BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I find it fascinating that some one educated enough to claim confirmation bias fails to understand that there is a high potential for bias in her data, regardless of how sophisticated the setup is.

Technology (in this case a high end spy camera setup) is no substitute for understanding.

By only looking at one place along the bike path, there is simply NO WAY her data is credible.

I couldn't finish the article, the sense of entitlement dripping from every utterance from the anti-bike lane folks drove me way after 2 pages.

Me too. I suggest that she is a transient "New Yorker." A true New Yorker should be proud at the evolution of the city; not just how it was when they moved there.

biksnobnyc has a great post about this, he compares the new side with the bike lane vs the old side. The difference is astounding.

I didn't realize that "Seniors for Safety" is also part of the law suit. Would love to see how a senior manages to cross the other side of the park, with a 7 second walk signal and drivers who speed through the red light and stop in the crosswalk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nl1XgeHVXI&feature=player_embedded

"Bike lanes are relatively easy to install. The Prospect Park West path, with all its safety paraphernalia, was built in about a month; unprotected lanes can be created in a matter of days. Bike lanes are also inexpensive. The Bloomberg administration estimates that over the past four years, the city has spent $11 million installing bike lanes, with two thirds of that cash provided by the federal government. Over the same period, the city spent $1.5 billion on street repair alone. And since streets with protected bike lanes see 40 percent fewer accidents, according to City Hall, and traffic crashes set the city back over $4 billion a year, bike lanes can actually save New York money. They also cut pollution, which is good for everyone. Bike lanes, when framed this way, are just common sense."

"You can talk about the reduction in crashes, the reduction in car speeds—but that is so disconnected from people’s panic over change.” — Caroline Samponaro, Transportation Alternatives

Crashes, speeds and money, money, money. Bike lanes reduce city for crying out loud. We can't afford not to install them anymore!

good thing you folks didn't make it to page 3. here is the first sentence from there:

In the prevailing spin, the bike-lane fight has two sides: the blue-collar New Yorkers who have to drive to work and the coddled creative-class types who live close enough to commute on their Bianchis. But the class dynamics are actually far more complicated, and the allegiances often defy expectations.

i wonder whose side the author is on. it goes on to talk about how opponents defy those stereotypes. but it would appear only "coddled creative-class types" ride bikes.

He's not taking a side. He rides himself.

the whole article is a side. and just one of them.

“You know about the cars. You know about that potential danger when you’re crossing the street. You know you might end up a bag of blood and guts and bones. But that is a finite realm of danger,” says Jack Brown, who used to own a bike shop in the East Village. “When it comes to cyclists, that danger is infinite. Cyclists can be anywhere, at any time: on the sidewalk, riding the wrong way down the street. And you have no peace … The anarchy that has been allowed to prevail is astonishing. According to butterfly theory, according to chaos theory, I am sure that the level of emotional and psychological damage wrought by the bicycle far exceeds the damage done by cars.” And then Brown goes there: “It is homegrown terrorism. The cumulative effect is equivalent to what happened on 9/11.”

and people wonder why we can't take these folks seriously.

Comedy gold.

“It is homegrown terrorism."

More people died in US car accident in September 2001 then in the twin towers in the same month.

Between the start of september 2001 and now, 5 times as many NYC people have died in NYC from cars as from terrorism.

(Stephen Colbert voice on)

It would be so wrong to subject these poor people to homegrown terrorism from radical bike riders.

Mick, don't be confused: "Terrorism" is when other people (cyclists) scare us (noncyclists). What people in cars inflict on each other is called "Masochism", and what cars inflict on cyclists and pedestrians is called "". See?

does she realize that she is counting cyclists in winter?

What a bunch of bullshit. I can't believe the author is trying to label New York cyclists as a bunch of privileged interlopers. The majority of cyclists in New York are either working (delivering) or coming to and from work anywhere from day labor to law firms. No one tries to characterize all drivers as entitled or presumptuous for wanting ALL OF THE LANES.

Anyone who has walked around Brooklyn has seen white bikes of people who've been squeezed to death by cabs or box trucks... many of the arteries throughout Brooklyn are simply not safe for cyclists.

That said, the Prospect Lane is pretty dope and I hope they take a recount in the summer and see how well its being used. Perhaps that's what they're afraid of.

