Today’s Headlines

  • East Side Access Will Be a Monument to Runaway MTA Construction Costs (Crain’s)
  • Straphangers Gave Cuomo Another $400M for This: News
  • Stringer and Rozic Call for Service Upgrades on the Q34 and Q25 (AMNY)
  • Fulton Street Merchants Are Trying to Derail B25/B26 Bus Lanes (Eagle)
  • NYC Ferry Gears Up for Transit Season (WNYC)
  • Johnson Signals Support for Uber Cap (Post)
  • Elderly Woman Dies When Brooklyn Car Wash Worker Repeatedly Rams Couple With SUV (News, CBS)
  • Friends and Family Hold Vigil for Carlos Vasquez, Whose Killer Remains at Large (News)
  • A Day in the Life of Staten Island Motordom (Advance 1, 2)
  • Et Tu, AMNY?

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

  • Larry Littlefield

    Anyone see that big squad of police officers on Broadway yesterday afternoon, in what appeared to be new custom uniforms on what appeared to be new, custom, probably souped up bicycles?

    Keep it on the double nickel Rubber Duck, Smoky is out there.

  • Maggie

    Is there an update on the Hudson River Greenway closure between 59th Street and 72nd?

    The last thing I saw was this: when Parks abruptly closed the segment in November 2017, without advance notice to the community, they said it would be closed for a few weeks. https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/12/01/parks-dept-closes-hudson-river-greenway-segment-with-little-public-notice/

    Now it is May, bike month, and the much-needed segment is remarkably STILL gated shut! Until this reopens, there is no accessible and adequate way to bike north between 59th and 72nd, anywhere west of East Drive in Central Park. This is a total disaster. Someone’s kid or dog is likely to get injured if the city doesn’t get it together to reopen this needed facility.

    The signs now say the closure is scheduled to last until Summer 2018, but step out there at any time today and it’s apparent how unfeasible this is. And that’s before the weekend and the Five Boro Bike Tour, with tens of thousands of people biking on Sunday. WTF!!!!!!!

  • Back when the Q25 and the Q34 were combined into a single line, I knew a guy who used to refer to the 25/34 as the 6¼/8½.

  • Vooch

    The car wash crash article is illuminating and horrifying.

    Elderly woman’s crushed to death at car wash while walking past car wash. Husband also crushed under car.

  • AstoriaBlowin

    This is the best I’ve ever heard, “Sources say police believe the crash was an accident”! He drove into them twice after initially running over the elderly lady!

  • Knut Torkelson

    In so far as I’m in favor of anything related to the NYPD (aside from it’s complete dissolution), I think more bike cops are a pretty good thing. The more this gang of hooligans experiences reality outside of their squad cars the better.

  • Jeff

    I rode the Five Boro Bike Tour once, and I got the feeling that the route is designed to minimize how much it hurts motorists’ feelings, rather than to give participants a nice tour of the city. Especially in Brooklyn and Queens, it really seemed to stick to more industrial streets closer to the waterfront, as opposed to the much prettier, interesting streets a handful of blocks inland.

  • kevd

    I saw them on 6th ave by west 4th.
    two vans of em (them and their bikes).
    Because in NYC, the NYPD has to drive to where they bike…..

  • Simon Phearson

    Well, those are exactly the same roads we’re expected to use the rest of the time, so…

  • sbauman

    That’s true to a certain extent. You must include the ability to deliver emergency services as an important criterion in route selection. The tour route cannot create so much congestion so as to prevent a quick response to medical, fire, gas leaks, water main breaks and other emergencies. A perimeter route prevents isolating areas where such emergencies might occur.

    One problem over the tour’s 40 years has been gentrification. Industrial neighborhoods that were originally desolate on Sundays, are now teaming with life from new high rise apartment buildings with chic boutiques. Tour participants should look at the few industrial areas that remain. They would be there much longer.

  • Jeff

    I wouldn’t describe areas “teeming with life” as a “problem” with respect to an urban bike tour.

  • Scroller

    Calling BS on this one. Emergency access is the go to of NIMBY’s these days to block projects. Meanwhile, the biggest impediment to quick emergency services is actually the unrelenting congestion caused by drivers.

