Time time time.

Excellent point, Larry.

Time time time. Some of us don't have time, particularly with a need for down time and family time.

And a bicycle is less boring than an exercise machine.

Fatalities, more easily and reliably measureed than injuries, might offer more precise evidence of what is really happening. I'm also quite skeptical of ridership numbers.

But enough with my curmudgeonly self. Taken at face value, this is very, very encouraging.

Completely closing a few blocks of Broadway got the publicity, but narrowing half a mile of the avenue may have a larger effect on safety. The existing experimental "Broadway Boulevard" stretch from 42nd to 34th St, has already become a pedestrian way, which it never was before. Tourists and locals now stroll along toward Macy's and the shopping district around Herald Square. Street artists and a few tabletop merchants follow their customers into what had been a dull and dreary section, now almost one long and lively sidewalk cafe.

With a lane given over to bikes, and a wider lane to be instant park with chairs, tables, and planters, auto traffic is already contained in two lanes and psychologically constrained by it. And of course, for pedestrians, it is much easier to make it across two lanes at the crosswalk than four the way it used to be.

Yesterday I saw the new striping being put on Broadway from Herald Square down to 23rd St. That will create a new protected bike path, separated from auto traffic. Not sure there will be room for the park-like lanes, but it will still be safer for cyclists and walkers. The whole city will benefit from these changes.