The War on Cyclists
Cyclist on Clark Street, Montreal
In this week’s New Yorker, Ben McGrath writes about New York’s cyclists, a diverse, much-maligned group of people who are increasingly determined to make their voices heard. They are, if anything, up for a challange: “New York is by no means a bicycle haven, like Copenhagen or Amsterdam, or even San Francisco or Madison, Wisconsin, where cycling, despite hilly terrain, is three times as common as it is here,” writes McGrath. It is easy to see why. Cyclist fatalities are more common in New York than elsewhere. The monthly Critical Mass bike-in regularly ends with mass arrests; in other cities, it occurs peacefully and without conflict. Recently, cyclists have suffered from police intimidation and media attacks:
On cycling blogs, riders were trading stories of being stopped by plainclothes officers while crossing the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, and charged with improbable offenses (in one case, for riding thirty-three m.p.h.—a pace faster than Lance Armstrong’s). Steve Dunleavy, the longtime Post columnist, had just weighed in, siding with the cops and referring to cyclists as a cult of “pedal punks” and “kamikaze bike bullies.” (In return, the blog commenters referred to Post readers as “large-vehicle driving meatheads,” and asked people to consider “the auto-centric character of their Pocono real-estate section.”)
This raises a question: why does New York hate bikes?
Maybe that is going a bit too far. After all, there are 120,000 cyclists in New York, which McGrath glibly breaks down into three categories: “Commuters (book editors, say, wearing cargo pants), exercisers (lawyers in spandex), and messengers (streetwise minorities without health care).” They certainly enjoy more company and a better biking environment than cyclists in other, more suburban, American cities. At the same time, however, New York’s overt antipathy towards cyclists seems unmatched. Cops are quick to bust cyclists for minor infractions but ignorant of those cyclists’ own rights:
The first bust occurred a block away, at the corner of Seventeenth and Fifth Avenue, where a young bearded man from Red Hook ignored a red light. As one of the detaining officers wrote a ticket, a blond woman who appeared to be in her forties observed that the cop’s scooter was parked in the bike lane. (Video footage later provided incontrovertible evidence that the cops had ridden their scooters across the sidewalk.) The woman was riding a child’s bike, with a yellow license plate attached to the rear that read, “Bicycling: A Quiet Statement Against Oil Wars.”
“You can go around it,” the cop said, sounding beleaguered. “You’ll fit.”
A block and a half south, the woman noticed another bike-lane obstruction, this time a taxi. Policing cops was becoming her thing, and she accosted another officer: “You’re supposed to give him a ticket.”
“What’s wrong? He’s just dropping off passengers.”
“It’s illegal to be in the bike lane,” she said.
“It’s illegal ?” he asked.
Matthew Roth, another of the Time’s Up defendants, arrived at the scene, walking his bike along the curb. “Did you cite it?” he asked the woman. “It’s 4-08, subsection E. Tell him to get out his R.C.N.Y.”—Rules of the City of New York. “There’s very little enforcement of traffic laws, because people don’t know what they are,” Roth said as he continued south on foot, using his palm to steady the seat of his bike. His knuckles bore the telltale scars of a New York City cycling career.
Cyclists don’t just get flak from the cops: they are also the target of vitriol from drivers, pedestrians and even the African-Americans residents of downtown Brooklyn and Fort Greene, who see them as two-wheeled gentrifiers:
In June, cycling advocates had lent their support to officials from the Department of Transportation who delivered a PowerPoint presentation to the largely black community board representing the neighborhoods of downtown Brooklyn, Fort Greene, and Clinton Hill, on the merits of adding five miles of bike lanes through the area. The presentation met with resistance—one man called bikers “thugs on two wheels”—and the board voted not to endorse the proposal. “They see cyclists as part of the gentrification wave,” [cyclist activist] White said, almost apologetically. He lives in Park Slope.
To a Montrealer like me, it’s all a bit over-the-top. Like a handful of other densely-populated, mid-sized cities, Montreal is a cycling paradise. Drivers and pedestrians certainly grumble about bike riders from time to time, but there isn’t the same confrontational attitude as in New York. Perhaps that is because proportionally more people ride their bikes here, especially in the central neighbourhoods, where it is not uncommon to find several cyclists waiting at every stoplight during the warm months. City officials have embraced the cyclists by opening new bike lanes, replacing street parking spots with bicycle racks and requiring new and renovated office buildings to include bicycle parking.
