Bike-Lane Litigant Norman Steisel Is Totally Jazzed About NYC Bike-Share

If you haven’t seen Norman Steisel’s column in today’s Daily News, take a gander. Presumably, News readers are to believe that a lead player in the effort to erase safety gains for his cycling neighbors in Brooklyn, the man who to this day is involved in a protracted legal battle that has had a chilling effect on safe streets projects across the city, is excited — “in a good way” — about bike-share. Here’s a taste:

All New Yorkers who truly want this ambitious, largest-in-the-nation program to succeed (as I do) should be relieved that we now have time to get it right …

This plan should connect the dots between docking stations with a rational network of bike lanes that carries riders where they want to go …

This plan cannot be developed piecemeal, with bits of bike lanes that stop and start within one Community District (which might be more-welcoming to bikers), skip the next, then start up again on some distant street that doesn’t lead bikers to where they really want to go anyway.

And so on.

Strange that, in the midst of their bike hate campaign, the editors of the Daily News would run a column calling for more bike lanes. Stranger still that their brother-in-arms Steisel would be the one to write it.

Whatever the endgame is, and whoever the target audience, asking Steisel to weigh in on bike policy is like consulting a fox on how to build a better chicken coop.

  • Larry Littlefield

    Perhaps he wants to be the next transportation commissioner.  All he has to do is keep that lawsuit alive until then and…

  • I double dog Steisel and co. to wait it out until Mayor De Blasio or Mayor Quinn takes their phone calls.  It was their own mindless opposition to PPW that brought so much attention to bike lanes in the first place and made people aware of an issue they might not have otherwise cared about.  And the end result of their multi-year misinformation campaign was record levels of support for bike lanes!

    So, yeah, Norman. Let’s wait it out and see how that goes for you.

  • Larry Littlefield

    I’m more cynical, and want that lawsuit decided once and for all.  What’s the hold up on the appeal?

  • Shemp

    Read his piece – he’s calling for things that could delay bike share further by several more years. A little analysis, S’blog?

  • Anonymous

    If Steisel ran the Sanitation Dept the way he has been supporting bike lanes,
    NYC would bring back the pigs in the streets eating the garbage.
    Calling him a fox is giving him too much credit.

  • Carswell

    How much more analysis do we really need here, Shemp? Steisel and the Daily News suburbs-oriented, opinion page morons would love to kill Citibike and roll back all the progress that we’ve made on safer, more livable streets these last few years. Analysis complete.

  • Morris Zapp

    @c3ada303f47cce9fec78f074271108eb:disqus One person will decide when and how bike share will roll out over the next year, and his name isn’t Norman Steisel.

  • I really like the use of the appropriate elder-verb “jazzed” in this headline. 

  • Gowanusbiker

    The Daily News’ sole agenda is selling a lot of newspapers. They don’t hate bikes anymore than they hate bunnies. And Steisel is the former deputy mayor, isn’t he? You are a bit too conspiracy minded I think with your talk of endgames.

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