Earlier this week we showed Doug Gordon's incredibly dull video from our ride over the Manhattan Bridge with a member of the Daily News editorial board, a mind-numbingly mundane scene that the paper nevertheless characterized as a "battleground."
The same day, the Post ran a story about the Brooklyn Bridge promenade under the headline "Look out! It's B'klyn Bridge's war path" with the requisite descriptions of hostile confrontations between cyclists and pedestrians and quotes from tourists saying bikes don't belong on the path. (On the Post's website, they also ran a much more measured and reasonable video alongside the print story, to their credit. Yes, the Post's bike coverage is actually less sensational than the Daily News right now.)
Unlike the Manhattan Bridge, which is going through an extended construction headache at the moment and normally has plenty of space, the Brooklyn Bridge can be a pretty uncomfortable place to walk or bike during peak hours, even when the path isn't narrowed by construction work, as it is now. But what happens when you ask people what should be done about the tight squeeze? Turns out most of them are pretty reasonable and gracious to those on the other side of the path.
Watch as no one takes the bait from reporter Lauren Hawker of BreakThru Radio when she asks if bikes should be banned from the promenade:
Lauren tells us that what you see here is what she got. No one she spoke to said they thought bikes should be banned. Conflict sells papers. Empathy for people getting around a different way than you? Not so much, I suppose.
Now, how about converting a car lane in the off-peak direction into a contraflow bike lane during rush hours on the bridge?
