NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Mayor Adams repeatedly say that hearing complaints about rogue bicyclists comprise the single most frequent occurrence in their day.
In a city facing such hot-button topics as the affordability crisis, the homeless crisis, the crisis of basic cleanliness, a political crisis of an indicted, compromised mayor, persistent complaints about racially biased policing and, lest we forget, millions of potholes, it's flat-out horseshit that the main thing our leaders hear about is concerns about a few reckless e-bike riders.
But I decided to take the mayor and his cudgel at their word — that they, indeed, hear lots of complaints about cycling at community and precinct meetings.
So on Wednesday night, I headed to the 76th Precinct Community in the basement of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary & St. Stephen Roman Catholic Church on Summit Street in Carroll Gardens to start the painstaking process of reversing the trend.
There was a small crowd on hand to listen to Captain Taso Karathanasis mumble through the previous month's crime stats (notably, he did not consider crashes or reckless driving to be among the crimes he mentioned), and then ask questions about rumors they've heard or why no one has solved the problem of the taco truck that is always illegally parked on Union Street (I know, right?!)
So I rose and said this:
I've lived and worked in and around this community for about 40 years. I have kids and I have a job, so I can't go to these meetings all the time. But I recently heard Commissioner Tisch saying that the biggest complaint she gets, the thing she hears more than anything else in a city full of crime, is about rogue electric bike riders. I'm sure it's a complaint you hear frequently, too.
I think one of the reasons why that is the main complaint she hears is that community meetings like this are not necessarily representative of everybody who lives in a community. As I said, I've got kids, got a wife, got a job, got things I have to do.
So I just wanted to come here and say to you, face to face, that the single biggest complaint I hear from residents of my community, which is bike riders, pedestrians, people on buses, is about rogue drivers of cars and trucks blocking bike lanes, blocking bus lanes, driving recklessly above the speed limit, 10, 20, 30 miles above the speed limit, on Hamilton, on Atlantic, down Court, up Clinton, down Henry, every day.
And I want you to know that there are lots of people like me who don't go to meetings like this and don't have Commissioner Tisch's cell phone on the Upper East Side to say to her that the main complaint we have is reckless drivers who killed hundreds of people last year and injured tens of thousands of people. The number of injuries attributed to electric bikes by your own department is less than a half of a percent. So that's all I wanted to say: Just so you know that people are in this community terrified, terrified of reckless car and truck drivers.
I'd love to say that the applause was deafening, but it didn't matter: I was there to tell the captain how the silent majority feels. And if two people do it, to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, they may think it's a movement — and that's what it is.
Find your local community council meeting on the Streetsblog calendar. And get to it.
In other news from a busy day:
- The top story was more fallout from Mayor Adams's decision to burden delivery workers and Citi Bike riders with the full responsibility for calming traffic that is almost entirely befouled and endangered by car drivers. Of course, I'm talking about his 15-mile-per-hour proposal for electric bikes.
- Streetsblog and Gothamist focused one story on Citi Bike's plan to not cut their e-bikes' top speed, but rely on riders to follow the new law. But Gothamist had some nice details about Mayor Adams's Trump-like claim that he needs to act because of "an emergency threat to life." There is literally no such emergency.
- Like Streetsblog, the Post called up the experts and received a healthy dose of skepticism.
- The Times played it straight.
- Half of city cabs are now accessible. (NYDN)
- After Gothamist's scoop earlier this week, amNY followed the Flatbush Avenue bus lane news.
- Hell Gate had a bombshell report about the NYPD's racially biased Community Response Team. Check it out: "In 89 percent of the CRT's vehicle stops reviewed by the monitor, the driver was Black or Hispanic. Every single one of the vehicle stops reviewed by the monitor that turned into a search, the people being searched were Black or Hispanic — except for one person, who was Middle Eastern. Were any of the white motorists searched? Per the report: 'None of the white motorists were searched.'"
- The Times and The City have the shocking video of that Upper Manhattan crash that was the result of a police chase ... that the police ended up fleeing.
Have a great weekend. My brother owns like 1 percent of a horse running in the 12th race at Saratoga on Saturday. The horse's name is Corruption. I have a hunch!
