Eyes on the Street: NYPD’s Traffic Enforcement Resources at Work

Here’s another story of how Police Commissioner Ray Kelly allows his scarce traffic safety resources to be spent. Reader Marc Norman took this picture after an encounter at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge bike-ped path this morning. He writes:

Because I can’t help myself, I got off my bike and asked the cop parked here, who was reading the New York Times, why he was parked in the middle of the walkway. He informed me that cyclists were going 40mph down the Manhattan approach and that parking there slows them down. When I noted that a Tour de France cyclist would have a hard time going 40 mph down the Alps and that forcing peds and cyclists into the narrow space was dangerous his window went back up. Eyes back to the day’s news. Sad.

If New York had more officers on foot and bike patrol and less ingrained windshield perspective, maybe it wouldn’t come to this. A cop using his squad car to squeeze pedestrians and cyclists into conflict, in the name of safety, oblivious to the cars hurtling off the bridge a few feet away, into one of the city’s most notorious deathtraps.