If you search for the words "park goer" in this article, you'll find it 6 times, next to the words "said one" or "said another". As a frequent Prospect Park cyclist, I feel completely unrepresented in this report. The safety problems with the pathway situation in the park are real, but a story covering them needs to ask "why?" rather than stand behind one set of pointing fingers and be titled "Patrons Say..." (patrons?)
New York City is becoming a bike friendly city with miles of new bike paths being added yearly. This means more people are going to pick up cycling, some as a sport. When you consider that, you need to consider where that sport can be practiced in the city. If you play basketball or tennis, there are courts for you. If you play baseball, there are fields for that. Cycling as a sport (distinct from commuter cycling) requires an uninterrupted pathway. In a crowded city such as ours, these pathways can only exist in major parks. The idea of red lights on a bike path used for sport cycling is like putting red lights on a car racing track, or building an intermittent stop mechanism into a treadmill used for exercise. Sport cycling, like running, requires a maintenance of cadence. You've seen runners who at a red light on a crosswalk continue to jog in one spot until the light changes. This is to keep the body in motion and maintain heart rate. The moment you stop the body reacts and you begin to perspire. Anyone who exercises is aware of these effects, and that is the main reason why cyclists don't stop. (We can't spin in one place on a bicycle.)
Understandably that leads to safety issues. However the issues aren't caused by cyclists alone. I can tell you that at any given moment in the park, there are more pedestrians breaking traffic rules than cyclists. Pedestrians jay walk and walk or even play on paths designated for cycling. But these people too cannot be faulted for their behavior. Many of them are not frequent visitors - they haven't read the safety rules or knew they needed to. They come to a park and they're of a mindset "hey, I'm in a park, a place where I don't have to think about traffic." Or they're kids who aren't thinking much about safety risks at all.
So this is a problem, but it's not a pedestrian and cyclist problem. It's an urban design problem. These park roads are not constructed around accommodating such conflicting behaviors that can literally collide. To address that, park roads need to be rethought. I'd like to see bridges or over/underpasses that allow wheel traffic and foot traffic to cross perpendicularly at the same time. One goes under, one over. I want to see this problem solved in a way that is fair to everyone's interests, and to do that this is the direction we need to think in, and it needs to be reported on for all that it is instead of a nearly bullet point list following the format: "insert bad experience quote here" said one park goer. That can only result in solutions that will lead to a similar list ending in "said one cyclist."
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| Prospect Park Lake, March 2014 |
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