A large part of why cycling remains marginal in New York rests with insecurity and a lack of cycling infrastructure. Canadians, on average, cycle three times more than Americans, and a recent study published in Transport Policy attributes this not to cultural or historical differences but to transport and land-use policies. Cycling is the most efficient way to get around congested, densely-populated cities, but that alone isn’t enough to motivate people to get around on two wheels; they need security and cycling infrastructure. Until they have that, there will not be the critical mass of cyclists needed to earn respect from drivers and police. New York has all of the right ingredients to become a good city for cyclists, but does it have what it takes to put those ingredients to use?
Bike lane on Berri Street, Montreal
Bicycle parking on St. Viateur Street, Montreal
Dual-direction bike lane on one-way Prince Arthur St., Montreal
Tags: Montreal
Christopher Szabla says:
cycling on new york’s streets can be deadly but the city has been quite responsive to the creation of new bike lanes in parks and largely empty avenues in the outer boroughs. it’s fairly easy to commute from the upper west side to wall street via bike by using the hudson river path, and this route actually gets quite heavy traffic. there’s a similar stretch on coney island ave. in brooklyn that goes to (you guessed it) the beach and is used by more recreational cyclists. for the record, I believe it’s actually illegal to cycle across the brooklyn bridge (one is supposed to walk one’s bike), although most cops rarely enforce this.
as for “two wheeled gentrification”- it comes as no surprise that this argument is used in a city in which nearly every quality of life improvement introduced to poor neighborhoods is viewed with scepticism as a welcome mat for the latte-sipping set. not that their fear is entirely unjustified; real estate prices in the city continue to spiral, and the process of social change in neighborhoods rocked by eviction and the sudden erection of condos atop former crime sites is all-too-familiar. capitalist shock therapy is not symptomatic of montreal; nor is, to a great extent, race and class antipathy.
November 9th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Christopher DeWolf says:
Well, not race, but class and language. If Montreal was going through a wave of development and gentrification on the level of New York, you’d probably have a similar level of conflict (a disproportionate amount of condo buyers are anglo, for instance).
November 10th, 2006 at 2:22 am
Christopher Szabla says:
be that as it may, are cultural adaptations “for the anglos” seen as inviting them to infiltrate? I can’t imagine cycling would be classified as one of these in montreal (it is really curious that the cheaper form of transportation is seen in new york as being a threat to the poor), though I’m sure there are comparable phenomena?
November 10th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
David Maloney says:
Is it true that a disproportionate amount of condo buyers (gentrifiers) in Montreal are Anglo? Do you know of any statistics on this subject? Montreal is interesting in the sense that the Anglophone and ethnic populations seem to want to concentrate themselves on the island and fairly close to the core (with the obvious exception of the West Island) while the Francophones are the overwhelming majority in the low density off-island suburbs. Perhaps there is “un rêve québécois” that they are chasing?
Another factor discussed in the study cited is personal finances. Slightly lower average incomes in Canada, and more importantly the much higher cost of car ownership (consumer taxes, gasoline taxes, insurance, parts, etc.) also contribute to the disproportionate use of bicycles in Canadian cities in comparison to American cities. In Montreal, for instance, cycling rather than driving to work everyday not only makes a statement about your political outlook, but it also can mean the difference between sharing a shabby 6 1/2 and having your own nice apartment.
I think social engineering by way of impacting people’s pocket books (through taxes) is essential. Our policy makers need to exploit this opportunity more when it comes to transportation (as in Scandanavia) so we can start seeing significant changes in the transportation modal-slpits within our cities. So, $5/litre gas and free bicycles for all! Can’t wait for the Green Party to take power one day!
November 11th, 2006 at 8:16 am
Christopher DeWolf says:
i’ll admit, the anglo-condo thing is just a hypothesis. i think there is evidence to support it, though, not the least of which is the disproportionate amount of english marketing for new condo projects, despite the far smaller share anglophones have, in theory, in the real estate market. also, anglos tend to stay on montreal island whereas most francophones eventually move off-island, and, on the island, anglos have a higher rate of property ownership than francophones. (i don’t think that’s true for the suburbs, however.)
November 11th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Patrick Donovan says:
Baie d’Urfé, Pointe-Claire and Kirkland are full of “on-the-island-anglos”, but many of these live farther away from the downtown core in lower-density suburbs than the south shore Francophones. Only a small part of the island is actually urban. Anglophone urban areas like Westmount and NDG are becoming more Francophone every year. I can’t say I subscribe to the theory of a suburban instinct based on language. Quebec City is 98% Francophone and it is experiencing the same “back-to-the-city” movement as other North American cities.
November 11th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Zvi says:
“disproportionate amount of english marketing for new condo projects, despite the far smaller share anglophones have” – Chris, I recently saw Montreal condos being advertized in … The New Yorker! I think that Old Montreal, and certain other central areas have a certain amount of cachet which is being marketed to non-Montrealers. Certainly the prices here have gone beyond the reach of most locals! Francophones moving into our area typically come from somewhere else, although some new neighbours are originally Montrealers (I think). The majority of new residents here probably are non-francophone….
