While the concept of Bike To Work Day may be obsolete, here in New York City we’re still observing it:
So how is the DOT encouraging people to ride bicycles to work? By not finishing the Hudson River Greenway, apparently:
This is exactly the route I use for my own commute (or would if it were open) , so I’d like to go on record by saying this Peter Freed guy is absolutely correct:
And yes, maybe complaining about how the city is actually fixing something for you reeks of the “entitlement” of which cyclists are always being accused, but I ask you, when the hell did entitlement become a dirty word, anyway?
Here’s the definition of entitlement:
And what’s so wrong with that? Are we not supposed to stand up for our rights? Should we not get what we deserve? You know what they call people who don’t demand all the things to which they are entitled? They call them losers–or sometimes Canadians.
Sorry, Canadians.
[“Not a problem.” — A Canadian]
But hey, at least those entitled Queensites will finally get their separate bike and pedestrian paths on the Queensboro Bridge:
As I recall this was supposed to happen years ago, but apparently the mayor needed to be “fully briefed:”
In his defense it’s hard to get a full briefing when you keep walking away while people are talking to you.
In any case, the separate paths are way overdue, because anybody who uses this bridge knows it’s a complete shitshow (if you’ll excuse the urbanist jargon). In fact, it’s so bad it even got Streetsblog to admit we had a “moped crisis:”
Though maybe things wouldn’t be so bad if people already knew the answers to simple questions like this:
Everybody knows descending riders should yield to climbing riders…though admittedly it’s no longer so simple, since people climbing on e-bikes and e-scooters and other forms of e-mobility/e-crap are always passing people on regular bikes which means if you’re descending on the bridge there’s pretty much always someone in your path. I’ve always understood (perhaps wrongly) the spirit of the rule is that you should cede the right of way to the climber since they’re putting in a lot of work to maintain their momentum than you are, and if they have to stop for you it’s a lot harder for them to get going again. But when the climber has a motor that reasoning goes out the window, and you’re only yielding to them because they’re too impatient to wait patiently behind someone climbing without a motor.
But hey, I guess it could be worse and you could live in San Francisco, a city that now generates dystopian headlines like this:
I think I speak for all of us when I say WHAT THE FUCK IS A ZOOX???
Well, here’s your answer:
Weird, but no doubt it beats getting hit by an actual driver.
