Less news about grand bike network plans, more news about actual bike lane miles implemented in reality. Please.
NYC is surprisingly bikeable, although they could use more work installing protected bike lanes (especially in high traffic areas of Midtown) and much, much more work enforcing bike lanes when people park in them (especially NYPD). For all its faults, they’re making positive changes and I could see a lot of this happening.
And yet one still has to bike with a bicycle helmet there. I think NYC can do better indeed.
I’m just jaded from several decades worth of NYC bike lane plans unveiled every few years, with literally none of them ever completed, almost all of them < 50% completed. Even the Bloomberg / Sadik-Khan plan from like 2004 is unfinished. Mayor Adams had big bike lane plans back when he was borough president, now he stands by while lawsuits work to rip them out. To an NYC politician a bike lane plan is nothing but a pacifier in the public’s mouth and I refuse to give them credit until I see the paint and curbs go in.
That said, we should really put our saved energy behind rewarding and championing the politicians and agency heads that actually see plans through to paydirt. I’m not entirely ruined by experience.