Just like the movement into condos in downtown LA – the marketing is targeted at people looking for a “home away from home”, not necessarily at those looking to make downtown their primary residence. These people are not going to give up their bungalow in Ranchos Palos Verdes or wherever, but the market pitch is “for those nights when you come into town for a Lakers game, a show, a concert, a… (one place even mentioned a place to shack up your mistress!), it sure is convenient to have an accessible place to stay.”
Hmmm… this blog was about bicyling in NYC. I guess that I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent. As an urban bicyclist myself, I must admit that I find the ‘militants’ in NYC about theatrical and over the top. Then again, I can’t really imagine trying to ride a bike in lower Manhattan – there are just too many obstacles. Although a straight North-South route along one of the avenues whould seem to be very efficient! A number of years ago I had a very interesting offer there (just after 9/11, when they were redeveloping lower Manhattan), and one of my primary considerations was “would I be comfortable biking here?” The answer was NO.
I would love to get some bike lanes in Outremont! Just paint some streets like St Viateur up to Cote Ste. Catherine, and along Edouard Mont Petit by the UdeM. And get rid of the F&*!ing prohibition of bicycles in parks, which they actually try to enforce! Riding towards the UdeM in the morning, there is a daily line of bicyclists going through the park at the end of St. Viateur up to Cote Ste. Catherine (and not disturbing a soul at 7h30) and they send out the police to try and ticket us! A speed limit of 5 km/hr in the park would be much more reasonable. How to enforce it? If you see a bicyclist going faster than a pedestrian, you know that they are going too fast! Not too hard!
November 11th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
David Maloney says:
Patrick, I did acknowledge the suburban, largely Anglo ‘West Island’ however there definitely is a disproportionate presence of Anglo/ Jewish people in inner city Montreal neighbourhoods such as N-D-G, Côte-St-Luc, Côte-des-Neiges, Town of Mount Royal, Mile-End, Westmount, and the central and western central business district. Even Old Montreal, Outremont and the Plateau are places where, I feel there is an English ‘presence’ that certainly does not exist in any of the off island suburbs – except for maybe a couple areas in Laval (?). Much of this analysis is based on demographic data, but I admit some of my observations are personal perceptions (re: Outremont, Mile-End and Old Montreal). I think Montreal is unique in the sense that not only immigrants, but also the Anglo community have strong attachments to certain geographic areas within the metropolitan area. These areas are where these groups have previously established a community presence. Since the Anglos (Scots, other Brits, Jews, etc) have deep roots in Montreal, the epicentre of their communities are in established (Pre-War) neighbourhoods. I think there hasn’t been much of a suburban exodus (amongst these communities) over the years because, generally, an Anglo would not feel comfortable living in much of Laval, Longueuil or Terrebonne for instance.
Also, it should be acknowledged that some of the English ‘feel’ in central neighbourhoods of Montreal, to a large extent, can be contributed to the tourism industry and the campuses of McGill and Concordia as well as various other English institutions.
What’s interesting is that I find Ottawa to be the reverse of Montreal. The long established French community is largely concentrated relatively close to the city’s core. Certainly Ottawa seems more French the closer you are to the Byward Market and it’s surrounding districts than it does in distant suburbs. However, Ottawa’s eastern suburbs (Gloucester, Orléans, Cumberland) would represent to the Franco-Ontariens of Eastern Ontario what the West Island represents to Anglo-Quebecers in southwest Quebec.
Regarding Quebec City, there may be a movement “back to the city” but is it not one of the most sprawled metropolitan areas in Canada? I don’t know the stats off hand but I do remember that the most ‘car-oriented’ cities in Canada are in Quebec. It’s my theory that the manifestation of the ‘suburban dream’ is more prevelant in Franco-Quebec than elsewhere in Canada. This could very well have more to do with economic realities, land use planning policies and federal highway construction schemes rather than a truly shared ‘rêve Québécois’ but it’s worth observing none the less.
I should get back to the cycling discussion. The continental movement “back to the city” is obviously great for all ‘alternate’ forms of inter-urban transportation (all methods other than single occupancy automobile). I think the public is becoming more and more comfortable with the ‘green’ movement in general and government policies as they relate to land use are starting to shift in favour of what makes sense, rather than “what will make the soccer mom driving an SUV happy?”. I think considering cyclists and cycling when upgrading or establishing new urban or suburban infrastructure is becoming common practice amongst urban planning (and even engineering) departments and firms.
