Brooklyn gets Blumenauered
The Big Apple has caught up to Portland in going ga-ga for bike lanes, and the backlash has begun. Even in a place that's been hell on drivers for several generations, average Joes and Janes are baffled by the city chopping up its thoroughfares to enable the two-wheeler set to add death wish indulgence to their daily commute. Here are some familiar comments, now with New Yawk accents:
She is a zealot. She wants to make it hard for those that choose to own their automobiles. She wants to make it difficult, their life difficult. I really believe that....At least back there they still have some semblance of an economy to commute to.And they said they wanted the city to look like Copenhagen. And this is Manhattan. It's Manhattan. It's not Copenhagen....
[I]n New York, bike lanes have cache with the creative class.... Well, because, the kind of employees who bike, those are the kinds of workers that companies really want to have, and they want to hold on to.
Wait 'til they get their streetcars.
| Posted at 4:46 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (5)
It's become crazy in Brooklyn. In November I was driving a friend's car from Bklyn Heights to Williamsburg and back -- cautiously, in an unfamiliar car and an unfamiliar place. Crossing a one-way thoroughfare from a stop sign, I had to step on it a little in order not to interfere with the through traffic. In doing that, I nearly took out a woman cyclist who was in a bike lane on the far side of the one-way thoroughfare, going against the one-way traffic. Closer inspectIon showed that despite one-way markings for motorized traffic, the bike lane is in fact marked for riding the opposite way. It's a recipe for death.
Posted by Allan L. | January 2, 2011 6:19 AM
Wow, so is that what it's about? Somebody came up with a formula that says bike lanes = creative class ---> more desirable employees? So one has to bike to one's barrista/stripper/waiter job or not have a job at all? Where's the ADA and AARP lawyers?
Posted by jc | January 2, 2011 9:04 AM
Copenhagen?
I've never been to Brooklyn or NYC so I can't relate to that, but here in Portland our extensive pre-WW2 craftsman home neighborhoods are supposed to be like 'Amsterdam' when the politicians get done.
Posted by jc | January 2, 2011 9:18 AM
I like the image of the cyclists riding across the Brooklyn Bridge - that must have been snapped just a week or so ago, right?
Posted by Max | January 2, 2011 10:50 AM
jc,
Do you think there are plans to thoroughly
redo Portland and our neighborhoods so that we won't recognize our city anymore?
Do we also pay for the propaganda to facilitate that agenda, if so how much?
Posted by clinamen | January 2, 2011 11:57 AM