Every May, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine holds its annual “Blessing of the Bicycles” in which New York cyclists have their wheels consecrated — this year, on Facebook.
In 2019, the blessing didn’t seem to work, as the number of deaths stacked up to an all-time high of 29. But in June, cyclists had reason to hope: a proposal for a five-borough, 425-mile network of protected bike lanes. Experts say the project would resolve the city’s current debacle by physically separating the lanes with elevated curbs.
I disagree. I have been cycling the city from 2001, when getting “doored” was a rite of passage, through Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Safe Streets. From behind my handlebars, I can see that nothing will work to keep cyclists safer — not protected lanes, not signals, not citations — until New Yorker commuters of every stripe change their “Me First” attitude, for which the city is infamous.
I understand “Me First.” I can fall prey to the stake-your-ground attitude one acquires when pushed aside in a city of millions. I am even guilty of running occasional red lights and cutting off slower cyclists. But consider this: I am riding 18-20 mph in traffic and looking out for the errant car-share or middle-of-the-street pedestrian to apply enough force for a split-second brake.
Space for bikes, too. (Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News)
Otherwise, I am hit, hurled onto the street with a heap of metal on top of me. While I ride, when I am not thinking of my burning legs; I am thinking about getting out of the way.
Last year, getting out of the way on my daily commute meant using greenways or dodging Ubers and taxis pulling into the bicycle lanes. Post-pandemic, I have switched tacks, avoiding the greenways altogether. The main reason: Citi Bike.
In March 2019, Citi Bike operated 14,500 bicycles from 900 stations in four boroughs. That meant, at any given time, a tourist unfamiliar with Citi Bike particulars, a phone-pedaler or newbie rider — almost all of them without helmets — crossed my path. Citi Bike is looking to triple its inventory and add at least 1,000 electric-powered bikes. This strikes fear in my heart.
The second reason I have chosen the car-lined streets: pedestrians. When I am in cycling kit, I avoid the sidewalk. When I am laced in running shoes, I strictly stay out of the bike lanes. When pedestrians and runners use bicycle lanes, especially during rush hours, they cause bottlenecks. Bottlenecks cause wrecks.
There is a remedy to this transportation/recreation free-for-all, but it will require, as the Dutch call it, “woonerven” (living streets). In the Netherlands, kids are introduced to cycling by their schools, most by age 10 or 11. Simultaneously, Citi Bikers and other bike renters should take a skills course and pass a test before they take the pedals. This removes Citi Bikes from the grip of tourists and learners.
Secondly, New York needs to keep building real, protected bicycle lanes — wide enough to allow for cyclists of all speeds to travel in harmony, not painted-on roadways that run alongside parallel parking spaces. And although 0.5% of Dutch cyclists wear helmets, every cyclist in New York should be required to wear a helmet until the streets are safer; helmets cut the risks of severe traumatic brain injury by half.
Finally, a deputy transportation commissioner in charge of alternative transport would mark a sea change. This administrator could enact “We First” bike lane regulation, monitor the addition of Citi Bikes and safeguard the regulation of other motorized objects in bike lanes. The office could even oversee a force of park police that would pull over (now sidelined) Revel scooters on greenways, deter un-helmeted bicyclists from texting and keep pedestrians from group-walking in bike lanes — some of the things I encounter daily.
Unless some of these things are enacted, in lieu of blessing bikes each year, bikers that show up at St. John the Divine might as well be painting theirs white — to place as memorials.