Big Apple gets big kudos for bicycling

updated 10:10 a.m. ET Oct. 8, 2007

NEW YORK - New York City, with its convoys of cabs, miles of subway track, fleets of fume-belching trucks and hordes of harried commuters, is a long way from Davis, Calif., with a University of California campus and not much else.

But the concrete jungle and the college town were both honored recently by the League of American Bicyclists for bike-friendliness.

New York City's bronze medal from the Washington-based bike group represents an endorsement for the city's efforts under Mayor Michael Bloomberg to promote cycling for a cleaner environment and a healthier populace.

"The way we think about transportation and how we use our limited street space is changing," said Janette Sadik-Khan, the city's transportation commissioner.

The city is installing 400 to 500 bike racks a year and plans to have more than 400 miles of bike lanes and paths by 2009. There will then be 1 mile of bike lane for every 10 miles of road; the ratio is now 1 to 15. In San Francisco, it's 1 to 7.

In Brooklyn's hipster-heavy Williamsburg section, the city reduced the space for car parking in favor of bike parking — a first — when it widened the sidewalk to fit nine new bike racks over the summer.

"It's better because people used to chain their bikes to trees and house gates," said Pedro Pulido, an architect who parked his bike at one of the new racks last week.

Ninth Ave. makeover
A seven-block length of Manhattan's Ninth Avenue is now being remade into the city's most bicycle-oriented stretch of roadway ever, with a bike lane separated from car traffic by a paved buffer zone and a lane of parked cars.

Bloomberg also has proposed legislation to make it easier to bike to work by requiring commercial buildings to provide bicycle parking.

"According to surveys the number one reason why people who want to bike don't is that they can't park their bikes indoors," said Noah Budnick, deputy director of the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. "You just can't park your bike on the street all day in New York."

If theft is the No. 1 challenge facing New York cyclists, safety is No. 2.

According to the city health department and the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 2.8 bike deaths per million people annually in New York City, compared with 2.7 deaths nationally — a not particularly bad ranking.

But potholes and aggressive drivers can make it feel more dangerous.

"You have to always be alert," said Barbara Ross, who bikes to work and volunteers with Time's Up!, an environmental group that promotes a group bike ride called Critical Mass. Ross said she was once "doored" by a parked car — a term used to describe when the passenger door flying open without a thought for bikes.

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