Its slows down cars mate
Space is being allocated to active travel
Good news, those lanes will still exceed that
But you want to get cars off the road? So why worry about cars. Put in something that works
Huh
Yea exactly
The road will still be enough for buses and cars mate
In my little area, there is no sitting councillor for 14 years by all accounts. There’s a fella going locally who seemed fairly active in getting stuff done around here, and lived up the road. I was very tempted to give him a strong preference even though he’s running with FF.
He calls to the house this evening (in fairness, I think he’s only the second or third candidate to send a rep to our door). I saw him down at the consultation yesterday, so I quizzed him on his views. I think he thought he might get away with a quick “hello, I’m the big chief in the tidy towns and I sorted out those trees that were blocking the bike path, etc. etc.” and be on his way.
“Oh, I put in some submissions alright… It’s a flawed plan. If cars are turning right, it’s going to lead to traffic holds up… It’s a bike-centred plan”. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt but it felt like the final part wasn’t necessarily a good thing in his mind. I responded with “maybe that’s the way we need to be going. Thinking about the bike and not the car the whole time.” In fairness to him he did say “Ah you might be right there.” We shook hands and I let him off.
Yes, it will cause some holds up for people driving but the benefits it’s going to bring, especially to kids, will far outweigh that.
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FF and FG seems to have a very mixed approach to active travel where at a high level they are for it but at a local level they might be against it depending on the Councillor.
We have 2 FG in our area, one is good and 1 is bad, we have 2 FF, one is very pro and one seems to be saying stuff like that guy.
That dude you met has car brain, like surely tue designers have designed this to certain standards
Street Wars
A weekly series on the battle for space on New York’s streets and sidewalks.
Kevin Daloia installs a “ghost bike” in the Bronx. Elias Williams for The New York Times
Where Do Those Painted White ‘Ghost Bikes’ Come From?
On a chilly Saturday evening in April, Kevin Daloia took a bicycle that he had painted white and locked it to a pole on East 161st Street and Melrose Avenue in the Bronx. Then he climbed up, stood on the seat of the bike and mounted a metal sign on the pole above it.
“Cyclist Killed Here/Rest In Peace,” the sign said.
The cyclist, Thierno Balde, was hit by a car on Feb. 23 while on his way home from prayers at his mosque. The driver fled after the crash and then ditched a crumpled Jeep Grand Cherokee a few blocks away, according to reports.
The police said Balde had run a red light. But the authorities also said the driver had been speeding.
Daloia didn’t know Balde, but that didn’t matter.
In his free time, Daloia volunteers to paint old bicycles and fasten them to poles as “ghost bikes” for the New York City Street Memorial Project, which consists of installations around the city marking locations where cyclists have died.
The bikes — completely white, including tires, spokes and pedals — serve as stark memorials, both an alert to passers-by that a cyclist was killed and a reminder of the dangerous conditions cyclists face in New York. The activists who install the bikes hope to catch the attention of drivers as well.
Daloia isn’t sure how many, exactly, he has erected. “I’ve done this for a long time,” he said. “Anything in the Bronx I’ve touched, and I’ve touched a lot more throughout the city. I don’t know the number, man. Probably 20, 25?”
Last year was the deadliest for cyclists in New York since 1999. Thirty cyclists were killed in 2023, according to the city’s Department of Transportation. Of those, 23 were riding e-bikes. Most fatalities occurred in collisions with cars and trucks — on streets that did not have dedicated bike lanes.
The concept of ghost bikes didn’t start in New York, but given the sobering recent death toll, you may have noticed more of them on our streets.
Sharon Behnke, 76, prepares the ghost bike that will eventually be part of a memorial for a cyclist killed in a traffic crash. Elias Williams for The New York Times
“It was an idea that spread from city to city,” said Leah Todd, another volunteer with the project.
In New York, a group of artists called Visual Resistance first put up ghost bikes in 2005 in response to a couple of cyclist deaths. “It was supposed to speak more powerfully than words,” Todd said. “A silent but very communicative memorial.”
The idea caught on and continues to gain momentum, Todd said. “We had some grand idea and hope that people would, you know, want to care — and want to limit these deaths,” she said.
Ghost bike volunteers receive donated bicycles from bike shops, friends or word of mouth. They remove a few essential parts from each bike, rendering it un-ridable and therefore less likely to be stolen.
Although cyclist fatalities are usually caused by car crashes, the volunteers who install ghost bikes are not necessarily anti-car.
Daloia describes himself as “a Bronx cycling traffic safety advocate who starts his car every day.”
He drives, yes, but he still loves to ride his bike. “I actually see things differently than from in my car,” he said.
Daloia believes cars, people and bicycles should be able to coexist peacefully. “I want some of the roads around here to be safer for pedestrians and cyclists,” he said. “And I want them to know there are cyclists out there.”
With a flourishing bike-share program and ongoing projects to expand bike routes, John Orcutt, the director of advocacy for Bike New York, describes a city in flux. “We’re in this place right now where it’s hard to say whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times for bicycling,” he said. “More people are doing it than ever. And e-bikes have something to do with that. And the delivery world has a lot to do with that.”
The downside, of course, is the danger.
Orcutt sees an urgent need for more dedicated bike lanes. “The bike network is still really disconnected,” he said. “And worse than that, it’s just routinely, ubiquitously, chronically full of cars and trucks.”
Steve Scofield, another New Yorker involved with the ghost bike project, finds comfort in New York’s intergenerational cycling community. “I always say I live in the biggest city in the country, but I also live in a small town: Bikeville,” he said. “Because I always run into people I know.”
Still, Scofield, who is 73, said that riding comes with a deep undercurrent of vulnerability. “I’m not a reckless rider,” he said. “But even the most careful rider could be victimized at any time.”
Headline is wrong mate
The bike wasnt autonomus