Streetsblog New York City

Er, haven't conditions for cyclists improved more under Bloomberg than under any 20th century mayor? Why exactly are we giving him flak?

Thank goodness the City has no control over the city.

:/

Just a guess, but I would say that we are giving him flak for that DUMBASS COMMENT! If bikes aren't allowed on subways, it GREATLY discourages commuting by bike. Flats, torrential downpours, etc. stuff happens, if you can't count on getting home another way, it makes it a lot less realistic. How about 1 car for bikes? or something. but too big? Ok, I'll let travelers know that they have a 1 suitcase limit.

true enough fdr, and come to think of it, the people with their reading of the newspapers must go as well. that's a good 5 feet that is being taken up. oh, and mr. mayor is often driven to the subway, not that i would give a rat's ass what the rat does, but as long as he was all holier than though in this interview....

I was under the impression bikes aren't allowed on the subway during rush hour and are at all other times. Am I wrong? This seems to be the perfect policy already...

The only time I've taken bikes on the subway are:

1) When I've gotten a flat tire riding to work, and needed to get it to a bike shop.

2) When I've gone on a long weekend ride with a family member and ended up on the other side of the city, too far for them to ride back.

In those circumstances, what would the Mayor suggest?

I took my bike on the subway only once, after breaking a spoke on a massive pothole in Harlem and having no way to get back to the north Bronx short of a hugely expensive ride in a gypsy cab (since yellow cabs don't want to go that far uptown). What would the Mayor have me do? The train was half empty anyway, so it's not like it hurt anyone. The MTA's policy of bikes off-peak is just fine.

Bloomberg is wrong on this one.

James, there is no peak-hour restriction. Bikes are allowed at all times. Personally, I think they should be restricted to off-peak hours.

As for strollers, I thought I read somewhere you're supposed to fold them up on the train (although nobody does this). Could be wrong, though.

Bookbags? Newspapers? Come on. It's easy to ask someone to make a little room when they're carrying these items. A bicycle? Not so much.

Rhywun, I stand corrected. I thought that the policy was the same one used for Metro North, which bans bikes during peak hours (except folders).

Did anyone catch some of the anti-bike vitriol in those comments on the NYT article? Yikes.

double fare even at off peak?! ok, we will start judging by body weight how much to charge people. c'mon, i agree about rush hour, but off peak double fare is ridiculous. people who bike to work are generally freeing up a seat on the subway, don't charge them double when they are forced to (and believe me, that is the only time, it's not fun lugging bikes down steps, etc etc) take their bike

in response to bc:

relax, i don't hate you
i'd be ok with a peak hour ban, and i believe that should apply to strollers, and cellos as well

i do like the idea of a dedicated, seatless car for such things

The number of square feet per person taken up by one cyclist with one bike is more than any of the following:

1. Newspaper reader with arms outstretched
2. Parent with stroller
3. Passenger with backpack
4. Passenger with medium-sized suitcase

Passengers with large objects should be the last priority to board. If everyone else can comfortably board, only then should people with granny carts, bicycles, cellos, large suitcases, etc., board.

Not that any of this rule making matters in the lawless environment of the New York City Subway; people will do as they please.

Consider Bloomberg's perspective. This is coming from a mayor who, before taking office, rarely, if ever took the subway. If he wasn't our mayor, in fact, he'd probably only take Lincoln Town Cars or black SUVs to his corporations headquarters mere blocks from his townhouse. Now that he does ride the rails to City Hall -- for good PR, of course -- he does it during prime rush hour, on the 4 or 6, no less, some of the most crowded trains in the system. Of course he'd say that bikes don't belong on the subway. Given his experience, where would they fit?

The sensible thing to say is that bikes don't belong on the subway during rush hour and other peak times, and that there should be limits to when and where they can be brought on board at other times, depending on the line. To make it even more fair, ticket people who bring bikes on during hours in which the ban is in effect. Boston and other cities already have policies in place to deal with this:

http://www.mbta.com/riding_the_t/bikes/

# A maximum of two (2) bikes are allowed on each car on Blue, Red and Orange Line trains only.
# Bikes (with the exception of folding bikes) are not allowed on the Green Line, the Mattapan Trolley, or the Silver Line.
# On weekdays, bikes are allowed before 7 a.m., between 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., and after 7 p.m. and all day on weekends, excluding substitute bus shuttle service.

