We've been holding our tongues and trying to remain patient during the epic cold snap, but we can be silent no longer: Too many bike lanes are completely unusable because the Sanitation Department has not cleared them.
During a walk to get a slice at midday yesterday — more than 15 days after the routine 12-inch snowfall of Jan. 25 — Managing Editor David Meyer saw that the protected bike lanes on Grand and Lafayette streets in Little Italy had still not been plowed (even though we mentioned them in a story two days earlier and had posted about this on our popular social media channels, too).
It's especially galling because there is so much pent-up demand for cycling, despite the cold. As Dave Colon reports today in Streetsblog, ridership numbers are actually pretty high, even though it's freakin' freezing out there, even though hundreds of Citi Bike docks are like Shackleton's Endurance, and even though many bike lanes are impassable.
We asked the DSNY about its performance, and agency spokesman Vincent Gragnani got right back to us, promising, "These lanes will be addressed on this evening’s [Tuesday's] shift as part of our ongoing operations across the city. If you check back around midnight, they should all be done."
(Midnight? Come on, man, it's five o'clock somewhere! We'll update this story on Wednesday morning when we bike in.)
"The Department recognizes that protected bike lanes are critical infrastructure for commuters, and as such we have brined, salted and plowed them, not just once, but over and over, many times, before and since the Jan. 25 snowfall," Gragnani added, drawing some groans in the Streetsblog newsroom. "We know that unlike vehicle lanes, which have massive heavy tires constantly smashing and melting scattered snow and ice, bike lanes need more attention, and we have been working around the clock to keep them clear."
He reminded us that in addition to clearing snow from thousands of miles of car and bike lanes, shoveling tens of thousands of crosswalks, melting hundreds of millions of pounds of snow, the agency is also "collecting the 24 million pounds of trash and recycling New Yorkers leave out every day."
OK, Mr. New York's Strongest, touché. But this is definitely not over. As Sophia Lebowitz reported on Monday, the response to the snow — by the Sanitation Department, by private homeowners, Lyft and by homeless outreach workers, as the Post reported — has been spotty at best.
And our friends at the Transit app sent over evidence (at least from its users) that bus stops are not as clear as they should be at this point:
That said, Hell Gate did a Q&A with a Sanitation worker who said the city did a better-than-average job. The City Council will host a hearing on Feb. 23 on this very topic. We'll bring receipts.
In other news:
- Free buses for the World Cup? And who does that serve, exactly? (With so many tourists sending thousands of dollars to come here for the games, perhaps this is a chance to raise bus fare for out-of-towners!) (NYDN)
- A new survey shows that automated vehicles are not popular. (Gothamist)
- The Trump administration's decision to remove the pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument in the West Village makes a mockery of the very purpose of the monument itself, namely to ensure that LGBTQ history is never erased. (NY Times)
- Gov. Hochul will bring her car insurance premium campaign to Suffolk County, a corner of the state where she isn't much liked. It's at least the third time she's held a presser to push her unpopular attempt to lower car insurance costs by reducing compensation to victims of car crashes. But with Uber money behind her, she'll keep linking allegedly high insurance costs to "affordability" — lest, as we reported yesterday, Uber starts spending millions on someone else.
- The Rockaway Park station needs a new platform. (Gothamist)
- Weird story out of the Columbia Journalism School: Ambulance response times are up in Midtown, but experts say it's due to chronic understaffing, not traffic. (Poor journalism alert: The student scribe never even mentioned congestion pricing, which has reduced traffic considerably.)
- How about that? Boro Park 24 came out in support of a street safety project. I know it was cold earlier this week, but I didn't think Hell had gotten that chilly.
- Struggling to sell its aging readership on a story about Hoboken's amazing success at reducing car crashes, the Post dubbed the Mile Square City "Sinatra's hometown." (Hey, granddad, who's that?!)
- Set your calendar for a lot of important events, all of which are on the Streetsblog calendar (which you should visit frequently):
- Do you miss Flaco? Then why not celebrate the publication of the Flaco coffee table book with author Jonathan Hollingsworth and others in a discussion of the lingering hold the late Eurasian eagle-owl has on the public imagination. It's Thursday, Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Strand. Info here. (Streetsblog readers get in for free!)
- On Monday, Feb. 23, at 1 p.m., the City Council will have a hearing on "Pedestrian and Transit Accessibility" during and after the big winter storm. It's at 250 Broadway. (Streetsblog readers get in for free!)
- On Tuesday, Feb. 24, the other comedy show about Robert Moses and "The Power Broker" at Caveat on the Lower East Side will have its second episode (don't worry if you missed the first one). The topic of comedian Ben Tumin's show that night will be the history of Moses's highways, the creation of Riverside Park, and the destruction of the waterfront. Streetsblog readers do not get in for free, but they do get a $5 discount with the code RIVERSIDEPARK. Get tickets here.
- And March 3 is Super Bowl Tuesday for the livable streets crowd because the Council Transportation Committee will convene to discuss a host of important topics, such as outdoor dining and the Streets Master Plan. Streetsblog will have full team coverage (and readers get in for free!). For info, click here.
