First let me give Mayor Bloomberg credit. In his effort to ease traffic and make the city greener, he has created miles and miles of designated bike lanes making the streets safer for cyclists, not to mention pedestrians. But where he is failing in this area is with law enforcement. The police are far more concerned with cycling violations than they are with moving violations.
The most recent example is in Long Island City, at the foot of the Queensborough Bridge, where we now have a checkpoint for cyclists. The bike lane that goes from the road to the bridge passes over about 20 feet of sidewalk. When I tried to cross it yesterday, a uniformed officer told me to dismount my bike and walk it the few steps from the road to the bridge, where I could once again ride. So this officer, in a time of cutbacks, is being paid with tax dollars to guard 20 feet of sidewalk when I’m sure she could have been more useful somewhere else…anywhere else.
Of course the view from the police is that they are protecting pedestrians, and they are right. I don’t believe people should be allowed to ride on sidewalks for just this reason. But crossing a sidewalk in a designated bike lane could hardly be considered riding on a sidewalk any more than crossing train tracks in a car would be considered driving on them. No reasonable person would expect a driver to get out and push his car across the tracks. And riding a bike across this thin stretch of sidewalk is hardly an offense worth enforcing.
If Bloomberg is serious about easing congestion and creating a greener city, he should follow a basic tenet of law enforcement: you crack down on what you don’t want and allow what you do want. This really doesn’t delve too deeply into legal theory here. But while police offers look to enforce petty cycling laws, they turn a blind eye to the driver cutting across four lanes of traffic to grab a parking spot, or turning left from the right hand lane, or speeding past a line of cars waiting at an exit only to cut in front of the line. Drivers break the law with impunity because they know that they will never be ticketed. Even in the bike lanes, I can’t count the number of times a cab has pulled in front of me and slammed on his breaks to pick up a fare, or a car has sped around me only to cut me off while turning through the bike lane at the next corner. So while this police officer—who I should mention was plenty friendly—is making 20 feet of sidewalk safe, hundreds of miles of streets remain congested, dirty and dangerous.
I know that in some quarters, bike riders don’t get a lot of sympathy. But before you dismiss my plea for more reasonable law enforcement, ask yourself one question. What would you rather be hit by, a 200-pound man on a bike or a two-ton Crown Vic?
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