Chicago's MTA doesn't allow bikes on the El between 7 and 9 AM and during the evening rush. London's Tube makes a distinction between folding and non-folding bikes, and, for the latter, has rules and hours that vary by line. San Francisco's BART is more ambiguous and relies on riders' common sense: "Regardless of any other rule, bikes are never allowed on crowded cars. Use your good judgment and only board cars that can comfortably accommodate you and your bicycle." For city that's often the very stereotype of nanny state, liberal politics, that's a very conservative, dare I say libertarian, point of view. Obviously, New York is a different and bigger animal than most cities, and other solutions would have to be considered here, although if London has figured it out, you'd think New York could, too.

Sensible solutions and sensible transportation policies demand compromises. What if you're a parent who wants to take your kid on a bike ride in Prospect Park, yet you live too far away to ride there safely? Should you be banned from taking your bike and your kid's bike on the subway entirely in order to get to one of the few safe places in Brooklyn for a kid to ride? Do we really want to create a rule that would then make it impossible for kids to ride in parks?

Maybe the mayor should have just said, "Use your brain. If it's crowded and people are trying to get to work, don't go down into a subway station with your bike."

(Sigh). Doesn't it always come down to space in New York? Aren't we always fighting over space? Well, there are a lot of assumptions in these comments that bother me. Assumption (1): if you have a bike, you can ride it all the way to and from your destination. Well, maybe you can't because your bike had a mechanical failure or your destination is so far away (e.g., 15 miles) that it makes more sense to combine travel modes. Or maybe you're taking your bike on the subway in the morning but will ride it home after work that evening. Not everyone in New York riding a bike lives within 5 miles of their place of employment or is fit or energetic enough to do a round-trip bike commute every day. Maybe if the mayor rode a bike to City Hall every day from Gracie Mansion, he might begin to understand the importance of being able to bring your bike on the subway.

Assumption (2): people traveling to their job don't need extra items like a stroller or cello. What if I'm a cello teacher trying to get to my school? What if my child has a doctor's appointment? There's a lot of rule-making going on here that misses a larger point: if subways are overcrowded during peak, rather than banning certain classes of customer, it would make more sense to run trains with greater capacity and run trains more frequently. People often need to move not only themselves but their stuff, and a transit system that can't accommodate this fact is not the most useful one.

Thank you urbanis for the first sensible comment. Prior to your comment, it was just being confirmed that once again New Yorkers were only looking out for themselves.

This is a subject of debate here in SF, where out BART rail system has some special bike rules/regs/restrictions and we have a particularly influential local bike lobby.

IMHO the solution is a combination vastly increasing bike parking around stations, so those who only need their bike for a first leg are able to safely leave it behind when they get on a train, and proper facilities for bikes that do need access to the trains. Special rail cars, more stairs/fewer escalators.

YES! ditto what caroline said, well put!

BC I would have no problem with a by-the-pound fair, Bloomy would probably love it too, he can't be more than a buck twenty, but pounds are not what limits rail travel, it is space. I freaking hate crowded subway cars, but I would rather brush up against the average greasy New Yorker than the average greasy bicycle. As freight moves in the the transit sector, scaled fairs are likely the solution many capacity issues.

bc, a fare based on distance is eminently sensible and used by many major transit systems worldwide. What exactly is your point? As regards strollers, they should be folded, and folding bikes and strollers are not at issue here. Also, strollers carry extra people, unlike bicyclists' bikes, so their footprint per person would remain much lower even if they took up the same amount of space.

Because of past underinvestment in transit, there is limited space available, and it must be rationed somehow. It's not at all clear why we should take space away from other passengers to give a particular person several extra square feet of rush-hour subway space just because they brought something bulky along with them such as a bicycle.

Nathan, did you pay a fare the two hundred times that you didn't ride the subway? If not, why should you expect accomodation now? And if so, how is your situation different from that of the shift worker who only rides the subway during the (effectively free) off hours?