Meanwhile... http://gothamist.com/2011/03/22/cops_ticketing_cyclists_in_central.php

I feel like I read a different article than everyone else. To me it seems to want to try understand the backlash rather than add to it. The author never calls cyclists "privileged interlopers," he says John Cassidy (the jagoff from the New Yorker) feels that way. He goes on to call Brown's terrorism opinion absurd.

Regardless, that central park situation is just ridiculous. The police ignore the illegal activity of drivers and are jumping on the bike hate bandwagon to get some easy to write tickets. It's absurd and no one but bike advocates seem to be treating it that way.

@TheLivingTed No one tries to characterize all drivers as entitled or presumptuous for wanting ALL OF THE LANES.

I do!

@Lyle

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/nyregion/23cycle.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1300878627-y0JYERzWYMpzyJ/lbmAq1Q

I can't figure what that central park deal is really about. The most charitable interpretation is that the department was getting complaints from the public, so they're arming themselves with statistics. "We wrote 300 tickets this year, leave us alone." And they're writing bogus tickets on purpose so that the cyclists can get them discharged. But there's plenty of genuinely illegal and dangerous behavior happening on other roads, I don't see why they have to invent imaginary laws to enforce. So I think the charitable interpretation doesn't hold water.

Edit: ah, crossed posts with ck. So there really is an unposted 15 mph speed limit for bikes (Which is probably reasonable for the jogging lane) and the police didn't knoew they were issuing bogus tickets? Okay, now I'm having a really hard time finding a charitable interpretation.

People on bikes are easy targets compared to pulling over a driver and causing traffic to back up.

This just keeps getting better. NY Times now reports that at least some of the cyclists ticketed for speeding in Central Park are having those tickets rescinded. And, if they are City residents, NYPD is showing up in person to apologize. The technicality appears to be that the ticket instructs the offender to appear in traffic court to appeal the ticket. The speed limit is a park regulation, so the proper recourse to fight the ticket is in crimonal court.

Weird. Bike speed limit is 15 mph in the Park. When permitted, car speed limit is 25 mph. Even the NYPD agree that there "sould be" better signage as to the bike speed limit.

is that limit subject to the 10 mph "courtesy buffer" afforded to cars? it's hard to imagine that many people would be blowing through the park at >25mph so i would guess not.

People drive 50 mph through our parks. Parks that have no bike lanes and few sidewalks. One is even a bona fide race track! They refuse to reengineer the streets because it may mess up that one-weekend-a-year race.

As lousy as they are, bike speeding tickets sound like lesser problem.

I hope they never do re-engineer Schenley Park. And I hope they never start writing tickets there either. There aren't too many places around that are as fun to ride through as Schenley Park, IMHO.

In a race car? I can't tell if you're joking.

Don't know about you, but I commute through the park on a daily basis, by bicycle. Panther Hollow and it's intersections with Greenfield Rd and Blvd of the Allies are the worst part of my commute. Not the worst in the city, by any stretch, but for a park, a freeway-style cloverleaf is pretty bad.

Not in a car. Not kidding.

I like the ride. The ramps are a little crazy, but like you said, not the worst in the city. Plus every route is bound to ave that one hairy stretch or intersection or whatever.

The park is a good example of "gotta take the good with the bad" I guess.

Sorry, I don't agree at all. After spending a couple days in the hospital and a good six months out of the saddle thanks to one of those "little crazy" intersections, there is no way the good outweighs the bad for me. It is a park, the roads traversing it aught to accommodate more than just automobiles at highway speeds.

well, to be fair, the interesting parts of the PVGP take place on the slowest and twistiest roads. and, in fact, they put a chicane on PHR to slow the cars down - maybe they should just leave that in place.

So, I don't think doing something about Panther Hollow road will do anything to screw up the race. Nor would writing a ticket to people doing double the speed limit.

They claimed that putting in a roundabout in front of Phipps would create problems with the race, so they abandoned the idea.

I worked at Pitt years ago (I've probably mentioned this before, so, deja vu) and the people who bitched the most about the park being closed for 2 days before the PVGP were asshats who lived in Westmoreland Co to avoid taxes, who couldn't blast through the park fast enough to get to the Greenfield parkway ramp for those days. Aholes. I don't believe I ever really heard a "local" complain about it.

Come to think of it, it's MORE of a park when the road is closed for the PVGP.

