Great 5 star thread on news and biking info. I tried to rep you op but the button is acting janky.
Eric Adams bikes to work on second day in office: ‘On the road again!’ (A.K.A The NY Bike thread)
- Thread starter bnew
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Great 5 star thread on news and biking info. I tried to rep you op but the button is acting janky.
- Seven-Mile Route Will Restore Waterfront Access for Bronxites and Connect Van Cortlandt Park to Randall’s Island with Public Open Space and Bike Path
- Adams Administration’s Nation-Leading Work to Reconnect Communities Divided by Highways Comes to Major Deegan Expressway
Mayor Adams Announces Plan to Expand Harlem River Greenway to the Bronx
March 22, 2023Seven-Mile Route Will Restore Waterfront Access for Bronxites and Connect Van Cortlandt Park to Randall’s Island with Public Open Space and Bike Path
Adams Administration’s Nation-Leading Work to Reconnect Communities Divided by Highways Comes to Major Deegan Expressway, Which Separated Bronxites From Harlem River Nearly a Century Ago
Adams Administration’s Nation-Leading Work to Reconnect Communities Divided by Highways Comes to Major Deegan Expressway, Which Separated Bronxites From Harlem River Nearly a Century Ago
NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation (NYC Parks) Commissioner Sue Donoghue, and New York City Economic Development Corporation President and CEO Andrew Kimball today announced a groundbreaking plan to deliver a critical public space to a community too often left behind by expanding the Harlem River Greenway to the Bronx.
Greenways are shared, linear spaces on public land, available for recreational uses like cycling, running, or walking. Beginning on April 18, 2023, the Adams administration will conduct public engagement and craft a plan for the new greenway. The route will span seven miles, connecting Randall’s Island at the southern tip of the Bronx to Van Cortlandt Park in the north, with continuous cycling and walking, including a critical north-south bike commuting corridor. The project represents a major new front in the administration’s nation-leading effort to reconnect communities divided by highways, focusing on the Major Deegan Expressway, which has cut off Bronxites’ access to the Harlem River waterfront since the 1930s.
“This administration continues to deliver for all five boroughs, and expanding the Harlem River Greenway to the Bronx is a huge win for equity and justice,” said Mayor Adams. “Our administration is leading the way in undoing the devastation caused by highways like the Cross-Bronx Expressway, the BQE, and now the Deegan — reversing the devastation left by others in communities of color. Greenways help us move forward while righting the wrongs of the past, give people a place where they can exercise and breathe freely, and create a sense of community by bringing people together. That’s what the Bronx deserves and what this project will deliver.”
The planned route for a Harlem River Greenway expansion. The multicolored arrow illustrates the three portions of a future greenway, each of which will be the focus of one public workshop in April. Credit: New York City Department of Transportation
“Historic disinvestment and highway construction has, for decades, severed Bronxites’ connection to their waterfront. This administration is centering equity in all its work — and that means ensuring communities in the Bronx have safe cycling connections and pedestrian access to and along the Harlem River shoreline, one of the city’s most beautiful natural landscapes,” said DOT Commissioner Rodriguez. “We look forward to working with Bronxites and our sister agencies in shaping this project as we continue work on our larger greenway development plans.”
“Historic disinvestment and highway construction has, for decades, severed Bronxites’ connection to their waterfront. This administration is centering equity in all its work — and that means ensuring communities in the Bronx have safe cycling connections and pedestrian access to and along the Harlem River shoreline, one of the city’s most beautiful natural landscapes,” said DOT Commissioner Rodriguez. “We look forward to working with Bronxites and our sister agencies in shaping this project as we continue work on our larger greenway development plans.”
“We believe that all New Yorkers deserve access to our city’s beautiful public parkland, and greenways often serve as critical connectors to our parks, waterfronts, and greenspaces,” said NYC Parks Commissioner Donoghue. “We are excited to work with our sister agencies to expand the city’s greenway network — including and especially in the outer boroughs — so we can strengthen the connections between parks and increase recreational opportunities for all New Yorkers.”
“Access to green and open spaces and safe biking infrastructure is vital to New Yorkers’ quality of life, and the Bronx Harlem River Greenway is a critical component to better connecting New Yorkers to our waterfront,” said NYCEDC President and CEO Kimball. “The Bronx Harlem River Greenway aligns with NYCEDC’s commitment to driving our city’s economic vitality and making New York City an even better place to live, work, and play. I look forward to working with Mayor Adams, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Parks & Recreation, and the community to make this vision a reality.”