Caroline, it's rather disingenuous -- I doubt that very many rush hour commuters *want* to be packed into a train, regardless of their typical transportation mode. Bike access makes great sense during off hours, but at peak times it literally means taking space away from multiple other customers, which I maintain is unfair.

Bill, I welcome your cello on the subway, and even encourage you to play it if you so desire. Just don't bring it onto a rush-hour subway car.

Urbanis, it's not a question of need, it's a question of fairness. People *need* to get to their jobs, so why should you have the right to delay them just because you also *need* to get to your job? If you are trying to make a hedonistic calculus here, then you would permit two or three non-baggaged passengers to board instead of the one bulky passenger. To do otherwise is to imply that the person with a bicycle or bulky baggage is two or three times more important. Is that what you think?

Ian, a distance-based fare would never fly in NYC because we have the exact opposite situation that most cities who use distance-based fares have: our rich people live closer to the center of the city. Would we really want rich Manhattanites paying less than poor people from Brooklyn, the Bronx, or Queens? The short $2 ride is what helps pay for the long $2 ride.

The overall theme is common sense. I don't think a cellist or upright bass player should be banned from bringing an instrument onto the subway during rush hour any more than someone should be banned from bringing a granny cart of groceries on. But anyone who brings such a large item on the train should be respectful and leave room to those with no such items, perhaps even letting a train or two go before they get on. My advice to anyone who absolutely has to get to work with a big cello/bass/cart/etc.? Leave early.

Doug, that's not true, the mayor definitely was a subway commuter before he was elected. He has always been an avid subway rider, and often talks about his experiences riding the subway in different eras.

It's funny that people's complaints about Bloomberg are mostly about the fact that he's rich, and then they just make up a bunch of emotional crap about how they think rich people behave.

Bloomberg also opposes pets on the subway, which I agree with in general. (Aside from guide animals for the blind)

Bikes on the subway in rush hour are quite frankly rude. There's not enough room for people themselves. At least strollers are used to carry someone who can't walk on their own.

jmc, its understood that you have high bus ridership, but those numbers give two bicyclists (the max bus bicycle racks hold) plenty of time to load the bicycle on while other riders cue up first for boarding. They can simply assume their position towards the end of the line during the boarding process. It really doesn't take that much time to load a bicycle. Maybe 10-15 seconds, if that.

Your argument would hold weight, in my opinion, for BRT, but not for regular bus service. Plenty of cities with congested bus line maintain bicycle racks on their buses and its a tremendous help. I myself have boarded crowded buses in Miami after getting a flat and being caught without patch kit on me.

In Copenhagen some of the subway cars have space reserved for bikes. I think it was the last car on the train.

Designing some part of the train that makes it easier for riders with bikes, strollers, luggage and carts would be very useful. Perhaps fold up seats? The Hudson Bergen light rail has two spots like this per train.

Some other items from the Jersey side of the Hudson:
PATH used to have a permit requirement for bikes but dropped that a while ago. They still ban bikes during rush hour. Hoboken has a large collection of bike racks around the PATH station, and they are heavily used. Bikes are allowed at all times on the NY Waterway ferries but they charge a bike fare of $1. Thats on top of the $5-6 base fare.

Bill, I agree that Bloomberg's comment is not especially politic, but I understand why he made it. The mayor generally rides the most crowded subway line at the most crowded times, so his experience of the subway is primarily a rush hour one.

t, I agree that common sense is essential, especially since it doesn't particularly matter what rules are in place: People will do what they want. In any case, you can't legislate common sense. And I'll leave the multiple fare zone question for another thread.

LN, I suppose we should also designate extra space for others who use the subway infrequently? Should we have a first-class drivers-only car, so people who usually drive but occasionally take the subway can take back the extra space they are "entitiled" (your word) to if their car breaks down? No, it's ridiculous. Bicyclists and others with large materials should be last in line for subway car space, to be accommodated only when there is extra space.

