Today’s Headlines

  • A Peek at Four Visions for Penn Station From Architecture Firms Selected by MAS (NYT)
  • 2nd Ave Sagas Blasts Bill Perkins For Obstructing 125th Street Bus Improvements
  • CB 12 Requested Uptown Bike Lanes, So Daily News Went on a Hunt for People Who Oppose Them
  • No Longer Under Arthur Browne‘s Wing, Alex Nazaryan Believes in Bike-Share (Atlantic Cities)
  • A Look at the Tech Behind Bike-Share (Gizmodo) as It Works Out Kinks During First Week (Crain’s)
  • AIA Unveils Mayoral Platform, Including Transit-Oriented Development and Complete Streets (Crain’s)
  • As Council Holds Ferry Hearing (Gotham Gazette), City Extends Post-Sandy Rockaways Ferry (News)
  • The Post Keeps Trying Its Hardest to Convince You That Bike-Share Is a Failure
  • But It’s the Observer That Published the Dumbest Bike-Share Editorial of All Time
  • Minerva Durham Carries the Torch for Petrosino Square Bike-Share Protest (Gothamist)
  • Anthony Weiner’s Bike-Share Photo-Op Delayed By Rain (Observer)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

  • moocow

    The Observer bit is AMAZING! People actually think that way! Well at least one editor.
    They actually suggest the private sector was going to solve traffic congestion!
    How sweet is THEIR Kool-Aid?

  • Anonymous

    I mean, we’ve all seen editorials critical of bike share. But Jesus, pre-Kushner Observer would have you think it’s satire, it’s literally that bad.

    Just wow. I actually gained a little respect for the Post and DN’s preening. Who the hell is their intended audience then? I thought they cater to the “latte liberals.” I know why the Post and DN’s pander as they do. I have no clue why the Observer would take such a clueless stance. Embarrassing.

  • The Observer writers are generally for bike share. But “The Editors” is a completely different story, often transmitting direct communiques from the Kushner/Trump mental enclave. If you remember, they endorsed Romney last year.

    I encourage the reporters at the Observer to continue contributing sensible articles about safe streets infrastructure in NYC. Never mind “The Editors”, who seem to be overly concerned about how their tax dollars contribute to other people feeling smug. (???)

  • Guest

    The Post is hilarious. It’s like watching a man drowning in two inches of water.

    Maybe the real scandal isn’t that Citi Bike had some problems on its second day, but that the MTA still has problems after 100 years.

  • Daily News once again raising the level of the debate: “This is Washington Heights, it’s not a place for white boys on bikes.” Keep it classy, guys!

  • Anonymous

    I think I’ll ride a Citi Bike to Petrosino Square to see what all the fuss is about.

  • Anonymous

    That Petrosino Square thing in Gothamist is *hilarious*:

    I have been walking along the side of the park for over thirty years. . . . If the bikes are being parked and taken out, my pleasant walk to work will become a hazardous journey. . . . As I do my protest daily, I call out to mounted riders to “please walk your bike.” One man stayed on the sidewalk, still mounted, then circled back in the street and called out to me, “I know you. I used to live where you live at 86 Kenmare, and you are easily the most annoying person in world.” . . . Another said that I need to get laid. (Everyone needs to get laid.)

    I don’t know what’s funnier, that she nearly faints over the deadly act of removing a bike from a rack or that she quotes someone calling her, from personal experience, “easily the most annoying person in the world.” I don’t even know what to say to the “everyone needs to get laid” comment.

  • Eric McClure

    It’s more than a feeling — I AM morally superior to the dumbass editors of The Observer.

  • Daphna

    I saw people biking on the citibikes in the rain yesterday. Everyone had a bag with them and each rider managed to fit their bag in the front rack and bungee cord it in place. This saves members from having to invest in a backpack or a messenger bag; rather, they can just carry the same bag they normally use. The chainguard saved riders from needing to clip their pants – saving them that step and letting them avoid looking funny. The fenders allow them to ride in the rain and not have to have a washable jacket that would get covered with road gunk were they to be on a bike with no fenders.

    It is nice to see how these three simple features, fenders, a rack and a chainguard make biking convenient for a riders and save them from needing any special gear.

