In which I rant about commuting and attempt to fix transportation in NYC

What’s wrong with commuting in NYC? The short answer: a lot. The long answer: it’s complicated. But with the third fare increase in as many years, it will now cost $104 to get to work each month, on increasingly crowded and late trains. A post of what’s wrong with the mismanagement of the MTA could easily run thousands of words and just scratch the surface but the fact remains that there is no way of schleping to and from your small overpriced apartment that is without its flaws.

Driving to work in the city is incredibly expensive, inconvenient, and impractical. Unless you live within a mile or two of your office, walking to work isn’t realistic. And biking in the city has it’s own set of problems:

Regardless of the miles of bike lanes that have been added in the last few years, New York City can still be a very unfriendly place to bike. A study last week of only 11 of Manhattan’s bike lanes showed what nearly everyone in the city knows: over 1,700 violations in 22 hours-- double-parked cars, delivery trucks, pedestrians and even police and city vehicles are clogging up the bike lanes, opening car doors forcing cyclists to swerve into traffic, and riders going the wrong way on way streets, or blowing through red lights, and though it all only two tickets issued.

Cops don’t care about cyclist safety—they are blocking the bike lanes – and drivers and pedestrians are hostile to cyclists and cyclists are hostile right back. Every cyclist has a story of a near miss with a car, but conversely every pedestrian and driver has a story of a jerk cyclist.

So here’s my solution to all of the city’s commuting woes:

1. Driving: Put congestion pricing into place—its main effect will be the final straw to force many people to not drive into the city during rush hours, making the streets less clogged and if it people still drive in the revenue can help improve the subway. Oh and save a few million by leaving inaccurate font on street signs and keeping the names of bridges.

2. Mass Transit: Make the subway and buses better. You can raise the fare without losing riders or pissing everyone off if people feel like they are getting what they pay for. Use the money from congestion pricing, cover everything in advertisements, then take the money and add more trains and buses to so it runs more regularly and isn’t so unbearably crowded at rush hours. What we can live without: wifi and cell phone service on the trains. What’s totally essential: electronic signs at on every platform that tell commuters when the next train in coming. The tube in London has it, the metro in DC has it, it is for me the most glaring common sense thing lacking in the NYC transit system. (it’s in the works for 75 stations currently, but it’s needed in every station and the city is decades behind on this)

3. Cycling: Everyone not on a bike stay the fuck out of the bike lane and all drivers and passengers, look twice before pulling out from a parking spot or opening a car door. There’s not two ways about it—it takes 5 seconds and ensures you won’t kill or hurt someone. If you ride a bike in the city, don’t be a jerk. When you are on a bike you feel like an odd cross between a vehicle and a pedestrian, and sitting for the duration of a red light when there are no cars coming and you know you you’ll likely get stuck behind a bus or other obstruction within in a block is frustrating. Most cyclists aren’t going to obey all the traffic laws (few drivers do and not all traffic laws are valid for cyclists), but if you are on a bike, you should at least do the following: a) wear a helmet b) have lights if you ride at night c) treat every intersection at least like a blinking red light; stop and look both ways—for cars, people and bikes-- before crossing d) have a bell but use your voice – so many times the polite “ding ding” work, so many others require a loud “HEY!” to be heard e) ALWAYS pay attention.

4. Pedestrians: Walk only on the sidewalk (see above re. stay out of the bike lanes), if you need to text/greet a long lost pal/look at a map/take a picture/read a book, etc. move to the side. Do not walk more than two people across, and look before jaywalking.

Yours truly,

Curmudgeonly commuter

The Fair State of the World

It’s birthday week for me, and as such (especially since I’m unemployed) I’m trying to do something fun each day.

Today I biked from my apartment in Park Slope to Flushing Meadows Park in Queens (and back). The round trip was about 24 miles, but it was a beautiful day and although Google biking directions lead me astray a couple of times in Queens and a driver almost killed me in Brooklyn, it was a great trip.

The main appeal of visiting Flushing Meadow Park for me was to see the panorama of New York City (built for the 1939 World’s Fair) that includes (almost) every building in the city in tiny form (it’s updated from time to time), and the Unisphere (built for the 1964 World’s Fair). The Unisphere was cool and the disrepair of the New York State Pavilion was also worth seeing, and the park itself was beautiful and had a lot there (I saw a Bear at the Queens Zoo without even having to pay to go into the zoo!) Unfortunately the Queens Art Museum that houses the panorama was closed today. I’ll defiantly be back to see it, but in the meantime if anyone is searching for last minute birthday ideas for me, you can adopt a building in my name!

