Zulu, while I encourage you in your efforts, and I will and do the same, I hope you understand there will be “varied reactions” to you photographing cops in their natural element. Fair or not.
And props to this biker, she did the right thing.

Moocow, thanks for the “heads up”! My plan is to be more covert than the biker posting this picture. It is obvious that her brass set is bigger than mine.

Oh come on. I’m a NY cyclist, and I can see that this would be annoying, but “putting lives at risk”? Why not cut the hyperbole? It’s clear from the photo that there’s no way in hell anyone could drive past the side of that car with that snow there.

The only cyclist in danger from that cop car would be blind, stupid, not paying attention, riding too fast, or any combination of the above.

The lanes are for our convenience and to help with our safety, but they’re not there as blind tunnels so we can just dispense with our own responsibilities as safe cyclists.

Well, yeah, that too.

Nixta so what about the times when there is no snow and the squad car parks in the bike lane?

In the grand scheme of things it’s not hyperbole.

Oops, correction to that link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10798592@N08/5283037234/

On that block of Broadway there are no cars allowed in the gray portion of the lane on the left of the picture. There’s no obstacle to bicycles going around the RMP.

I don’t understand myself how this incident has “put lives at risk,” but I’m certain that if I asked that question directly someone more conscious than I would respond by citing that study from last week about how cycle tracks are safer than on-street bike lanes.

Yeah gotta agree with Nixta about the hyperbole. This story seems more well-suited to Curbed. I would hope Streetsblog at least uses it as an opportunity to remind people of the existence of NYPD Community Council Meetings. 🙂

Except that if you ride around the city for any amount of time you’ll see that the NYPD are some of the worst offenders of traffic laws in the city. They ALWAYS park in the goddam bike lanes, often positioning themselves in the perfect place where a cyclist has to ride out into traffic. They CONSTANTLY run red lights, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen them drive like a bunch of drunk monkeys in Prospect Park.

The point is: Police should not be egregiously breaking laws. I don’t see how anyone could possibly find anything to disagree with that idea.

Then again, this is New York, where cyclists are ticketed hundreds of dollars for going through red lights when there are no pedestrians or cars around. Cars parking in the middle of our lanes, forcing vulnerable cyclists out into traffic, is fine, tho.

I’ll agree, Suzanne and Brad, that a police car shouldn’t block a bike lane in such a manner as to force cyclists out into traffic. That falls into where they cross the line, in my opinion. Oddly enough, here in Flushing I’m just not seeing many police blocking bike lanes. Then again, the local streets here with Dunkin’ Donuts don’t have bike lanes.

Parking in the bike lane, running red lights, speeding, parking on the sidewalk, driving on the wrong side of the street, making illegal u-turns – the cops in this city are the biggest assholes out of anyone when it comes to driving. And you can be sure that anywhere there is a police station, there are bound to be a lot of parking violations. For whatever reason, this “internal affairs” is not very effective.

You’ve got this all wrong. They are waiting in the bike lane so that the next ambulance that gets stuck in traffic can’t go around them either.

While I agree that cars parked in bike lanes are definitely a problem, I also feel that this particular transgression is not one that puts a cyclist in immediate danger. Could they have chosen a more appropriate place to park? Absolutely.

The Bway bike lane at this location is wide enough to accomodate a parked NYP vehicle because it includes extra space for pedestrians and it is protected from general motor traffic. In the past, riding uptown on 8th ave above 42nd street has been horrific because of double parked cars (particularly near the precinct at 54th). I won’t even go to the place where i start complaining about peds in the bike lane near Port Authority in this post. But recently, I have noticed that the lanes have been relatively clear of both both NYPD and other motorists. I don’t depend on this route daily, so my view may be skewed. If this is true, however, then I think we have to assume due credit to the NYPD. In fact, I witnessed for the first time in my travels a cop actually pull over to ticket a commercial vehicle blocking the lane.