  • I enjoy her drawing class in the square around the CitiBike stand tho show how there’s no room left for art in the square around the bikes…. (except for the art class she’s leading) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRxAyfRfBfo

  • There has been a proliferation of art in Petrosino Square since the bike-share station appeared.

  • NM

    This would have been an interesting addition to the headlines. I’ve always wondered how we could be more organized and effective, so here it is: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/lobbying-for-the-greater-good/?hp

  • Anonymous

    And scantily clad lasses as well, I see.

  • kevd

    I was jealous of those on fendered citibikes yesterday….

  • Anonymous

    I did go to Petrosino Square today. I had never been there, so I wanted to see firsthand how the bike docks affect the place. The “square” (more of a triangle, really) is a bit odd, because it about half of it is fenced, and the rest isn’t. The bike docks, as well as the art classes in protest, are in the non-fenced part near the tip of the park. The bike docks look like they take about half of that tip. It is a significant chunk, because the park is tiny.

    I do feel bad for the protesters because I sympathize with artists and art in general, and I like parks and pedestrian spaces too. If we could sacrifice some parking spots instead of a chunk of a tiny park, I say take the parking spots!

    What must have sucked from the point of view of the woman leading the protest were the questions from curious people about how bikeshare works. How do you sign up?, etc.

    PS: the model was fully clothed when I visited. 🙂

  • Anonymous

    Oddest encounter with a Citi Bike user today: I met a guy who somehow managed to buy a weekly pass from one of the kiosks, something that is supposedly impossible until next week. He says he got a bike and rode it one way with no problems, but then he couldn’t get another bike (when I met him, he was trying to pick up a bike for his return trip).

  • Larry Littlefield

    I also rode by the way home from work. There were no protesters. I’ve never seen any art there. Sometimes when I’ve had a flat on the way to work, I’ve locked up my bike at the rack there and picked it up later to get it fixed.

    These kinds of narrow triangles are hard to use for anything. The bikeshare racks are probably taking the place of nothing.

    This whole protest sounds like a marketing stunt to me.

  • arts activist

    qrt145: Thank you for your comment. The protesters are indeed promoting that DOT give us back our park’s art installation space and take instead the car parking on the east side of Lafayette Street north of Spring. All our cyclists agree that the station would be more safely situated there.

    Yesterday morning a cyclist riding his own bike had a collision with a car at the west side of Cleveland Place just south of Spring, i.e., right where the Citi Bike station is now. He was thrown to the pavement on his hands and knees, and had to be treated by ambulance. The problem is that where the Petrosino Square station is now, there is traffic running in three different directions: north on Cleveland Place, south on Lafayette, and east on Spring. The cyclist yesterday morning was looking to cross Spring on the left hand side in order to get into the northbound bike lane on Lafayette north of Spring.

    Right now the Citi Bike station takes up not half, but the better part of the north end of the park, which is easily a third of the park’s length, this in one of the most park-starved neighborhoods in the City of New York, and in a park the community worked long and hard to get expanded and renovated, completed only in November, 2011, with the inaugural post-renovation art installation in May, 2012, Carole Feuerman’s Survival of Serena, followed in October, 2012 by Jessica Feldman’s The Glass Sea. Now we have Tracey Emin’s tiny Roman Standard, which usurps green space in the park (plantings had to be removed to accommodate it), and because it is in an area that was not designed for installations and because it is so small, almost no visitors to the park notice it (it is a small bird atop a 13′ pillar).

    During the 2005-2008 redesign process, the community asked throughout for an open space for large sculpture and other three-dimensional installations. However, this tradition of art in our square goes back three decades, since 1984, and includes three dozen large installations in the park. Petrosino Square is where SoHo meets Little Italy. We want to continue both traditions: by displaying art for its own sake even when it is political, and by commemorating in our park’s name since 1987 an Italian-American hero of the NYPD.

    We hope the writers and readers on Streetsblog will come to understand our position, and will help us achieve an appropriate balance of uses in the area by allowing the art space to thrive, and in order to do so, by moving the Citi Bike station to a safer location where it will replace car parking that we believe is not essential.