    It’s not hard to stop a slow moving bike tour in the event of a true emergency to let vehicles cross. And if emergency access is such an issue, why do parades go down 5th Avenue, smack dab in the middle of the city? Why does the Marathon close off the ONLY link between BK and SI and then loop through the heart of neighborhoods?

  • sbauman

    I wouldn’t describe areas “teeming with life” as a “problem” with respect to an urban bike tour.

    Yes it is. The safety of all the pedestrians in the newly gentrified areas must now be considered, when they elect to cross the street.

  • Jeff

    It’s a special event, like a marathon or a parade. People can cross the street like normal during the Five Boro Automobile Tour which takes place the other 364.75 days of the year.

  • JarekFA

    The tour actually takes you on to the FDR, the BQE and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge as well as the 59th street bridge roadway.

  • Simon Phearson

    I know. I was responding to Jeff’s comments about other parts of the route. Where it comes through my neck of the woods, it doesn’t go by much to look at.

  • Vooch

    are you joking ?

  • Vooch

    so you going to also argue cars need to be banned from all streets with humans

  • sbauman

    It’s a special event, like a marathon or a parade.

    The major difference between the Five Boro Bike Tour and a parade is its length. A parade is rarely more than 2 miles long. The NYC Marathon is 26 miles long. The Five Boro Bike Tour is 42 miles long. Each mile means cross streets to be blocked from crossing traffic, more people living and wanting to cross the route on foot, etc. The longer the route, the more cross streets, pedestrian crossings, etc.

  • Scroller

    It’s interesting you draw the distinction at short parades vs long marathons/bike tours…because for many parades, the NYPD lines both sides the street with metal barricades forcing people to wait in pens before they allow you to cross the street, meanwhile for the Marathon and Bike Tour, streets are typically closed, but not blockaded, so pedestrians are able to wait for a pause and cross like any other day of the week.

  • sbauman

    the biggest impediment to quick emergency services is actually the unrelenting congestion caused by drivers.

    The Five Boro Bike Tour creates its share of automobile congestion. It’s the induced automobile congestion that’s the greater danger to emergency service response.

    It’s not hard to stop a slow moving bike tour in the event of a true emergency to let vehicles cross.

    Ever try stopping 10,000+ cyclists at one time? After you have stopped them, how do you propose to contain them? Containing bicyclists who are on foot is similar to containing water.

    why do parades go down 5th Avenue,

    With the exception of only the Easter and St. Patrick’s Day parades, most Fifth Avenue parades are between 60th and 110th Streets. There is no cross traffic, except for the 4 transverse roads.

  • Ken Dodd

    Cyclists will get out of the way of emergency vehicles of their own accord. Unlike some drivers, who can be seen arrogantly and stubbornly refusing to move out of the way at intersections as emergency vehicles go nuts honking and blaring behind them. Drivers are an inherently selfish bunch – that’s what causes many of them to take to private motor vehicles in the first place.

  • Ken Dodd

    That this shitfuck of a piece of elephant dung is not being charged should tell you everything you need to know about how little the NYPD cares about protecting us from psycho drivers.

  • fdtutf

    The Pride March goes down Fifth south of Central Park. It generally forms (contingents line up) in the east 30s, and the contingents are released onto Fifth Avenue in order. The March then continues down Fifth to 8th Street, where it turns west.

  • sbauman

    Thanks for the correction.

    Like most parades, it’s fairly short when compared to the Five Boro Bike Tour and the Marathon.

  • sbauman

    Cyclists will get out of the way of emergency vehicles of their own accord.

    Where is “out of the way” when the entire roadway is clogged with fellow cyclists?

  • Cain McDougal

    NYC Ferry should really push for ferry service to Flushing and Bayside marinas. It would definitely help service the transit desert out in those areas and alleviate some load on the 7 train.

  • Ken Dodd

    You really think a roadway full of cyclists doesn’t have enough space for them to bunch up and let an emergency vehicle through? I guarantee everyone would get out of the way.