There were 29 bicycle deaths in New York City in the fiscal year that ended July 1, the Daily News reported. It’s the highest fiscal year bike death toll since at least 2013, according to the city Department of Transportation.
So things are bad for cyclists on the streets of New York City despite the implementation of the Vision Zero program in 2014 under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Remember, the pie-in-the-sky goal of Vision Zero is zero roadway deaths. That’s where the “Zero” in the name comes from.
To do this, the city has almost exclusively focused on cracking down on speeding drivers. We have a network of speed cameras blanketing the city. We have red-light cameras. We’ve have lowered speed limits. Driving lanes and parking space have been given over to the use of cyclists.
The language around the issue of road safety has also changed. We no longer have “car accidents.” Now we have “roadway violence” and “carnage,” with their tinge of premeditation. The overall message has gone from “let’s share the road” to “get murderous motorists off the road.”
And yet for all the efforts and all the advocacy, cyclists are having a deadlier time out there on the road.
Maybe some of them are at fault too?
Mayor Eric Adams thinks so.
Adams this month said that the city must “educate bicycle riders” to get them to better obey traffic laws.
“As I’m riding through the city,” he said, “I’m watching, you know, some of my fellow riders not adhering to some of the traffic safety rules that are in place. The same rules that are for vehicles are for cyclists as well.”
What exactly don’t cyclists understand about traffic laws? You stop at red lights and stop signs. You don’t create your own right-turns-on-red. You don’t ride on sidewalks. You don’t go the wrong way down one-way streets. You wear a helmet.
But we’ve all seen cyclists break one rule after another. We’ve seen motorists break every law as well. Nobody is blameless here. That’s the point.
E-bikes and scooters have made things even worse, with two-wheeled riders coming at us from all directions.
I get where Adams is coming from. But it’s going to be tough pushing back against a decade of relentless city messaging, amplified by advocacy groups, that has laid the blame for accidents exclusively on motorists, all of whom are tarred as homicidal menaces.
That messaging has given carte blanche to cyclists and pedestrians, who are told that the streets belong to them and who are in large part held blameless for accidents no matter the circumstances.
Accidents happen. Sometimes drivers are at fault. Sometimes cyclists are. Sometimes pedestrians are. Sometimes nobody’s at legal fault. Some things are just accidents.
That’s the whole picture when it comes to street safety. But that’s not what New York City has been selling for the last 10 years.
Not only is the messaging wrong, but so is the remedy. The city installs more and more revenue-generating speed cameras, but distracted driving is the bigger problem when it comes to collisions in the five boroughs.
Everybody needs to follow the law out there, motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. We’re never going to have a vehicle-free city. We all do have to share the road. And share the blame when appropriate.
Is that so hard?
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07.11.2023
There were 29 bicycle deaths in New York City in the fiscal year that ended July 1, the Daily News reported. It’s the highest fiscal year bike death toll since at least 2013, according to the city Department of Transportation.
So things are bad for cyclists on the streets of New York City despite the implementation of the Vision Zero program in 2014 under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Remember, the pie-in-the-sky goal of Vision Zero is zero roadway deaths. That’s where the “Zero” in the name comes from.
To do this, the city has almost exclusively focused on cracking down on speeding drivers. We have a network of speed cameras blanketing the city. We have red-light cameras. We’ve have lowered speed limits. Driving lanes and parking space have been given over to the use of cyclists.
The language around the issue of road safety has also changed. We no longer have “car accidents.” Now we have “roadway........
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