Who are ‘the haters’ in NYC?
Prospect Park West has a cycletrack (not shown in Google Street View imagery) — it may be going away.
The New York Daily News has harsh words for this particular band of bike lane opponents:
Why do normal, rational people turn into spittle-flecking, pitchfork-carrying mad villagers when confronted with bicyclists and bike lanes?
That’s a pretty strong characterization.
Implicit in the argument to keep the cycletrack/bike lanes on Prospect Park West is the fact that the presence of these bike lanes effectively allows people to bike there. Yes, people are technically, legally, allowed by law to bike on Prospect Park West, but we know that without the bike lanes, most people don’t do it — for obvious reasons, like, it’s scary as all get-out to do so. So, restated, we can say that removing these bike lanes will effectively prevent people from biking on Prospect Park West. OK.
Now let’s move to another street in New York City — this one not in Brooklyn, but in Manhattan. Brad Aaron, writing for Streetsblog New York, referred to opponents of the ’34 Street Redesign’ as ‘haters’:
With the axing of the 34th Street pedestrian plaza, you can bet the haters — the “real New Yorkers” for whom pedestrians and bus riders are obstacles on the other side of the windshield — smell blood in the water.
I’ve made the case before that we should allow people to bike on 34th Street — even going so far as to suggest allowing it if only for the politics (of getting your overall project goals accomplished). Proponents of the 34th Street Redesign are on record as supporting the street as a ‘Transitway’ — that is, a street for pedestrians and cars and buses, but not bikes — that is, the redesign will have no bike lanes, no bike infrastructure at all, in fact, save perhaps, for some bike parking somewhere. So, proponents of the 34th Street Redesign want to effectively prevent people from biking on 34th Street. OK.
So, my question is — who are ‘the haters’ in NYC?
