I have to thank Paul Krugman for pointing out this blog post.
Battle of the Bike Lanes
Posted by John Cassidy
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...s-schumer.html
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At the risk of incurring the wrath of the bicycle lobby, a constituency that pursues its agenda with about as much modesty and humor as the Jacobins pursued theirs, and which has found its heroine in transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, I say hats off to Iris Weinshall, the former transportation commissioner (and wife of Senator Chuck Schumer), who, together with some like-minded citizens, has filed a lawsuit challenging a bike lane on Prospect Park West.
Tuesday’s Times said the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in State Supreme Court, calls on the city to remove the controversial green tarmac, citing a state law that allows citizens to challenge arbitrary and unfair actions by the government. The lawsuit concerns just one stretch of road. If successful, however, it could open the way to a broader challenge to City Hall, which sometimes seems intent on turning New York into Amsterdam, or perhaps Beijing.
I don’t have anything against bikes. As a student, I lived in the middle of Oxford, where cycling is the predominant mode of transport, and I cycled everywhere. Twenty-five years ago, when I moved to the East Village, I paid a guy on Second Avenue thirty dollars for a second-hand racing bike (probably stolen). Of a Sunday afternoon, hungover from the previous night’s carousing at neighborhood bars and clubs, I would pedal furiously up First Avenue, cross over to Park or Madison, continue up to Central Park and then race back down Fifth, all the way to Washington Square. In those days, there were few cyclists on the roads, and part of the thrill was avoiding cabs and other vehicles that would suddenly swing into your lane, apparently oblivious to your presence. When I got back to my apartment on East 12th Street, I was sometimes shaking.
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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz1G9VlOJak