I'm not against using the park as a racetrack. It is just an amusing to me that I have to bike on a racetrack everyday, and most of the cars treat it as such. You are right that many of the cars are using it as a shortcut to get on the freeway. I bike down Greenfield Rd and across that bridge. 90% of the cars make the left turn there to get on the freeway. Usually you get some jagoffs that get tired of waiting for the light to turn, so they make a right turn, U turn, and go straight through, just like a bike messenger, but in their car... They recently added a no left turn sign to thwart this practice, not that it has helped.

(Map sourced from Google Maps)

I love it when they close the park. My favorite times for biking through there were when they were repairing the north side of Panther Hollow Rd and had it narrowed down to one lane with a nice construction worker there to wave me through. That and when Obama rolled through for the G20 and the whole shitball was closed off to auto traffic one morning. Super fun! Unfortunately, it was also closed off for bike traffic that evening

The "bike lane" on the other side of the bridge is a joke as well. Terrifying riding that section at night.

ezra from fastboy cycles just posted on something his lady experienced in regards to nyc/bike lanes/etc:

http://www.fastboycycles.com/teachingcancertocry/?p=639

There was this in the comments:

There’ve been suggestions that, in addition to demonstrating that they’re doing something, police have been instructed to retaliate against JSK and her (supposed) Eliot Spitzer-esque relentlessness and seeming indifference toward political tact, particularly when she laid blame for the December clean-up blizzard disaster at the feet of Ray Kelly.

Dan, out of consideration for you, I'm going to change up my commute route to make sure that I ride that bit of PHR as often as I can. It will add at least 40 minutes a day to my commute, but maybe if I walk a mile in your moccasins I'll come around to your point of view.

@dwillen - sorry for your accident. Assume you're back in the saddle now - and apparently not so spooked by the experience that it has kept you from your normal route. Good-on!

I shifted my commuting times to skip the rush hour, Lyle. I'm inbound around 10am, outbound around 8-9pm, if you want to ride with me! But please, seriously, no need to spend 40 minutes a day to prove me wrong. It is all subjective anyway.

The exception is Monday, when I ride in for 9am meeting. This seems to be the hight of rush hour. I don't care for it. Last week I had a dude buzz me with little more than 8 inches of passing space (on a 4 lane road!) then proceed to give the pothole in front of me a good 3 foot berth. Priorities.

Yes, I am back now. I got hit a year and a half ago. Oddly enough, I was avoiding PHR and taking the trail, but making it across PHR at a green light, with left turning traffic from Greenfield is what got me.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/03/tragedies_commons

Of course, the comments are half-full of the usual crap.

10am on PHR is one thing, but after dark? No way. I'd go around.

I rode PHR at 8:30 tonight, outbound. I prefer riding it at night. I had maybe 10-15 cars pass me on my way home. If I did that at 5-6pm, I'd have 50-100 or so cars pass me. One of the few places in PGH where I'm guaranteed to have someone at least once a week honk and tell me to get on the sidewalk. So stupid for a park. During rush hour I always take Overlook Dr outbound to avoid that shit. If it had a contraflow bike lane, I'd take it in the morning too.

I am cautious about contraflow bike lanes, but I think that's as good a place for one as you're ever going to find. There's almost never any crossing traffic, parking on the left side is either banned or infrequent (and easy to ban), it's a PARK so people are likely to believe that bikes belong there anyway. Yeah, I could support that.

re: "...it's a PARK so people are likely to believe that bikes belong there anyway."

That seems to be a significant assumption that the non-cycling public fails to make.

@dwillen I always take Overlook Dr outbound to avoid that shit.

I think that either the Bridal Trail or the Upper Panther Hollow Trail would be easier than Overlook - and maybe even faster. But that would depend on kinds of tires, and the ability to climb the hill athletically -or lack thereof, in my case. The trails are certainly more scenic.

For me, speed is rarely an issue, so I go at a pace that is pedestrian ssafe on the trails.

When I've been up near the skating rink, I tend to go the wrong way on Overlook, but then this is never at rush hour.

But then, I'm an Old School criminal in so many ways. Jaywalking. Going 17 mph on bike trails. Peeing in the bushes.

Don't try to stop me, I'll only drag you down with me.

Don't try to stop me, I'll only drag you down with me.

In the bushes? Why, Mick! [blushes]

@edmunds (on the Schenley Park Classic car race) don't believe I ever really heard a "local" complain about it.

I'm as local as they come and I *do* complain about it - noisy as hell, and I can't get over the bridges that would take me where I want to go, either on foot or by bike.

Trust me, plenty of locals don't like it.