Visiting this former World’s Fair Site, reminded me of the other former World’s Fair Site that I’ve been to—one of the most beautiful man made spots I've ever been: The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Although World Expos (as they are now called) kind of still exist, the grandeur of the World’s Fairs especially from the Industrialization era where new technology and inventions (like electricity) were first shown off holds a certain excitement that can’t be matched today were everything is (and yes I am aware of the irony) blogged and tweeted and facebooked to death before it is even released. World’s Fairs of the scale that once existed aren’t practical in today’s world, and it might not even be something worthy of being nostalgic for (truly there were a lot of not so great moments) But it’s an interesting part of history to visit on a lovely spring day.

Show a lot of things in a Little Time...MONTAGE!

This is the "montage-o-rama" of the bike tour I did a few weeks ago. (Even Rocky had a montage)

Birthday Gift Idea #2

Once they invent the hoverboard for in honor of my birthday I am betting that they won't have all the kinks worked out, so I introduce to you Birthday gift idea #2: The helmet.




And even if they don't invent the hover board guess it could be used to not die whilst ridding my bicycle.

Helping out my fellow man

I am all about helping my fellow humans, truly I am a do-gooder by nature. The feeling of seeing a young child’s face light up when you help them overcome a problem is unmatched in its warm fuzziness.

Or so I thought.

Turns out that sometimes you can get that same rush of well being from screwing someone over.

Last night I was dragging the old lady shopping cart (popular with countless urban dwellers residing more than four blocks from a major grocery store). I was enjoying the leisurely stroll when I was nearly knocked over by a guy zipping past me on his bike on the sidewalk. (Please note that it is illegal to ride your bike on the sidewalk in New York City, as the sidewalks are normally crowded with people, you know, walking). JerkWad then proceeded to hop off his bicycle and park it in the MIDDLE of the sidewalk, a mere feet away from a perfectly suitable bike rack.

I am the sort of person that usually has mildly vengeful thoughts, but never acts on them. So when I saw him do this, my thought was “Wouldn’t it be funny if I just kicked his bike over as I walked by?” Just as quickly, though I thought, “Yeah, but I could never do that..”

Sometimes though there are forces greater than our mere human will. As I walked by his bicycle (taking up 85% of the busy sidewalk) the wheel of my old lady cart caught his tire and knocked his bike to the cold hard cement of truth and righteousness.

I stood there for a second in the serendipity of the moment, deciding if I should sent my cart aside and attempt to pick his bike up (the do-gooder in me still wanting to shine through). I wasn’t allowed much of a chance however, because as soon as he heard his bike crash to the ground he came running: “What the F**K’s your problem!?! Why don’t you watch where you are F** KING going!?!”

It was at this moment that the much pursued feeling of light and warmth took over my body and I smiled and walked away leaving him to scramble to pick up his own bike, calling over my shoulder, “Maybe next time you won’t park your bike in the middle of the sidewalk.”

One slighty used bike lock for sale..

I have long believed that I own nothing worth stealing. It’s why I never locked my car- I figured any one desperate enough to want to steal either a beat up1988 Plymouth Reliant or a equally beat up 1995 Ford Escort was in a worse position than I was for having to own them in the first place.

The same could be said for my slightly rusted six-year-old Kmart Huffy bicycle. It has saw me though 10 miles a day for a summer on Mackinac Island, all 36 miles of the Kal-Haven trail, the collegiate streets of Ann Arbor and the mean streets of Brooklyn where it survived being hit by a car, and where it was late Friday night stolen from outside my apartment. Someone was in fact desperate enough to want my bike, enough in fact to pass up many the thousands of other bikes in Brooklyn and cut the lock on the little purple bike that could..

I’m annoyed of course, mostly because I now have to buy a new bike and because of the quick reprimand from my roommate that I should have kept it in the basement (yes clearly, by locking my bike outside I was inviting thievery).

The most amusing thing that came from this was my mom’s optimistic reaction: “Maybe they will realize it wasn’t worth it and they will return it!”

I can only hope that the undesirable ness of my belongings will be my saving grace and for the first time in the history of the world a stealer will take pity on a steal-ee and return to the scene of the crime to give them back the goods that are rightfully theirs. I think I’ll put a new bike lock on the gate just in case..


Ps. If you live in the 5 boroughs, keep your eyes peeled for a purple women’s huffy with a 2001 Mackinac Island license sticker…I’m fixin’ to give them a talking to..