As I see it, we need to redefine how traffic rules work. Walkers and cyclists are going to cross against red lights; we all do it when we think it's safe. Should it be wrong? I don't think so.

Should we ride the wrong way on one-way streets? I have less sympathy for that, personally. I often feel shoved into traffic by approaching cyclists on 6th Ave. There are roads which are so bicycle unfriendly that riding on the sidewalk feels a whole lot safer to me -- the approaches to the Queensborough Bridge come to mind -- but I hate it when I have to dodge bikes.

Until we have more bicyclists and more of a share of the streets, these conflicts will keep coming. The hostility of those who feel threatened by cyclists behaving badly shouldn't be ignored. We all of us walk or roll sometimes and we need each other.

Which, I guess you would say it would only work by breaking down the us/them gap.

Bingo. One way to do that is by increasing the prevalence of cycling in the general population, the way that Denis Baupin and Jan Gehl have done. Another is to bring cyclists and "community leaders" together in positive ways.

So, while what she's saying isn't productive we need something to address her fear that bikes (especially in a mix of cars on the street) are hard to see and that because they are small they can come from anywhere.

After talking to many neighbors who express Fabricant's view, and many other neighbors who are pro-bike and baffled by the fear (but occasionally express annoyance with sidewalk cyclists and salmon), I feel safe in my conclusion that this is not the reason, Fritz. The main factor in whether the reaction is annoyance or rage seems to be whether the complainer views cyclists as "us" or as "them."

I wonder when we will see them (decision makers) fashionably riding a bicycle.

One of my strategies is to develop relationships with the local business communities in an effort to help them realize that choosing to park lots of cars in an urban environment is in no way a good business decision and it gets worse when we finally rid ourselves of parking subsidies and start charging a more fitting price to motoring which we will do eventually.

I realize that this is a tall order, but I'm a glutton at times.

The truth is so readily available and—you would think—physically obvious. But our fellow New Yorkers practically wait in line for a soap box to assert that its opposite is deeply, personally true. And always the script calls for a dreary litany of offenses that someone might commit on a bicycle (many of which are legal elsewhere), written in a style that seems to acknowledge that the manufactured outrage is getting boring even for its performer. They do this, they do that, etc. Etc! Sadly, there are just not enough hours in the day for Patricia to comprehensively complain about New York street life in a way that is, at the same time, so hackneyed and so false.