Someone dies and now we start questioning...

Yes it is a sad world we live in. It takes a cyclists death before the media starts to wonder what the hell is going on in this city with cyclists. Not to mention this cyclist that died, was a promanent doctor at a local hospital..."what, not some weirdo..." Its no wonder in this age of rampant oil company profits and us taking it the rear end tank at the pump, that cycling and finding alternative forms of transportation is still scene as a fringe act by those on the margins. Let's face it, biking still isn't cool. So in our world of the car being king and a city which ignores the obvious problems of overcrowding and makes no effort to look towards the bicycle for relief that we are still looked down upon. So a NYTimes reporter wrote an article about the Westside Highway bike path, after all, this is the scene of the crim---I mean accident. I almost forgot that when cyclists are killed it is an accident...end of story. It bothers me a lot because, now more than ever we need to investigate what the hell is going on. We need to re-read Jane Jacobs, we need to make more room for bikes, we leadership that is held accountable when our doctors die on the bike paths, we need to do somehting about the construction on Houston street.

Meanwhile the NY Times writes an article about the Westside Highway bike path...

hhhhmmmm.

Will from on NY Turf makes good coments about the article.

It is true, we can't have our cake and eat it too. We get a bike path on the Williamsburg bridge and it comes with nasty bumps...we get bike lanes and everyone parks in them, we get a West Side Highway path and we have to yield for cars. When are we allowed in on these meetings of city planning? This is grounds for the NYC bike coalition to get stronger and become a political wing in which the city can answer to and listen to. Maybe we need to come up with a list of demands for the city, or goals we want to see accomplished...perhaps like the UN has Millennium development goals, we could have the NYC city development goals which have to be met by 2010. Some document that says if the city wants to have its New Yankee stadium, New Mets stadium, Water park on Randall's Island, NASCAR track on Staten Island, IKEA in Redhook and Bruce Ratner nightmare in downtown Brooklyn...they'd better make some room for bikes!! Yeah...I'm sure they will listen. ==================

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Welcome to StreetsBlog
StreetsBlog is a daily source for news and information about New York City's burgeoning Livable Streets movement.

The blog is produced by The Open Planning Project, edited by Aaron Naparstek, and is a project of the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign.

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