Maybe Don't...
... be a hard rock, when you really are a gem: Some thoughts on biking badly
Today, for the first time, someone I know personally blew by me at full speed on an e-bike, running a red light while I was in a crosswalk on foot. They didn’t acknowledge my presence, slow down, or even seem to notice me (so understandably focused were they on glancing briefly to see if a car was coming). As almost all New Yorkers can attest, experiences like this one with electric bikes/scooters have become commonplace/daily for most of us, even as they often remain quite frightening.
As a long-time vocal advocate for bikes, public transportation, and in general for shifting our urban environments – and New York City’s in particular – away from car-centricity, I’ve felt conflicted in recent years on how to frame this issue. I have been in the habit of always emphasizing that even when bike/scooter riders behave badly, cars are still the real danger, but as “micromobility” devices – a term that is not fit for purpose – have grown larger, heavier, faster, and (wonderfully!) more ubiquitous, it has become harder and harder to sustain that distinction, and sometime in the last year or two, I believe we passed a breaking point: Advocates for bikes, safe streets, etc ignore that shift at our own peril.
For years, my mantra has been, “Infrastructure, then regulation, then norms,” and in an ideal world, I still think that approach is a sound one. First build world-class biking infrastructure; then pass and enforce clear regulations which put pedestrian safety at the heart of our understanding of the urban environment; and only thereafter expect new norms to take hold, such that not only are there great, designated lanes for both non-motorized and motorized bikes/scooters, and not only is it illegal to ride on the sidewalks (which it has been for a long time in New York City), but riders would be actively ashamed to ride on the sidewalk (or run a red light while endangering a pedestrian for that matter!). Alas, in practice, reality on the streets has run far ahead of the infrastructure, the regulations, and the norms, and while a small fraction of riders are genuinely considerate of people on foot, the vast majority seem to treat pedestrians primarily as obstacles. You will got honked, dinged, and shouted at by riders when you are trying to cross with the right of way, and can likely add obscenely gestured at to that list if you point out to the rider what they’ve done.
Until recently, I think many safe streets advocates and pro-cycling policy folks in NYC wanted to imagine that opposition to cycling was primarily an issue for red-leaning New Yorkers in car-centric outer-borough neighborhoods, and for cranky seniors on community boards, etc. An acquaintance of mine in his thirties recently suffered two fractured vertebrae after being struck by an e-bike. A (fit, young) good friend was hobbled for months after a wrong-way cyclist with no lights on ran over his foot after dark. And, of course, there have been sensational, heartbreaking stories in the news on an increasingly regular basis.
It would be a shame to see rollbacks of our many substantial victories in transforming our streetscapes, especially given what a remarkable triumph the rise of cycling has been in NYC. Some of the anti-bike sentiment is certainly reactionary, and some of it is cynically opportunistic, but be that as it may, a growing number of even pro-bike New Yorkers are fed up with feeling unsafe and disrespected by bike/scooter riders. A few months back, a passing acquaintance/neighbor of mine blew through a stop sign on our block in her BMW SUV as I was about to step into the crosswalk, and her behavior has lastingly changed my opinion of her. Certainly, I felt much more at risk that morning than I did this afternoon, but in both instances (with luxury car and electric Citi Bike), adrenaline and anger for me followed the careless behavior of another. Cars are still the biggest problem, but bikes/scooters are no longer either an afterthought, or even particularly on the enlightened side of the street safety conversation, and in the absence of pro-active efforts to (re)center pedestrians on our streets, I fear that advocates for automotive everything will seize this moment to advance their own backward, anti-urban agenda.
What’s remarkable about these two instances with my acquaintances is that they put commonplace, careless behavior back into a relational context: Very few people would intentionally put someone they know in physical or mortal danger over a matter of minor convenience or distraction at the wheel or in the bike saddle, and yet I’d venture tens or hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are doing just that to strangers on a daily basis – except, sometimes they’re not strangers! Oops.
The city is very big, and yet, as all of us who live here know, it is also sometimes surprisingly small. There are a number of relatively obvious policy measures that could help address some of these challenges (I look to great organizations like Transportation Alternatives, Families for Safe Streets, and Riders Alliance for leadership on that front), but the complexity of making progress is also not lost on me; there are questions of cost, tradeoffs with respect to limited street and curb space, the reliability of the police (who are so often hostile to biking, and car-centric in their own orientations, but to whom we continue to have no clear alternative) when it comes to enforcement, etc, etc.
Those are all issues for other posts, and perhaps for other writers, but for this post and this writer, I’ll leave one takeaway: Try not to be a giant asshole. Maybe don’t maniacally risk running pedestrians down while you text and ride at full speed with your AirPods in. Maybe don’t shout at the elder who is just hoping to make it across the bike path in a crosswalk (clearly marked with multiple large signs that read: “New York State Law: Yield to Pedestrians in Crosswalk”) to get to the riverfront promenade. Maybe don’t make a jerking off gesture at a stranger after you almost hit them in a crosswalk when they had the right of way and they shout in surprise. Maybe don’t… you get it.
Self-respect is worth almost everything else in the end, but if that’s not enough motivation, your fellow New Yorkers are taking note of your behavior, and sometimes it’ll happen to be your friends and neighbors that you’re putting at risk.
A quick editor's note of sorts: My readership, as I understand it, includes many commuting cyclists but very few working ones. The above fails to address entirely the realities of the tens of thousands of deliveristas, etc, except to the extent that much of the necessary, missing regulation should regard their safety, labor rights, proper compensation, etc. For what it's worth, I find working cyclists are generally more respectful, in spite of the unreasonable pressures their working conditions create, than are Citi Bikers et al, and it is to that latter group that I address myself above.
Perfectly stated with the minor qualification that there is a need to keep pressure up on the two-wheel advocacy groups to get them to pay attention to this issue.