This post is a bit of a departure from what I’ve been writing about lately. It involves a post-pandemic quality-of-life issue that I suspect is not unique to New York City. But those of us who live in the city may be experiencing it more extremely. The issue is the chaos caused by the sudden explosion in the use of bicycles. Anyone who walks around the city these days has most likely been subject to nearly being hit by a bicycle running through a red light and/or speeding through an intersection. Sadly, this is just one small example of a larger problem.
Now don’t get me wrong. I have been bicycling around the city ever since I first moved here in 1975. I frequently go on 10–20-mile rides around Manhattan. I am a huge supporter of urban biking and have always felt that turning big cities into havens from the automobile could be the solution to many ills, not the least of which is the environmental impact of automobile traffic. I’ve also been very supportive of the creation of bicycle lanes, which theoretically keep bicyclists safe from the threat of heavier vehicles.
However, the efforts to turn New York into a bicycle-friendly city, while admirable, never went far enough in thinking through how to safely share the streets among bicycles, motor vehicles and pedestrians. Continue reading “Can We Fix the Bicycle Chaos?”