The expanded Harlem River Greenway will restore Bronxites’ access to the waterfront with a network of off-street, multi-use, shared paths along the waterfront, as well as on-street bicycle facilities that will allow for safe and convenient travel along and around the river. The administration will identify high-priority, quick-build street redesigns to support larger projects, and the implementation plan developed through community engagement will include both short-term and long-term projects on identified preferred routes. Short-term projects will include the installation of markings, signs, and limited concrete work on city streets. Long-term projects will include more complex improvements to be constructed as future capital projects.
The community engagement process, launching next month, will outline a comprehensive strategy to create a continuous and accessible path along this corridor. At this first round of public workshops — with one workshop for each of the three segments of the planned greenway — DOT planners will discuss existing conditions along the waterfront and seek input from residents on how they would like to use this space through bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure upgrades. The agency will follow up with an additional round of public workshops this fall before an implementation plan will be published in 2024. DOT will also engage community members at pop-up events throughout the spring and summer, including at “Bike the Block” and “Car-Free Earth Day” events.
Community outreach will be conducted in partnership with the Bronx and Harlem River Urban Waters Federal Partnership and the New York-New Jersey Harbor and Estuary Program, which work to help reconnect community residents to their waterways. DOT is also collaborating with the Bronx Center for Environmental Quality and the Harlem River Working Group, which have long advocated for improving environmental quality and access to and along the Harlem River.
The expansion of the Harlem River Greenway follows the Adams administration’s receipt of a $7.25 million federal grant award to plan the city’s next generation of greenways, with a focus on expanding the network to historically underserved communities.
“Expanding equity of waterfront access is a key goal of our Comprehensive Waterfront Plan,” said New York City Department of City Planning Executive Director Edith Hsu-Chen. “This much-needed greenway extension will link more New Yorkers with their shoreline and lead to a healthier, more connected city for all.”
“I proudly helped secure the historic federal RAISE grant to expand the biking and walking greenway network across the five boroughs. The funding creates exciting new green spaces, like the expansion of the Harlem River Greenway to the Bronx, to extend access to affordable transportation for pedestrians and cyclists in underserved communities,” said U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. “This plan to restore waterfront access and provide public space for Bronxites shows Mayor Adams’s commitment to expand the greenway network to make New York City safer, cleaner, greener, and more healthy for all.”
{continued reading on site}
NYC gets $25M for e-bike charging stations, seeking to prevent deadly battery fires
New York City is receiving $25 million in emergency funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation to establish scores of new e-bike charging stations across the city.
apnews.com
NYC gets $25M for e-bike charging stations, seeking to prevent deadly battery fires
yesterday
1 of 2
FILE - A biker stops to look at a pile of e-bikes in the aftermath of a fire in Chinatown, which authorities say started at an e-bike shop and spread to upper-floor apartments, Tuesday June 20, 2023, in New York. New York City is receiving $25 million in emergency funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation to establish scores of new e-bike charging stations across the city. Mayor Eric Adams announced the funding Sunday, June 25. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — After a series of fires involving faulty e-bike batteries including a recent blaze that claimed four lives, New York City officials announced Sunday that they are receiving a $25 million emergency grant from the federal government to fund scores of charging stations citywide.
Mayor Eric Adams hopes the stations will provide a safer way for delivery workers, who rely on e-bikes to efficiently do their jobs, to recharge lithium batteries used to power their bicycles.
“This means that residents will no longer need to charge the e-bikes in their apartments — what we find to be extremely dangerous, particularly when you charge them overnight,” Adams said at a news conference Sunday. He was flanked by the state’s two U.S. senators who helped secure the funding from the US. Department of Transportation.
The announcement comes after a lithium ion battery caught fire and engulfed an e-bike shop in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The fire and thick smoke spread to apartments above the shop, killing four people and injuring three others, including a responding firefighter.
In the days since, New York City officials sought the public’s help in cracking down on unsafe e-bike shops and fire officials issued at least 10 citations to shops for improper handling of the batteries.
City officials said they’d previously fined the shop for its e-bike charging practices, though inspectors reportedly did not check to see if the store was selling reconditioned batteries on a recent visit.
Under new guidelines, fire officials will be directed to respond to complaints about e-bike batteries within 12 hours, rather than the previous policy of three days.
