Ken Coughlin, a board member of Transportation Alternatives (TA), a 5500-member NYC-area non-profit citizens group working for "better bicycling, walking and public transit, and fewer cars," says: "New York's streets and most streets elsewhere in the country are ruled by the automobile, and bikes are at best an afterthought. Everyone knows this-drivers, cyclists, pedestrians."
Indeed, the automobile and the lifestyle it inspires have risen to prominence through the power of relentless suggestion. There's nothing delicate about car commercials and car toys and the hundreds of songs and movies that venerate the irrefutable gratification of owning an internal combustion engine of your very own. It doesn't even register when a movie character hops into a car and screeches away from the curb. We no longer consciously acknowledge the presence of cars on the street, the highway, and in driveways from coast-to-coast...not to mention the de-funded public transportation and the carchitecture: the myriad structures that exist exclusively to nourish the car culture, e.g. the highway, on-ramp, off-ramp, gas station, strip mall, car wash, auto repair shop, car rental establishment, bridges, tunnels, and, of course, the suburbs.
Coughlin and TA are part of a growing movement that is challenging the auto-dependant lifestyle. One example is their high profile effort to create a "car-free Central Park," which has mobilized a broad coalition in the Big Apple. Coughlin calls that campaign, "the most perfect symbol of our society's totally skewed transportation policies."
Mickey Z.: In light of rising gas costs, one might imagine motorists reconsidering their driving habits. Do you see any indication that the price of oil could result in more people riding bikes?
Ken Coughlin: The New York Times had a front-page article the other day about lower-income people in Florida suddenly unable to afford to drive. Some had switched to mass transit, such as it is down there, and at least one is now riding a bike. It'll be the young and the poor switching first, but glimmerings of a shift toward biking in the overall zeitgeist can be detected all over. This week's New Yorker includes a "Goings on About Town" item on Bike Month NYC that declares that "[w]ith gas prices hitting eye-popping highs, [the numbers of cyclists]might rise even more . . . " But here in NYC, you won't be able to say that bicycling has been officially embraced as an alternative until the city stops arresting or ticketing people for the "crime" of riding a bike, which is happening now.
MZ: It's illegal to ride a bike in NYC? Says who?
KC: The NYPD. They will arrest or ticket you if you happen to be caught riding in a group on one particular Friday evening each month, and on any other day they often hand out nuisance tickets to cyclists for small things like not having a bell or a headlight. Or they will wait for a cyclist to run a series of lights and then write separate tickets for each light, with the total adding up to $500 or more. The cops will claim they are doing this for the cyclist's own good, but this happened recently to a cyclist who went through reds on Riverside Drive, which has no crossing traffic. It has the result of discouraging cycling as an alternative form of transportation. On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a cop pulling a cyclist over for doing something truly dangerous like speeding down a sidewalk or riding against traffic on a one-way street? My impression is that commuting cyclists are bearing the brunt of the public's anger against delivery people.
MZ: What steps have activists and groups like TA taken to fight such unfair treatment?
KC: TA repeatedly calls on the NYPD and the administration to stop nuisance ticketing and to focus on real threats to safety like motorists speeding, running red-lights, and other dangerous, law-breaking behavior. At the same time, we can't defend the actions of cyclists who flagrantly violate laws and intimidate pedestrians; they harm the cycling movement as much as anyone.
MZ: Such important efforts may sound Quixotic to some, but I understand there's a victory brewing on the "Car-Free Central Park" front. Can you tell us more?
KC: City Council members Gale Brewer and John Liu have introduced a bill, Intro. 276, mandating a car-free summer in Central Park from June 24 to September 24, 2006, as well as car-free afternoons in Prospect Park during the same period. On May 8, the day before the Council Transportation Committee's scheduled hearing on the bill, Mayor Bloomberg announced a six-month pilot plan to ban traffic from portions of Central
Park's loop road that are already little used by cars. As of Monday June 5, 2006, vehicles will no longer be allowed on Central Park's East Drive north of 72nd Street in the morning or anywhere (apparently) on the West Drive in the afternoon. (In addition, Prospect Park's West Drive will be closed to traffic in the mornings.)
MZ: Why do you think would Bloomberg propose this now?
KC: It was clearly an effort to drain support from the Council bill by giving car-free supporters something while maintaining the loop road as a traffic artery. Whether this strategy will succeed remains to be seen. While any reduction in car usage is welcome, most of the loop road will continue to be flooded with cars during prime recreational hours. Worse, recreational users who may believe they are exercising in a totally car-free park will suddenly encounter traffic, perhaps with disastrous consequences. The administration is now boasting that the loop road is free of traffic "75 percent of the time." We don't know how they arrived at this figure. Between prime recreational hours of 7 am and 7 pm, the loop road is entirely free of traffic exactly 0 percent of the time. Considering that the park is officially closed from 1 am until 6 am, even under the new rules the loop will be entirely free of traffic for only seven hours -- from 7 pm to 1 am and from 6 am to 7 am (assuming the entrances are opened and closed on time).
MZ: How did Bloomberg's strategy impact the Council?
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