I’d love to see this on Queens Boulevard. Any other candidates?

The looping 70 mile route map
There are also small managed vending areas that serve as destinations and rest areas along the way. Instead of relying on the police to manage and secure the streets, there are 350 trained and uniformed facilitators. It is an extremely well managed event, with only the broadest of public purposes as its goal – public health and the celebration of the city, its people and its public spaces.

In NYC, the sporadic and often under-managed street fairs, and other closings offer much room for improvement. Closing streets in any form without very good management is almost always problematic.

It would be great to have further discussions on street fairs, street markets and other types of car-free streets on this blog. The marathon and some of the better street fairs have gotten coverage. Museum Mile and Little Italy are other potentially replicable examples for discussion. Let us know if you have some thoughts or specific questions that we can dive into further.

Before Ciclovia did Bogota have hundreds of street fairs and street closings for charity runs, walks, bikes and the like as NYC does? My guess is no. NYC closes big streets all the time, so a Ciclovia type event would come either in addition to the many closings we already have or at the cost of the existing events. (Not too likely.)This blog seems obtuse to events like the Marathon or Ninth Ave Food Fest, which are gigantic car-free happenings. They don’t have the words “car-free” in them, but they are.

But we all know that putting together and running a good route in cooperation with the NYPD and in the face of hostile motorists is not as easy as it might seem. Thanks T.A., see you again next year (hopefully with a larger contingent of first time group riders in tow than 2)!

Re: traffic, I think the fact that there were a lot of two-way streets on this year’s route made it worse. Cops had to constantly be on their little scooter thingies in the center, honking and honking, and the friction (both perceived and actual) between motorists and cyclists was more readily apparent than when a happy flock of cyclists are just cruising down the entire width of a one-way street without angry SUVs in their faces.

That said, it was still fun and I will do it next year…

I’d attribute much of this behavior to #3 — the remarkable a-hole-ishness of Brooklyn motorists. What is it about these intensely entitled morons?

During the first segment prior to the rest stop, I was in the back with my 9 y/o, with another parent and her own 9 y/o. Many of the ride participants were setting a brisk pace and the cops at back of the ride in the van would follow the faster riders, leaving us amidst the vehicular traffic behind the ride (which, because it was bottled up, was behaving aggressively). Many thanks to you, Ed and the other marshals who helped us through!

The marshals’ interactions with NYPD that I observed seemed friendly and cooperative, but I suggest that next year there be a strong pitch to NYPD that they anchor a strong presence at the back of the ride and not pass stragglers.

At one point (after the rest stop when were in the middle of the ride), the ride stopped because a driver deliberately circumvented a marshal in the “cork” position and entered the intersection as the ride was in it. The driver jumped from his car and started a shouting match with the marshal while the ride watched.

Overall, a very different vibe than the Tour de Bronx last year. From my limited perspective, this seems attributable to (1) much greater proportion of the Brooklyn ride being on roadways as compared to use of greenways in the Bronx; (2) greater police presence in the Bronx;
(3) (maybe) more aggressive drivers in Brooklyn?

#2 and #3, I hear you. But we’ve got to start somewhere with taking back the streets, and rides like this are an important way to do it. The ride will improve over time as the organizers work the kinks out. Try the Tour de Bronx to see what I mean.

Clarence’s video does the event some justice as well:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/06/04/streetfilms-sadik-khan-rides-the-tour-de-brooklyn/

But what you guys point out is interesting, as there did seem to be an unfortunate amount of negative friction between the ride and car traffic. The cars still felt like the street should belong only to them and the inevitably undefined relationship of the ride to the traffic definitely caused some situations that were challenging to manage.

For the Cyclovia events, the closings are complete and regularly scheduled, and the streets make a total shift away from being conduits for mobility to being destinations themselves… or “temporary parks” as Gil calls them.

At some point, I will try to get up some of the video that I took of the Ciclovia events in both Bogotá and Quito.

How about:

Van Cortland Park -> Broadway -> St. Nicholas Ave -> Central Park -> Columbus Circle -> Broadway -> Chambers St -> Brooklyn Bridge -> Atlantic Ave -> Prospect Park -> Ocean Parkway -> Coney Island…