New York City has seen over 100 fires and 13 deaths this year linked to e-bikes, more than double the total number of fatalities from last year, officials said.
The city has issued nearly 500 summonses related to e-bikes, which can result in fines between $1,000 and $5,000.
The batteries can overheat if defective or improperly charged.
Adams had announced in March that the city was working to establish charging stations. The grant would fund an initial 170 charging units in about 50 locations.
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, said the charging stations proved “new hope” to prevent “these fires that start from shoddy China-made lithium ion batteries and chargers,” he said during the press conference.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said she and Schumer were working on legislation to establish safety standards for batteries.
“If passed,” she said, “it would take improperly manufactured batteries off the market.”
imagine if the people not riding bikes drove instead, double parking has gotten out of hand and people are parking on sidewalks in some areas too.
Citi Bike Real-Time Availability
NYC Citi Bike Station Map
citi-bike-availability.netlify.app
east new york, canarsie , flatlands are baron and bare coverage in brownsville.
Citi Bike Real-Time Availability
NYC Citi Bike Station Map
east new york, canarsie , flatlands are baron and bare coverage in brownsville.
I meant my hood in East Flatbush.
Ironman
#Knickstape
Miles Davis
Prince of Darkness
We need more bike lanes and repaved lanes, was riding through the city and a lot of the main ave are bumpy af. I’m done with the train when I’m solo, I got a discounted Citi membership and using the electric bikes are less than the train and drops me off right next to places I’m going to. Only issue is the availability of the next gen bikes are still low.
Motor Scooters Are Taking Over New York City’s Bike Lanes
Electric and gasoline-powered scooters are changing the vibes in the Big Apple’s soaring network of bicycle lanes. And columnist Eben Weiss isn’t happy bout it.
www.outsideonline.com
Motorized Scooters Are Taking Over New York City’s Bike Lanes
Electric and gasoline-powered scooters are changing the vibes in the Big Apple’s soaring network of bicycle lanes. And columnist Eben Weiss isn’t happy bout it.
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
https://www.outsideonline.com/byline/eben-weiss/
Eben Weiss
Aug 25, 2023
In 2007, on 9th Avenue in Manhattan, New York City debuted its first-ever protected bike lane–”protected” meaning that it featured physical barriers for bicyclists from motor vehicle traffic, in this case via a row of parked cars. There’s no such thing as an unoccupied parking space in Manhattan, so a row of parked cars is tantamount to a wall.
In the ensuing years, as the city’s bike lane network expanded (we’re at over 600 miles of protected bike lanes now), there has been no shortage of threats to destroy it. Some of those threats were mostly idle, such as now disgraced politician Anthony Weiner’s mayoral campaign promise in 2011 to “have a bunch of ribbon-cuttings tearing out your fukking bike lanes.” Others have been more real, such as the city’s lack of enforcement when it comes to the many motorists who park in them. Recently, a new threat to the network has emerged, and it’s perhaps the most insidious yet: People who ride motor scooters in bike lanes.
Now, when I say “motor scooters,” I’m not referring to those stand-up electric things that look like pogo sticks on wheels. I mean yes, there are lots of people riding those in the bike lanes too, but that’s old news. No, what I mean is actual gasoline-burning motorized scooters—the ones many Americans collectively refer to as “Vespas,” even though they’re almost never Vespas, or sometimes “mopeds,” which makes even less sense since the “-ped” part of “moped” means “pedal” and these things don’t have them. Whatever you call them, basically they’re motorcycles with leg shields that you don’t have to shift. While people using motor scooters in New York City is nothing new, they were always relatively few and far between. Now, they’re everywhere you look.
Of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with motor scooters. In fact, motor scooters are people’s main form of transportation in many parts of the world, and if you’ve traveled you’ve probably seen entire families on them. They’re relatively cheap, they’re efficient, they’re practical, they’re easy to ride, and they take up a hell of a lot less space on the road than a typical SUV. On the surface, more of them in traffic-clogged New York sounds like a good thing.
Unfortunately, these motor scooters aren’t replacing SUVs at all. Car traffic here is just as bad as its ever been—so bad in fact that we’re about to try congestion pricing. Instead, these scooters are merely adding to all the cars, and trucks, and micromobility e-thingies, and all the rest of it. And increasingly, instead of using the streets, their riders are simply using the bike lanes. One informal sampling recently suggested that as much as 25 percent of traffic on the Manhattan Bridge bike path now consists of some sort of motor scooter, either gas-powered or electric. Motorists in the bike lanes have always been an unfortunate fact of life here, but you could at least count on certain bridge and park paths being car-free, since even the most determined drivers couldn’t get their vehicles onto them.
