc.com) bike share may have a new savior…Donald Trump. The megalomanic with the perfect hair wants to add to his empire and use the bike share as a vehicle to advertise his conservative agenda. WNYC’s Brian Lehrer and Transportation Alternatives executive director, Paul Steely White have more on this new development from today’s Brian Lehrer Show. The Brian Lehrer Show Continue reading New Bailout Savior of CitiBikes…Donald Trump? You’ve probably been hearing through the airwaves that the highly successful bike sharing program of NYC, Citibike is facing finnacial woes. Hampered by a brutal winter, which greatly decreased ridership, there also seems to be some short sighted planning from the system creator Alta, based out of Portland. Apparently this bike share is the [...] Sent to me by Toby Miller. TheCitiBikes are about to bloom. Hopefully. D.O.T commissioner Polly Trottenberg was on Brian Lehrer a few weeks ago but wasn’t divulging any details about a bike share expansion. Listen to her interview: here. One thing cyclists love to do is ride their bicycles…well maybe not in the #slushopoclypse that plagued the streets of NYC over the last couple of days. Even die hard mechanic Hal Ruzal from Bicycle Habitat known for commuting shirtless, (not in this weather) opted for the subway. Bike blogger, Liz Patek at: bikepeacenyc.wordpress.com wrote about getting around in what she called: “Slush-Apaloza.”
Read more: here. I feel compelled to follow this story because I had to endure a lot of bike share skeptics who we’re determined to predict the worst when winter came. During the obvious success of New York City’s fledgling bike sharing program in the warmer months many haters would say…”Yeah, it’s popular now, but what about [...] I was taking a bit of a hibernation here in 2014, dodging the “Artic Vortex(s)” and bad road conditions. This had nothing to do with my recent crash. On Monday (1/20/14) I went out for drinks to congratulate my pal Jonathan Beck who you may remember from his bad bike crash in 2010. He has long since been rebuilt with bionics and has replicated a new cycling maniac of the future–a baby girl. Congratulations to him and wife Britt Reichborn-Kjennerud on daughter, 8.5lb Bucklin Solvei Beck, entering planet Earth, 1/4/14. They’ve got Norwegian roots which explains the names and they’ll be using the middle one (Solvei). Speaking of Bucklin…A front basket that I personally improperly installed on one of my bikes dug into my front wheel on the ride home from drinking with Beck. This caused me to do a endo over the front handlebars in a NY minute and land right on my big nose. Luckily the helmet I insist on wearing helped my injuries to be mostly contained to my face. A very nice Park Slope resident, witnessed my face plant and was very helpful in convincing me not to walk to the nearest hospital (Methodist) but rather to take the ambulance he had phoned in. This was a much better decision then trying to walk 10 blocks with a scarf trying to stop the bleeding. The doctors in the ER were helpful, but it did take 6 hours to get a CAT-scan, Motrin and two stitches…but expect NYC ER’s to be overloaded because of all the hospital closings. So I haven’t updated the blog in a while in my face healing time, it seems like I should put something up on here, seeing as 2014 is my 10th year of writing this thing. The bike community here in NYC is eagerly waiting to see what will happen with the new progressive Mayor Bill DeBlasio and his recently appointed administration, primarily the police commissioner William Bratton and new Department of Transportation commish, Polly Trottenberg. We’re definitely off to a rough start with 18 pedestrian and cyclist fatalities since Mayor DeBlasio was sworn in at the start of 2014. The End of 2013: More about the future of Bloomberg Associates from the NY Times. Incoming D.O.T. commissioner is Polly Trottenberg: A federal transportation policy maker with credentials include working with New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan on the 1998 federal transportation bill and for Senator Chuck Schumer. Here is more about her from Ben Fried with Streetsblog.org ——– January 2nd, 2014 Mayor DeBlasio is sworn in and transportation commissioner, Polly Trottenberg meets with parents who were on hand to keep the mayor on task about his promise of working towards Vision Zero. They are also victims of recent traffic violence and lost loved ones to reckless drivers. Vision Zero, is a goal adopted by NYC and brought forward by the new mayor to work towards having zero traffic fatalities of pedestrians and cyclists. Although that number may be impossible to obtain, the idea is to treat every traffic violent death as equally significant and even one death is