STRIKE! Day one

[dgk]

So NYC transit is on strike. Nothing too bad today except crossing the
59th Street bridge. The ped/bike lane is divided in half and the bikes
are supposed to be on one side and the peds on the other. Most folks
are doing ok but some morons just have to walk in the bike side. So it
takes a bit of time to get across. It wasn't so crowded that they had
to do that, at least not that early. I'm sure by now it is packed.
Plus, lots of people who don't normally bike are struggling up the
bridge, slowing the whole mess down.

The good news is that those horrible double buses are gone. Those are
the ones that are twice as long as a normal bus, so they must be 70
feet long. Everyone on bikes hate them because they're so difficult to
manuver around as they pull over and pull back out. Good riddence.

It sure was a cold day to start with. 20F with a good strong wind. Not
a good day for folks who don't know how to dress for this stuff.

Oh, one more piece of good news. An ambulance was stationed at the
exit of the 59th street ped/bike lane and was giving out juice and
coffee and snacks. I got a small pack of oreos and a Quaker Chewy
Granola Bar (Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk). Just like a real bike
tour but no banana.

So here I am at work with very few folks around. Ironically, I'm a
computer programmer and could do my job just as well at home for a few
days. But because I often bike the 29 miles (round trip) everyone
expects me to come in. The price of fame I guess.

Sort of exciting and probably very healthy for most folks, but I hope
it doesn't last too long.

[rdclark]

dgk wrote:

> The good news is that those horrible double buses are gone. Those are
> the ones that are twice as long as a normal bus, so they must be 70
> feet long. Everyone on bikes hate them because they're so difficult to
> manuver around as they pull over and pull back out. Good riddence.

>From a purely selfish POV I always look forward to our periodic
Philadelphia transit strikes, the last one of which was just a couple
of months ago.

Traffic is much more bike-friendly with the buses out of the mix. The
only problems downtown arose on streets where the right lane was
temporarily enabled for car parking, but there were not many of those.
Meanwhile, since bikes became a somewhat more expected component of the
traffic mix, drivers were more tolerant of us.

It was like August (usually the best month for commuting because
there's no school and so many people are off work).

It helped that this last strike happened during perfect weather.

I'm not comparing NYC to Philly, of course. Even after a lifetime of
riding in cities like Philadelphia and Chicago, the few times I've
ridden in Manhattan were unusually memorable experiences. And that was
years ago.

RichC

[andy gee]

dgk > wrote in
:

> So NYC transit is on strike.

Ride of a lifetime this morning...

Madison Avenue was closed to cars, as were some of it's cross-streets.
I was able to shoot right up the middle and gained a full minute on my
normal time.

I didn't see a monumental number of bikes, though. No extra bikes gone
from the bike room this morning. I joined a Tampico Trolley coming up
out of Loisada for my first leg, which was fun. And I heard tell of a
mad pack occupying 6th Ave coming out of Greenwich Village. All in all,
I'd say there's triple the number of bikes since last week, but three
times not too much is not much. I'm basing the count on extra bikes
locked up around Columbus Circle. The trademarks on the bikes aren't
covered in tape and there's a brand-new looking second lock on the ones
I'm counting as newbies.

Disappointingly, the crop of fresh young faces in my office, just out of
school with apartments in Brooklyn and Queens didn't make it in. I'd
have thought one of them would have wanted to make an impression (we
promote heavily from inside in my office) but no dice. I'm beginning to
think we really are a separate species, and cycling to actually go
somewhere doesn't enter people's conciousness.

--ag

[Don Wiss]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, andy gee > wrote:

>I didn't see a monumental number of bikes, though.

I also did not see that many. But then I arrived at Grand Central at 7:30
and left at 6:15.

I came in from Park Slope. I do not normally bicycle to Metro North. But I
bicycle regularly (like 40 miles on Sunday), so I'm prepared clothing-wise
and in shape.

What I did see. Flatbush Avenue was jammed with cars in the morning, almost
all with a single person. But once over the Manhattan Bridge there were
very few cars, and they all had four passengers.

Coming up through the 30's I did see many cars without four. It appears
that people that came over the Queens Midtown Tunnel could enter with only
one.

There were pedestrians on the north side of the Manhattan Bridge, where
they don't belong, but not very many. Not many bikes either. Seems most
people are still unaware that bikes and pedestrians can cross that bridge.

I saw a lot more traffic on my way home. FDR drive and the Manhattan and
Brooklyn Bridges were at a complete standstill.

But, my day was almost ruined. I put my heavy chain and lock in a canvas
bag. I only used one bunge cord to hold it on my back rack. I though about
using two, but didn't. I arrive at Grand Central, looked at the back of my
bike, and saw that the lock had fallen off. I figured my day was lost. So I
started bicycling home the wrong way (I came mostly on one-way streets). I
started down 3rd Avenue. There around 38th Street was my lock. I still made
my train.

Don <www.donwiss.com> (e-mail link at home page bottom).