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:
From a cyclist’s perspective, the Trump trial is going great … so far. #bikenyc pic.twitter.com/pJMUNvjoN8
— Streetsblog New York (@StreetsblogNYC) April 15, 2024