Alas, this is not a problem for the motor scooter riders, who can simply slip in between the bollards, and with a twist of the throttle race right through the park or across the span. The presence of motor scooters on these narrow paths that were once sanctuaries for bicyclists is irritating, vexing, jarring, infuriating, and potentially dangerous. As a bonus, their machines are typically unregistered, and it’s fairly safe to assume someone riding an unregistered motorcycle on a bike path is also unlicensed and uninsured, raising the question of what happens if one of them hits you. Unfortunately, some bicyclists are now finding out the hard way.
So how did this happen? Well, one reason is that food delivery people are increasingly turning to them because their e-bikes are inconvenient to charge and occasionally burst into flames. I suspect another reason is that, as e-contraptions that defy categorization continue to proliferate, they’ve outstripped the state’s capacity to register and account for them, and so the very idea of doing so has mostly gone out the window. Therefore, at a certain point, even if they weren’t involved in the business of delivering food, people probably looked around at all these high-speed e-things whizzing around and realized, “fukk it, I’ll just ride around on an unregistered motor scooter.” (Or some enterprising vendors realized, “fukk it, I’ll just start selling unregistered motor scooters.”) And all of this is happening against a backdrop of driver lawlessness, as well as advocates and policymakers pushing the idea that the police shouldn’t be making traffic stops.
Bike advocates have long pushed for bicycle infrastructure on the basis that, in order to increase ridership, people need to feel safe. Moreover, a robust bike network “makes cycling more accessible, and gives even more New Yorkers, including children, seniors, and families, safe access to this joyful and healthful transportation.” But how safe are children, seniors, and families supposed to feel when their path is full of people flying by on motor scooters? Thanks to drivers, the streets are inhospitable enough, so if the bike lanes are also full of motorized traffic then that’s nothing less than an existential threat to the network’s ostensible purpose. Anti-bike lane op-eds are mostly just sound and fury signifying nothing, but a bicycle lane full of motor scooters immediately ceases to be a bike lane at all.
Nevertheless, advocates and urbanists seem loath to call out this very real threat. Instead they keep remind us that cars are worse (duh), and suggest that the motor scooter riders only use the bike lanes because they feel unsafe too. (Though the number of motor scooter riders I see popping wheelies and running red lights would seem to indicate the contrary.) We don’t need enforcement, they say; all of this can simply be solved with more space. More recently, they’ve acknowledged there’s a “crisis,” though it’s been framed as a justice for workers issue, rather than another case of motorized anarchy plaguing New York City. In my opinion, this feels both deflective and reductive, given that unregistered motor scooter use is by no means limited to people engaged in food delivery.
There’s no question that New York City yields a disproportionately large amount of public space to the automobile. At the same time, this would not be the case had we not surrendered so much of that space in the first place. So as New York City’s nascent bike lane network experiences an unprecedented incursion of motorized traffic, it’s at least worth discussing whether or not we should take more focused and decisive action now, rather than relying on making “more space for all modes,” which is the sort of change it takes decades to effect. Hey, maybe New York City’s bike lanes becoming “any motor vehicle that’s not a car lanes” is inevitable. But what if enforcement (which we’re now seeing, at least on Twitter) isn’t such a dirty word after all? What if allowing e-bikes in parks is like when the city finally relented and allowed overnight parking? What if it’s just the thin end of the wedge?
Yes, in the long term, it would be great if New York City had a bicycle lane, and an e-bike lane, and a motor scooter lane, and a lane for people who like to ride Onewheels while juggling. But until then, it’s fairly simple: if you ride a motor scooter or a motorcycle, there’s already a lane for you, and it’s the motor vehicle lane. Hey, if it’s not to your satisfaction, you can always start an advocacy group. Want advice on how to do that? Just ask the cyclists, they’ve been advocating for themselves for well over a century.
I hate this liberal shill thread title so fukking much
Giddy ass @bnew probably kicked his boots together when he wrote that shyt
yeah because the nypost are known for their liberal shill headlines
Eric Adams bikes to work on second day in office: ‘On the road again!’
A picture posted on Twitter shows Mayor Eric Adams — wearing a red helmet, red tie and blue suit — on a Citi Bike alongside a staffer ahead of a series of appearances Sunday morning.
nypost.com