Also, cars are harmful trash. They pollute, they kill, and their use finances Al Qaida. The car industry spends billions to glamorize dangerous, dirty car use. Why should we have a civic event that ascerbates that trend?

+1 Salty on a traffic calmer on PHR. If it pushes more cars away from the park and onto the parkway, that is a good thing.

Yea, I try to avoid riding the wrong way down a one way, especially if I know where I'm going/not lost.

I used to take Upper Panther Hollow Trail both inbound and outbound. They closed it last fall. It also wasn't much fun in the snow without knobby tires.

There is also the issue with what to do at the termini of the trail. Getting on the trail from Greenfield Rd is usually okay, make your way from the bike lane ending over to the left turn lane and take the curb cut. Getting off the trail at the Oakland side requires you to either take this little bit of singletrack that is a muddy mess when wet (not ideal for 25mm slicks) or continue on and exit on the other side of the bridge in that parking lot there. Then you have to try and make an illegal(?) left turn onto the bridge, or just take the sidewalk over to Phipps and try and cross over at some point after the bridge.

Going home, you have to somehow cross the road at the sketchy intersection at Phipps, and hop on the sidewalk on the east side of the bridge, so you can take the little single track, or continue across the bridge and take the parking lot entrance to the trail, which last time I checked (last fall maybe?) was "closed" and had 2-3" railroad ballast instead of crushed limestone. Getting off at the Greenfield Rd end sucks no matter which direction you are going. There is no ped x-ing or signal long enough for a ped to cross, even though this is a park. There is a protected left for the cars there, but they take this to mean continue going left no matter what as long as you follow the car in front of you. If there is a break from these left turning cars, you have to try and merge into the traffic going straight through the intersection, or take your bike over a ped island and try to merge with the unsignaled right turn lane going from PHR to Greenfield Rd. After I got hit I continued to go that way for a bit and it wasn't uncommon for me to wait a light cycle or two before I got enough courage to jet across. That stop light needs ped signals, or at least longer light cycles. I totally skip this intersection crossing by taking PHR or Overlook. It is worth it.

Maybe Bridal trail is better, I don't know. I have skinny tires and I like hills, so I tend to take Overlook. Unfortunately, in the snow, the top of Overlook doesn't get much attention either, then you're left with PHR as your only option. I guess I could go up past the golf course, if that road is treated, or go all the way through Sq. Hill and approach from the other side, but it seems like I shouldn't have to go out of my way to avoid biking through a damn park.

Going on record that I enjoy grand prix weekend but don't think the park should be using it as an excuse not to make the roads better.

Mick, yeah, I probably overstated that no one complains about the PVGP, as I have a tendency to do. But, there are probably people who complain about the Komen walk, where, ironically, thousands of people drive in from the suburbs to WALK, and you can't park a car for a hundred miles around.

When I go to the PVGP to watch, I get around the whole place by bike, that's just the way to do it, never had a problem getting around. I have a mental construct of the future in which the automobile is relegated to the position in society that the horse is today, if a handful of people want to engage it in as a hobby, then, eh, o.k. But millions of people shouldn't be using them every day for 1 mile trips to go buy their daily Soylent Green or whatever.

I and a few others waited over 4 hours this past Saturday (permit day! is totally f-ed up) to reserve a shelter in Schenley Park, only to find out that the day we wanted was right before PVGP, and you can't reserve park shelters the Friday before the PVGP.

Gale Brewer Introduces Bill to Make Central Park, Prospect Park Car-Free.

Ok. I go to Central Park about once a decade... but how do I donate money to make sure she stays in office?

(And yay for streetblog/openplans, my last job I worked customized openplans for use by scientists.)

For all those riding Panther Hollow through Schenley Park, if it's not too far out of your way, consider Schenley Drive. I guess Overlook would be less distance but Schenley is a less steep alternative. I rode Panther Hollow once but will never do it again.

That race was always such a pain. That and when Yeshiva would throw a wedding and close off Hobart at Wightman. Reasons #4 and #3 that I left Sq'ill.

It's easy to satisfy the racers AND the other 99.9% of users of that park - remark the pavement with thermoplastic, and put up temporary and moveable barriers. Race day comes, block off streets & move barriers. Race day ends, put barriers back and let cars go through.

My god that was exhausting. All this thinking has made me really hungry. But all I have is money. If only there was a way to exchange money for food. I wish I hadn't used up all my brain cells figuring out that impossible Schenley park connundrum.