Sunday, August 22, 2010

Just curious...

What DOT asshole is responsible for the placement of this bike rack that not only causes the bikes to block the sidewalk but also destroys the greenery planted at the triangle at Jackson and 50th Avenues in LIC?

13 comments:

Erik Baard said...

Not the smartest design. One explanation is that I so often see people park with bikes parallel to a rack, instead of perpendicular. Even the NYC DOT bike maps showed the wrong orientation, perhaps because the graphic would"read better" that way. The new map shows the same orientation, but with a rare ring rack instead.

I would guess that most workers installing racks aren't cyclists, so wrongly placed the rack thinking people would lock with the frame pressed to it.

Look around you and you'll see most bike racks leave cyclists in an awkward position -- lock up parallel and hog rack space or perpendicular and hog sidewalk space. Many, many racks need to be rotated 90 degrees.

Erik Baard

Queens Crapper said...

Rotating this one 90 degrees would still obstruct the sidewalk. Perhaps this is not a suitable location for a bike rack.

Anonymous said...

I notice these racks placed willy nilly in certain neighborhoods. In others you would never see one. Who determines where a bike rack is installed?

Anonymous said...

Agreed it's not the best location--but look how full it is, and the sign behind it. There is clearly demand for _more_ space to lock up bikes.

Maybe a bike parking lot on the Vernon Mall?

Anonymous said...

what about the asshole bike owners who lock their bikes on street trees? they're stripping the bark and eventually killing the trees. a conservationist's nightmare.

Detective McNutty said...

I think this is part of the DOT official policy. Bicycles have the right of way even when they are locked on the sidewalk. Pedestrians must give them way.

Anonymous said...

There is a huge demand for bike racks at that location, and there needs to be many more installed. Still, the DoT has extensive and strict criteria for siting bike racks, so I'm surprised they chose such a poor spot. I hope they remove these racks, and instead, convert a few car parking spaces to bike racks.

Anonymous said...

This bike issue is getting totally out of control. Thanks Mayor Bloomberg for another one of your brainy ideas.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

This bike issue is getting totally out of control. Thanks Mayor Bloomberg for another one of your brainy ideas.

Monday, August 23, 2010

NYC was last to ad bike lanes out of the rest of the country. The bike lanes in the 1980s were taken down because the self righteous reckless car drivers screamed about them in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. Bike racks are hardly anywhere they need to be.

I hate to be associated or generalized by the other horrible bike riders but lets start with the cars blocking intersections parking to view whats coming to cross the street, double parking, not stopping at red lights often or cars never obeying a yellow to get ready to stop, not speed up.

I will continue to bike safely with lights, helmet, and stopping at intersections unlike the many other cars and bike riders.

Queens Crapper said...

Mayor Koch built bikes lanes on major thoroughfares in Manhattan, not in the other boroughs, so you have no idea what you are talking about.

Erik Baard said...

I believe this situation could be resolved with a mechanism we have seen for cars: diagonal parking. I'll have to look more carefully at the site.

Another option is to provide as much green without as much conflict by planting taller plants with narrower bases. Small trees, narrow bushes, etc. The trunks could even be protected with a sleeve. A small amount of damage is inevitable to the kind of understory plantings currently in place.

The rack could also be split and then rotated 90 degrees.

Of course the option of converting a car parking space into a bike space would work, serving a dozen or more people where one was served before.

We have much to learn, as NYC was very late to adopt bicycle solutions. The the automobile is poorly suited to urban life as a primary means of transportation, NYC saddled itself with it in a wrongheaded big to slow "white flight" in the middle twentieth century by offering a quasi-suburban lifestyle to potential escapees. We were so much more intelligently planned when we had hubs with a real sense of self (Flushing is a great example) linked by rail lines.

We'll get back on track. Bicycles are a big part of the solution, but pedestrian-friendly streets and mass transit are even bigger parts.

Snake Plissskin said...

The city cares nothing except development and anything that encourages development.

The fact is other areas of the world that had bikes have abandonded them at the first opportunity - just as NYC did back in '05 - 1905 to be exact.

This whole bike thing is run by chip on the shoulder newbies who dont understand, or even care to understand, how the rest of the city is suffering with cutbacks while money is magically found for this little Blumturd stunt: the more morons on bikes, the less energy footprint - the more you can shoehorn into NYC.

I have a new name for them: Mike's Bikes.

Erik Baard said...

@Snake: Many bicycle advocates are native New Yorkers, like myself. Also, cities around the world are pulling back from the detour into automobile over-reliance. It was an error.

I love the movie movie from which you lifted your moniker, but I'd rather make our hometown more livable than to "Escape from New York."

What New York City is now doing is quite humble, in terms of sharing resources once hogged by car culture.

But again, bicycles aren't the only solution. They are merely part of a greater whole. Mass transit cuts run counter to making NYC more livable, and we need to continue replanting trees and carving out green spaces for all to enjoy. Beyond that, a diverse, vibrant (there, I wrote the words!) immigrant city must also preserve its history for social cohesion. In many ways we're failing on that count.

Finally, I am saddened that our leaders don't seem to understand that the bank failures provided an opportunity to reconsider our economy. We used to have a much more diverse base with fewer income disparities (not by government redistribution but by a healthier sense of a working market), and we need that again.