And in reference to the ambulance having to use the PPW bike lane and the biased news story by Marcia Kramer…

This past Sunday morning, I was biking to work at around 8am and was in the Bway bike lane. Somewhere around 54th or 55th street, a cop car must have gotten an emergency call. It turned on it’s flashing lights, drove forward and over to the bike lane. It proceeded to drive backwards through the lane(on the pedestrian side) to be able to maneuver to the appropriate cross street. There was almost no motor traffic at the time, so it wasn’t avoiding traffic jams of any nature. The car backed up pretty fast, but it did so respectfully. And yes, I still behaved like a motorist, pulling to the side and stopping.

In this isolated situation, I think the actions were appropriate. There were no other cyclists or peds in the lane. Motor traffic was negligible. But had they performed the same maneuver in a car lane, there would have been a higher possibility of an accident. I felt the cop car recognized my presence and made a fairly appropriate decision. Hopefully, the choices he/ she made allowed them torespond to a call more quickly.

Nathan, I agree about many points you bring up. Had it been at a different time or day, the cop car’s actions could have been extremely dangerous. But, in this one isolated instance, I felt that their choice was relatively appropriate. Again, I am saying ‘relatively’.

I don’t condone normalizing the presence of police cars (or other cars or even peds for that matter) the bike lane either.

I’m out there all year round, and I could write pages about the indignities I’ve experienced as a cyclist. Enough that put my life at risk to make me upset.

But in light of all the hate that we have been experiencing, I’m trying to find the positive. It’s not perfect, but it’s a starting point for a rational discussion. Sometimes, I refrain from commenting because my emotions are too high and I don’t want to add fuel to any irrational (bike hate/anti- bike lane) debates. I care passionately about the expanding bike infrastructure and the rights of people on bikes. I also get upset when I see people on bikes breaking the rules in such a way that puts others in danger.

For me, this relates to the issue of the CP crackdown and cyclists getting $270 tickets for running red lights when it’s the middle of one of the worst winters we’ve had in 10 years and the park is closed to traffic and pedestrian traffic is at a minimum. There are some racers that have too little regard for their environment and are a problem. But does that mean every cyclist trying to train in the park should stop for every red light, regardless of whether their is pedestrian traffic ( or even slower cyclists that are either commuting or out for a ‘not high speed’ ride) I don’t think so. Should this same cyclist exercise caution and be prepared to slow or stop at sections where there is heavier ped traffic? Yes.

And before I get slammed, yes, jaywalking and ped disregard is a problem too.

I also agree that the $270 fines are excessive. I haven’t had a chance to lookat the slate article but will read it tomorrow.

I think everyone can agree that if the cops were responding to an emergency (lights on, cops outside the car doing something) that would have been ok. After all, in an emergency, cops shouldnt waste time finding parking somewhere.

But this wasnt an emergency. It was convenience. It was “we’re hunry and our break is short”….except imagine if everyone in the city used that excuse?

“Sorry I ran the red officer, I have a short break and dont have time for laws”

FYI… twice in the last week, I’ve seen a bike sting on Plaza Street in Brooklyn, heading from Vanderbilt Ave…There’s been a cop stationed on Plaza Street (cop standing near Lincoln Place) looking for bikes that blow the Flatbush Avenue stop light.

This is not really a light that I would ever blow considering that car are coming blind off of Grand Army Plaza going about 40 mph and are flying up Flatbush going 40 mph also…but I wanted to give everyone an FYI…

I could see them endangering lives if they were parked in a bike lane that’s Next To Traffic, and not in one of those blocked off faggot areas. Some idiot near Baruch wanted to start with me because he almost rode into my lift that was poking into the street and 6 feet up in the air. The whole street was halted so we could send the crane- loaded with 500+lbs of lights and electrical equipment – up in the air. He thought he was cute on his bike swerving around my crew telling him to stop and his lil helmet clipped the bottom of the lift. he didnt fall or get hurt. He was about to get hurt when he started on his bike lane rant, but He was enough of a jerk off for Everybody.