speeding in central park, pt 2

and somehow they still can't get the story straight, or definitively say what the speed limit is.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703921204576217203961765660.html?mod=WSJ_NY_MIDDLELEADNewsCollection

vs

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/nyregion/23cycle.html?ref=nyregion

Speeding in Central Park

Tickets were handed out to several cyclists this morning in Central Park for speeding.

From the NYCC message board:

"In the early 1990s, when the not so estimable Betsy Gotbaum was Parks Commissioner, before ascending to Public Advocate, she devised and imposed a 15MPH speed limit on bikes in Central Park. She did this all on her own in response to complaints about how dangerous was the pack ride in Central Park, a large group of cowboys who rode in the evenings for the most part and did scare people. And how did she arrive at 15MPH? Very scientifically: she had a chauffeur drive her once around the park and, at the end of it, announced 15MPH seemed right. There was a lawsuit against this. The NYCC was a co-plaintiff and helped in the writing of the submissions. We were represented by a first-rate law firm working pro bono, LeBoeuf and Lamb or Lamb and LeBoeuf. The core of our suit was the city failed to abide by its own required procedures in promulgating a regulation: that there be announced, public hearings on it. It turns out there was a hearing: on the far west side in the middle of a workday and it was not well publicized. My faint recollection it may also have been held very close to Christmas but I may be wrong about that. We lost at the appellate level. The justices couldn't have been more unsympathetic to our argument in their questions: before the lawyers sat down, the conclusion was a given.

Another: Here's a link to the NYC Parks Dept website that says the speed limit during non-car hours is in fact 25mph. http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_things_to_do/facilities/bicycling_greenways/html/af_bike_car_hours_new.html#sites

And finally: The 15 m.p.h. speed limit for bicycles is only when cyclists are in the recreation lane (which is when the drive is open to cars). I believe the logic is that there are also runners and other users in the recreation lane, which is relatively narrow, so it's safer if cyclists are limited to 15. Anyone who received a ticket this morning prior to 8:00 a.m. should definitely fight it because the speed limit for cyclists in the roadway prior to 8:00 a.m. is 25. "

Driving Mr. Crazy

Too much has been said already about Mr. Cassidy's New Yorker article, which I will not link here, as I don't want to give him and the New Yorker any more page views. You don't need to read the article, to summarize, he is pissed at bike lanes for making it more difficult to park in front of his favorite restaurant when driving to dinner from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Many people responded, the best, as always, was BSNYC.

2 thoughts:

He "mispoke" and said 4th ave instead of 3rd ave. Fine, whatever. Except the one on 3rd ave is terrible anyway. If he so strongly objects to a 3 foot wide barely painted strip that everyone ignores, I don't wish to try to make him feel otherwise, but I would also point out that it's a block away from the road he thought he was driving on, 4th ave, which is like a freaking superhighway. Why not drive there? There to Atlantic and he's practically all the way to Manhattan without a single bike lane.

Lastly, speaking of Atlantic, I hope he was strongly opposed to Atlantic Yards, arena traffic is definitely going to make him miss his dinner reservation.

my new helmet

May actually fit my tiny pin of a head

crackdown

I suppose like every other cyclist with a blog out there, I feel compelled to weigh in on the recent NYPD crackdown on cyclists. So, here goes.....it's fucking retarded. That's all.

I hope we can start a dialogue to get the laws changed to accommodate cyclists on the road, not in terms of more bike lanes, but in terms of red lights. It's the elephant in the room. It's the go to argument for every jaywalker who has something against bikes, "they run red lights." We always will, and it's not inherently dangerous. I believe it is actually safer, no, check that, I am sure it is actually safer, and drivers, if they stopped to think for a second, should prefer this too. They really want us holding up traffic? We don't accelerate quite as quickly as they do.

Back to the crackdown. It's fucking idiotic. TIA.

holiday miracle

Today, an access a ride not only didn't do it's all to kill me, but avoided me when I did something stupid, stopped, and waved me on.

audience participation

Riding home from work down 2nd avenue, around 50th or so, I was in the far right (bus) lane, cabbie swerves sharply into my lane, I cut around him to the left, he starts coming back into the lane he just left. I yell 'yo' (seems to be what always comes out of my mouth) and he looks at me and keeps coming over, so i move over a little, traffic slows, I flip him off and keep going. Move back to the right, all of a sudden there is all this honking and he's yelling at me through the open window on the passenger side, over a woman sitting in the passenger seat looking all freaked out. Then he speeds off, I chase him, and am happy to see he gets stopped at the light. Pull up next to him, signal him to roll down the window and ask him what he's yelling at me about. He says "you were in my lane". I ask him which one, the one he pulled into without signaling, making me go around him, or the one he then tried to shove me out of? he says "you were in my lane". over and over, we do this, I stupidly become fixated on the no turn signal and asked him if it would kill him to signal. A woman on the corner listening says "maybe he's from South Carolina, " the guy next to her says "no, probably Ohio", somebody else says "or Pennsylvania". I think everyone thinks their home state has the worst drivers.