Blog: Bicycling

There's a site with a petition for Google Maps to add a "bike there" option showing directions by bike, including bike lanes. Great idea, though the obstacle to Bike There is finding bike lane data. While we're at it, how about just a "walk there"?

Google Maps is probably my favorite Google product and the one I use most often (probably more even than search). But it's always been just a little car-centric. It took years after it originally launched to get transit stations on (mostly because the data providers don't include transit stations themselves), and while transit lines are drawn in in some international cities like Sydney, you have to go to other mashups like OnNYTurf (NYC) or MetroMapr (DC, Boston, Philly, Chicago) for maps that show subway lines. Why should the route a car takes be in fat yellow lines, but not transitways or bike paths?

Via The WashCycle.

I don't know if Melissa Arrington's friends listened to Rush Limbaugh-style hate radio, but that type of attitude, plus an unhealthy dose of anti-bicycle mentality, cost her six and a half years of her life. After killing a cyclist while driving drunk, Arrington was sentenced to 10½ years instead of the minimum of four because, after hearing that "an acquaintance believed she should get a medal and a parade because she had 'taken out' a 'tree hugger, a bicyclist, a Frenchman and a gay guy all in one shot,'" Arrington remorselessly agreed. "Reminders," as the Charleston Post and Courier put in in their putting-it-mildly headline, "that drivers can be intolerant of cyclists."

The last of the wedding photos before I get to Jamie's wedding: a great bike trip across the GWB to New Jersey with a stop at Edgewater's Japanese market, Mitsuwa; and the victory party for Debra Cooper, who beat an incumbent to become the 67th Assembly District's female representative to the Democratic State Committee.

The New York Times reports on the same reckless police (mis)conduct around Critical Mass I witnessed last summer.

Apparently the NYPD has switched from "parading without a permit" summonses to citations for running red lights. A poster on Gothamist suggests that if they are really serious about stopping red light running, they could enforce it against cars, such as at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. I couldn't have said it better myself.

On Friday, I was walking along Sixth Avenue with a friend looking for a restaurant, when a crowd of cheering bicyclists rode by. My friend, who knew nothing about this ride, commented, "how wonderful!"

A minute later, I heard loud and insistent honking; a single sedan sped up and squealed to a halt, nearly hitting several people. A man threw open the car door and stomped out, face purple with anger.

"That guy must be really angry because he had to wait behind some bikes," I thought. "How sad that he is overreacting so badly - and how dangerous that he almost hit those people. I hope the police saw that and stop him for reckless driving."

But no. That man was the police. Because a second later, a couple of marked police squad cars also drove up, and the officers inside, at the command of the angry, dangerous man, started arresting bicyclists. The angry man quickly stomped back into his car and, with a screech of tires, sped off. It happened too quickly for me to get a picture. Could the angry man have been Bruce Smolka, NYPD Assistant Chief and ardent opponent of civil liberties? It's definitely possible, but there are a lot of burly bald men in the force.

"Why are they being arrested?" my friend asked. That's a very good question, and one the NYPD won't answer satisfactorily. Unlawful assembly? Parading without a permit? Mike Bloomberg and NYPD top brass have been on a senseless crusade to stomp out freedom of assembly ever since last year's Republican Convention.

I was on 40th Street earlier in the day and the street was completely packed with vehicles going much slower than the bikers, and making a lot more noise. Why didn't The Angry Man screech up and tear those drivers out of their cars? And last weekend, as I was biking (all by myself, apparently the only legal way to do it) down Seventh Avenue after a nice refreshing ride through the Hudson River Greenway and Central Park, at least five drivers (mostly yellow cabs) honked at me, because I was in "their" lane. Mr. Angry NYPD Man, why isn't your police force protecting me, a law-abiding citizen, and my right to use the streets?