As economic pressures and social trends bring more people to established urban neighbourhoods, and cycling infrastructure improves, many cities will start to realise the ‘critical mass’ of cyclists (as mentioned by Chris DeWolf) like Montreal has. Once this happens, it may be possible for a significant cultural shift in attitudes (away from cars and toward alternate transportation methods) that will allow for real advancement. By real advancement, I mean one day having alternate methods of transportation being the transportation method of choice for the clear majority within metropolitan areas. We’re a long way off but we can work towards this.
It would be interesting to have some discussion about cycling infrastructure and culture in Scandinavian or other European ‘winter’ cities where their rates of cycling as a form of transportation are significantly higher than even Montreal’s.
November 12th, 2006 at 4:02 am
Christopher DeWolf says:
Patrick, I think David explained my comment fairly well. You’re right that NDG and Westmount are becoming more and more francophone — but by the same token, Mile End, the Plateau, Outremont and Old Montreal are becoming more anglo. (Of course, until the 2006 census figures are released, none of us can speak with any certainty on these trends. In any case a lot of it is anecdotal, based on a gut feeling.) And yes, there’s the West Island — but you’re ignoring Ville St. Laurent, St. Leonard, Cartierville and the other inner suburbs where “ethnic” anglos settle, not to mention the still-strong inner-city anglo population centered in Westmount, NDG, CSL, CDN, TMR and whatever other three-letter-acronym neighbourhoods there are.
In any case, when I say that francophones are leaving for the suburbs, I’m not talking about older, traditionally francophone suburbs like Longueuil or Vimont — I’m talking about the “couronne nord,” the faraway North Shore suburbs that are not only the fastest-growing areas in Quebec but are growing thanks to an influx of “Québécois de souche” from Montreal. There are hardly any immigrants up there, let alone anglophones or visible minorities. The demographic shift of the white francophone population away from Montreal Island towards these outer suburbs is pretty evident. (I should be clear that I mean white francophone, because non-white francophone immigrants, like all immigrants to Montreal, settle almost entirely on the island or in a select few off-island suburbs like Chomedey and Brossard.)
So basically, what I meant by my statement was that Montreal’s anglo population is grounded in its traditional inner-city and West Island base (with possible growth in non-traditional areas; we’ll see when the census numbers are out). If it’s shifting, it’s doing so very slowly. By contrast, the geographical composition of the francophone population is changing rapidly: some francophones are moving to non-traditional areas like Westmount but far more are moving to outer suburbs like Blainville.
Finally, I certainly didn’t meant to imply that anglophones are more “urban” that francophones. If anything, the opposite is true since francophones are more likely to be tenants and thus live in apartments. The “back-to-the-city” movement in Montreal is still very francophone, which only makes sense considering this is still a majority-franco city. The cultural reasons behind staying in the city or moving from the suburbs back downtown are shared by North Americans of all cultures. I was just saying that, disproportionate to their share of the population, anglophones are moving into new inner-city condos, often in areas like Old Montreal or the eastern Plateau where there has never been any significant anglo population.
Anyway, this is a pretty long digression. I should note that a new study on commuters in Canada has concluded that cyclists are by far the happiest group of commuters in the country.
November 12th, 2006 at 4:56 am
Evan Druce says:
Living in Chicago for five years after having spent most of my life in the New York suburbs, Chicago strikes me as a far more bike-friendly place. Our Critical Mass rides are peaceful, and the cops leave us alone. Chicago also has the biggest “freak bike” (people who build crazy bikes from used parts) culture in the country. Mayor Daley loves bikes too; every year we get a new official bike map and a directory of city-sponsored events from the mayor’s office. New bike lanes (and signs at nearly every major intersection directing traffic to recommended bike routes) are apportioned in an egalitarian manner across the city, so it’s just as easy to find a dedicated bike lane in Englewood as in Lincoln Park. It’s no wonder three times as many Chicagoans as New Yorkers are bike commuters. When I go back to New York, I’m always shocked by the outright hostility displayed to bikes, on both the personal and civic level. There are very few dedicated bike lanes. City buses have no bike racks. The rates of bike theft are absurd, twice what they are in any other American city. I don’t know what this hostility towards cyclists is in New York, but it certainly doesn’t exist here in Chicago. Once again, another example of a city that could learn from Mayor Daley.
November 19th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Christopher DeWolf says:
If I recall, both Chicago and Montreal were declared “best city for cyclists” in different years by some cycling magazine. Chicago certainly gives me the impression of being a bike-friendly city, one of the handful of very large cities around the world that actually are good places to bike.
November 19th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
tuco says:
You guys might be interested in a petition at
http://www.gopetition.com/online/10170.html
which asks the Fed. Can. government to promote cycling as a preferred means of transportation. Sign if you agree, and tell your friends!
November 20th, 2006 at 3:49 pm