Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
bicycle lanes

Tuesday’s Headlines: Biking with a Dutchman Edition

You really get a fresh perspective on city cycling when you do it with someone from Holland. Plus other news.

Photo: Clarence Eckerson Jr.|

You learn a lot when you see the world through a Dutch person’s eyes.

You really get a fresh perspective on city cycling when you do it with someone from Holland.

Our Streetfilms colleague Clarence Eckerson found that out the other day when he biked around Midtown with Mark Wagenbuur (aka Bicycle Dutch). Eckerson said he tried to show the Dutch master "some of the best stuff we have here," but Wagenbuur's assessment of our painted bike lanes and most of our quasi-protected crosstown lanes was just deadly:

"Drivers just ignore them like they are advisory lanes," he said. "It's terrible! I'm sorry!"

Watch the footage here — and write your Congressman!

In other news from a day when most of the media was gathered around one courthouse in Lower Manhattan:

  • Welcome to Albany, where legislators who have co-sponsored a bill — in this case, Sammy's Law — can also be simultaneously working behind the scenes to kill it. (Hell Gate)
  • Meanwhile, Hell Gate's Chris Robbins had a great congestion pricing story in Heatmap.
  • Flying cars? Where is Nancy Reagan when we really need her? (The New Yorker)
  • Gothamist decided to make congestion pricing sound confusing when it really isn't: Want to avoid the toll? Don't drive into the central business district.
  • NIMBY doesn't get more awful than this: A one-story hot dog stand (albeit iconic) is going to be bulldozed to make way for housing — right between two Upper East Side transit lines. Where else do you want housing? In a transit desert?! (NY Post)
  • Protests are an American tradition. (NY Post)
  • How is this an exclusive? Frum News breaks the story about the Interborough Express.
  • Other outlets followed The City's coverage of the FDNY's first-ever battery arrest with more coverage, thanks to an agency presser on Monday (amNY). We were there, too, and asked for stats about the FDNY's crackdown on illegal battery vendors: From Jan. 1 through March 15, the agency has done 162 inspections and issued 262 violations and four vacate orders. (That's up from 73 inspections, 227 violations and three vacate orders over the same period last year.)
  • Gothamist followed our story about the arborcidal vandals in Kissena Park.
  • Streetsblog board member Christine Berthet is a legend. (Urban Omnibus)
  • And, finally, don't say we didn't find an angle on the Trump trial in Lower Manhattan:

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

Streetsblog to DOT: We’ll See You in Court — Again!

Streetsblog is quite a FOIL to the Department of Transportation!

September 17, 2024

Carmageddon: Shift to Remote Work Led to Increase in Driving and Congestion Nationally

Driving miles are higher today than they were before the pandemic, even though more Americans than ever still work from home.

September 17, 2024

Tuesday’s Headlines: Make McGuinness Safe Edition

The mayor's failure to implement the full road diet on McGuinness Boulevard continues to have terrible repercussions. Plus other news.

September 17, 2024

Opinion: A Lethal Threat to New York City’s Air and Citizen Enforcement 

Intro 941 jeopardizes clean air improvements hard-won through the city's citizen enforcement program.

September 17, 2024

Hamstrung! Congestion Pricing ‘Pause’ Screws Over the Next MTA Capital Plan: Report

Gov. Hochul’s congestion pricing pause will eat into the MTA’s execution of its next capital plan and push the start of work on that plan back by years, a new report argues.

September 16, 2024
See all posts