Rumble strips? More like grumble strips? (Brooklyn Paper)

Hasn't the Department of Transportation had enough headaches on Prospect Park West?

The new bike lane was at the center of the bicycle backlash over the past year, even leading to a lawsuit against the city (an appeal was recently filed after the city saw the case soundly dismissed). Obviously, the Department of Transportation is attempting to tweak the plan and make it less controversial, but really, it just seems like the new proposals, for pedestrian islands with relocated walk signals, is picking at a fresh scab, as The Brooklyn Paper makes clear:

“Why do it?” said James Bernard, a longtime bike lane opponent and board member. “We’re supposed to be preserving the street’s character — and we’ve already been the guinea pig enough.”

And lane supporters joined Bernard, though for a different reason: The bike lane has been so successful in reducing accidents, that making changes to the “Walk/Don’t Walk” signs is “unnecessary.”

The board — which proposed the controversial bike lane as a traffic-calming measure in 2008 — did ask the Department of Transportation for some minor tweeks such as rumble strips to alert cyclists to slow down, a Ninth Street drop off area reconfiguration, more light signals along with raised pedestrian islands.

Just look at the big plans for Times Square, plus all those filled potholes. Maybe Janette Sadik-Khan is addicted to shovels in the ground.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

This has not kept a number of New Yorkers from reacting as though their homes had been flattened to make way for an expressway, as was the case under a certain biblical commissioner a few decades ago. It is true that much of Sadik-Khan's power lies in the realization that, like Robert Moses, her department enjoyed limited oversight and could act unilaterally with its visionary--or is it venal?--plans.

Which is why the news that the most ambitious--or perhaps unreal--plan yet, to close off the middle of 34th Street and send the cars and trucks fleeing out from there in opposite directions, with dedicated bus lanes and another grand pedestrian plaza to boot, has died. Business owners and residents were too worried about the changes it would mean, and in a surprising turn, DOT listened. Arguably, like Moses, the department tends to think it is working for the good of the entire city, even if a few locals may grumble. And its plans have mostly stuck--who complains about the Times Square changes anymore, except when it is on the topic of all the tourists.

Ben Kabak of Second Avenue Sagas worries deeply about the implications of this latest decision:

For the people who ride and the people who walk, this would have been a grand experiment in restoring the streets to the people who make them thrive. But the residents, for selfish reasons, and business owners with some practical concerns that could have been addressed, did not like it. [...] From personal safety to faster commute times to cleaner air and a nicer environment for pedestrians, this project matters. From a modeshare perspective, it's a no-brainer. Cars are vastly outnumbered by pedestrians and buses, and cars, which are trying to escape 34th St., do not contribute to the area's economy.

Given the backlash to bike lanes in the East Village, Upper West Side, Staten Island and, most notoriously, on Prospect Park West, it makes sense that the DOT would finally do some outreach on all these projects, even if technically it does not have to--not that the City Council is not currently mulling bills that will create more oversight and community outreach for the department.

But what if the plazas were a strawman, a grandiose plan that could never actually happen, but by comparison, the still radical proposal of, say, separated bus lanes, of which there are currently none in the city, could be proposed and look tame by comparison? This may sound like a conspiracy theory, and it kind of is, but consider that developers do this all the time, proposing out-sized projects they know cannot get built, politically speaking, before having them scaled down to what they actually want.

A number of transit folks consulted by The Observer agree that this was not the case on 34th Street, that DOT expended too many resources and too much political capital not to be serious about this plan. Still, when the new one is unveiled on March 14, we bet it remains radical by New York standards. And is also welcomed even by its skeptics.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

It all begins with a cyclist getting ticketed for turning into the park against a red light--mind you the street no longer carries cars, so this would be like pulling into a driveway--and things only get more bizarre from there:

Unfortunately, this was not the end of my encounter with NYPD. After riding about a mile in Central Park a police SUV parked at an on-ramp on the UWS started to follow me. It was obvious I was being stalked. Worried they were searching for any infraction I stopped riding and got off my bike. The police car turned on its lights and parked about 50 yards behind me waiting for me to resume riding. It was freezing cold so I had to get back on and try to make it home. The car continued to follow me.

As I continued down the road I saw a police minivan with about three police and six cyclists arguing (one of the cyclists was disabled and was using a hand bike). Seemed like they had stopped in the middle of the road for some reason.

Sounds like a scene straight out of a David Lynch movie.

Have your own horror stories to share? Send 'em in an email or leave a comment below.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

The Daily News is reporting that an off-duty police officer may have pulled his gun on a cyclist Saturday night as the two vied for space on Bleecker Street. The biker tried to confront the driver, knocking on the "heavily tinted" window of his black Volkswagen GTI, the off-duty officer brandished his pistol in reply. The cyclist called 9-1-1, and when he saw two cop cars near the Wagen, he told the officers about it, who quickly surrounded the car.

When the cop inside identified himself, the officers turned on the cyclist instead. "They started getting physical with him," the biker's attorney told the News. "He got upset, but he certainly didn't break any laws."

Granted cop-on-bike animosity is nothing new, having grown increasingly worse since the 2004 Republican Convention led to a swell of arrests for bicycle protesters. Most infamously, there was the case last year of Officer Patrick Pogan, who was caught on camera shoving a rider off his bike in Times Square. Pogan claimed he had been assaulted by the biker, and even threw him in jail for it, but a video later surfaced revealing the truth.

Perhaps there is some mysterious natural law at work here. Maybe the more mainstream cycling becomes, the more loathsome it gets, like Snuggies and beet salads. Maybe for every new bike lane that gets built, a cyclist must be accosted to pay for it.

mchaban [at] observer.com / @mc_nyo