Maybe Bloomberg doesn't belong on the subway. Maybe he should just stick with his two SUVs that normally drop him off at the station and just continue on with them to 'the office.' Unlike the cyclists we occasionally see on the subway, he really doesn't need to be there, taking up space, airing his thoughts. It's not like he had a flat or got caught in a torrential downpour and has no other means of getting to his destination.

#50 gecko (corrections)

“admiral” should be admirable

"gratuitous digital signage" are not really gratuitous as they do help to use the system.

"frequent meaningless messages" are not really meaningless and have been implemented to calm passengers in many instances of uncertainty.

But overall, the improvements should be much more dramatic in the midst of economic and climate change crisis and subsequent rapidly changing times.

(thanks to The Overhead Wire and Spagblog for the link.

Racks on buses: I think where we need them most in the outer parts of the boros. Bike commuting and use would increase greatly if people were able to bring them on a bus.

I think it is also the place where they would be the most easily be accepted. Although I would love to see them on buses in Manhattan too, there would probably be quite a bit of difficulty with some lines.

Put them in Eastern Queens, South Brooklyn, most of the Bronx, all of Staten Island, they are greatly needed and I think would help slowly nudge them to more populus regions of NYC. It is amzing, every large city except New YOrk has bike racks on buses. SF, LA, Boulder, Portland, Seattle, why is so NYC behind the times on this issue? It frankly has become annoying.

Since the Mayor's subway commute is not quite what it's cracked up to be, maybe he could help the crowding situation by remaining in one of the two big SUVs that drop him at the 59th & Lex station and then continue sans Mayor down to City Hall.

Better yet, he could offer several cyclists a lift, as there's plenty of room in a Suburban emptied of the Mayor and his security detail to stash several bicycles and their cyclists. And since they're City vehicles, they may not be inconvenienced by having to stop at red lights, making the trip downtown all the more zippy.

Other commenters have already hashed out the pros and cons, and perhaps the Mayor was voicing something that boils down to an issue of common sense — something that's frequently in short supply in New York City. But more often than not, when Mike Bloomberg speaks, it just sounds like an impatient scolding from NYC's richest man.

Mike,

Check next film up later today on a BRT system in L.A. that has THREE bike racks on the front of their buses!

If you ever took your bicycle down there, you know you don do it for your pleasure: some breakage you cannot repair on the spot, or a thunderstorm you did not account for when leaving the house. In these, cases, you really don have an alternative to get your bicycle back home.

First of all, this all relates to budgets and the USA spends over 500 billion dollars a year on the military... but anyway...

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#46 - Great point, LN! If cyclists who occasionally take the subway used to always take the subway, then they are heroes.

A big packages, bikes... and dogs (see below) area could be useful.

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There have been three-bike front racks available for over two years. It is good to remember that they aren't just for hills or long stretches -- they simply let a traveler be more flexible. As with the subway, this can mean bad weather, a breakdown, danger on the street, drunkenness or another physiological condition... or just for when you mean someone who is walking and you want to get on the bus with them!

Large pet dogs - leashed and muzzled - are allowed on urban transit in Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto and most European cities. Would it be possible to at least accommodate them off-peak on some subways and ferries in order to form a mobility chain which hooks up with Metro North? See my website for more ideas and info.

I think that the best solution is to have a "bike car", where some of the seats are taken out so that people can bring their bikes onto that car. That way straphangers won't have to deal with cyclists as long as they stay out of the bike car. L.A. has removed some of the seats (or is planning to, in some cases) on its rail lines to this end.

I also think that cyclists have a responsibility to minimize their impact on others. For that reason I encourage people to look into purchasing a folding bike if they use bike + subway to commute. The folding bikes take up A LOT less room and are much easier to get around. Observe. Another option is to alter your work schedule so that you don't commute during rush hour, if that is possible.

Hurt my knee racing yesterday. I'll be taking my bike home on the rush hour subway tonight, thanks very much.

There will be no end of politicians saying inane things.

No cyclist likes taking their bike on the train, but we should have the right to do so. It's really useful in situations like flat tire, bad weather, super long distance.

As the city bike infrastructure continues to improve and ridership goes up maybe they should consider removing half the seats from the last and first cars to make room.

Bikes and rights would reign supreme under a Rev. Billy administration.