too many. It is also a goal of a city, to work towards making efforts to make these fatalities avoidable through infrastructure, awareness and cracking down on motor vehicle violations. This seems especially important when for the last three years, around this time, the NYPD has chosen to crack down on bad cycling behavior and making no efforts to curb speeding cars and other moving violations that end up killing people, unlike bikes not stopping for lights in Central Park. The Commissioner wasn’t aware of this particular demonstration on inauguration day, but the site of it caught her attention and she made time to find out what the people holding the vision zero signs had to say: Trottenberg Meets Parents of Traffic Violence Victims at Inauguration. by Stephen Miller. Incoming Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, right, speaks with Amy Cohen, whose 12-year-old son was killed by a driver on Prospect Park West. Photo: Stephen Miller Mayor DeBlasio introduces the new police commissioner William Bratton at a press conference. Bratton a former NYC police commissioner in NYC (1994-96) has been in Los Angeles, vehemently cracking down on jaw walkers of those few citizens that actually aren’t driving in a car. Here is a video from Bratton’s press conference: Since the publishing of the “Is it Ok to Kill Cyclists?” op-ed in the Sunday NY times (11/9/13) by Daniel Duane, there has been a number of responses as the article has made the rounds through bicycle blogs and other related publications. The main point of Duane’s piece, although not entirely clear (at least not to this blogger) was to illustrate how drivers rarely face criminal charges after hitting and killing cyclists, even when the motorist is at fault. The opinion gave some vague examples but didn’t do a good job of finding details about why motorists aren’t prosecuted or if cyclist fatalities are even investigated. In fairness to the author, Daniel Duane did appear on a radio program to clarify his position and continue to champion the cause that drivers seem to be getting away with murder. Here and Now on WBUR.org There was also a well done NPR piece over the weekend that brought up a discussion about whether the bikes should be treated like cars in regards to current traffic laws and how cities are designed, especially with the rise in the popularity of bike sharing programs. WNYC-Gabfest, aired November 15th, 2013 The Pedaling Revolution Edition -Episode #65
The radio program used Duane’s piece as an example that it’s NOT, OK to kill cyclists while citing the opposite side of the coin, People who apparently think it’s perfectly fine (to kill cyclists) and uses the old argument that we deserve it because of our blatant violation of traffic laws. (laws designed for motor vehicles) Case in point, Christopher Caldwell from the Weekly Standard. Drivers Get Rolled
Read more: here. Mostly this op-ed is an excuse to continue the defensive gross generalization of cyclists being mostly rich middle age liberals who are not blue collar enough. Caldwell venomously spews: “They are, to judge from their blogs, more aggrieved by delivery trucks parked in bike lanes than drivers are by delivery trucks parked in car lanes. This may be because proportionately fewer of them have ever met a person who drives a delivery truck.” He does make a few points that roadways are outdated and don’t include the physical space for bicycles. Also, there are some valid points that biking is healthy for both people and the planet, but most cyclists are just too self righteous and think they own the roadways so therefore it’s Ok to run a few over. Somehow it seems that if you choose to ride a bicycle as a form of transportation, you’re somehow expected to act like cars and be their equal, but if your hit by one, then your treated like less than equal. In an attempt to reclaim a sense of humanity, that actual lives have been lost, letters to the editor of the NY Times evoke similarities to pedestrians. In direct response to the Daniel Duane piece… Caution: Danger in the Traffic Lanes
Read more opinions: here. The Duane piece hit especially hard in NYC due the fact that there have been a number of pedestrians killed in the last month, many of which are children 12 and under. Never underestimate the economic ingenuity of a New Yorker Posted on twitter by: Jeremy Lenz (@jeremy646) This week biking in NYC got some love (coverage) in the local rags. AM NY had a cover story Monday about how the bike sharing program has been inordinately successful and surpassed expectations. First Summer of Citibike Exceeds Expectations By: Ivan Pereira September 15th, 2013 New Yorkers have certainly done their “share” [...] |
 
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