Bad Car-ma

Warning!  If you like bikes, you’re gonna be really pissed off after reading this blog.
Getting around NYC right now is hell on wheels.  
If you drive, you know how bad traffic is.  It’s worse now than before COVID, and most people aren’t even back at their offices yet. 
If you’re walking and try to cross the street you have to look right, left, up and down because you may get run over by a guy delivering pad Thai on an e-bike.
There’s a company called INRIX.  It provides “real time parking and traffic information” for the automotive and transportation industries.  Its 2021 congestion scorecard pegged NYC as the nation’s most congested urban area.  INRIX says Big Apple drivers lose 102 hours every year to congestion, almost triple the national average.
But we don’t need INRIX to tell us that.  We New Yorkers know in our gut. Not only do we drive at a snail’s pace, we have to dodge cyclists, skateboarders, scooterists and other assorted one and two wheeled devices.  It’s bike lane bedlam!
The bicycle advocacy groups like Transportation Alternatives, have made drivers the villains.  They have convinced City Hall and the City Council that the only way to alleviate congestion and to protect pedestrians, is to make NYC auto-rein.  Get rid of the cars, they say and traffic will flow like fine wine.  No one will die crossing the street.  Daffodils will bloom year round and the air will be as crystal clear as a Rocky Mountain stream.  
Mayor Eric Adams and his Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez are fully on board and want to create even more bike lanes.
Well folks I have news for you.  NYC is not Amsterdam. Cyclists in Amsterdam OBEY the traffic laws.  They actually stop at red lights.  They give pedestrians the right of way.  They don’t ride the wrong way on one-way streets.  In short, they are civilized and courteous. In New York, the only people who get tickets are drivers.  Ever see a cop give a cyclist a ticket for going the wrong way or not stopping at a stop sign or jumping a red light?  Nope!
The NY bike big shots say trucks and SUV’s are more dangerous to pedestrians than bicycles.  But here’s the thing, we’re not just talking about pedalists.  Those speeding e-bikes are virtual motorcycles.  Get hit by one of those and you’ll be lucky to live.  There is zero enforcement.  They don’t have license plates so there’s no way to catch them once they’ve sped away.  And they have no insurance so you end up paying your own medical bills.
We keep hearing about the need to “reimagine” the streets of New York.  However, our public servants’ imaginations have run wild along with the no yield delivery guys.
What our elected officials have done is slap down more and more bike lanes.  Some of them are barely used.  
Reimagine the way New Yorkers get around?  Absolutely. But you have to do it holistically.  Too many cars in the city?  Agreed.  How about making the subways efficient and safe?  Too many trucks double and triple parked?  Agreed. First off all they can’t get close to the curb because of…you guessed it…the BIKE LANES! 
City auto registrations are up by 300,000 this year from 2019.  New Yorkers are clearly telling us that all the efforts to de-car-ify Gotham have failed.  We aren’t going to trade in our cars for unicycles.  It just ain’t gonna happen.  Bike lanes, outdoor restaurants, higher tolls, more restrictive parking regulations won’t deter us. We’ll suck it all up and step on the gas.
Bikes are nice but cars remain ours.