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	<title>Comments on: Looking on the Bright Side</title>
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	<description>Gotham Gazette&#039;s blog about New York policy and politics</description>
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		<title>By: Ero</title>
		<link>http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2005/12/22/looking-on-the-bright-side/comment-page-1/#comment-309</link>
		<dc:creator>Ero</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Dec 2005 18:31:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2005/12/22/looking-on-the-bright-side/#comment-309</guid>
		<description>I bike to work during better weather pretty regularly, and I love it. I think that the main obstacle for most people is the traffic problem; it&#039;s just very dangerous to bike in NYC, for the same reasons it&#039;s dangerous to walk here. These conditions can &amp; should be improved.

Personally, I&#039;d love to see very strict regulation of noncommercial traffic in lower Manhattan. 

Tourists don&#039;t (and for God&#039;s sake shouldn&#039;t!) drive in Manhattan; they take cabs. The adventurous ones take the subways or walk. As a city, if we want to attract visitors, what better way than to make a pedestrian-friendly, beautiful metropolis? 

Let&#039;s face it: cars don&#039;t belong in Manhattan. If we want a city for the 21st century, we&#039;d better deal with that fact soon. The infrastructure investments we make in roads have to be redirected at least in part to public transit and bike &amp; pedestrian paths. Private car travel in NYC simply has no future.

More bike lanes, more bike parking, congestion pricing (which is working well in other major cities), and what we&#039;ll get for the investment is a lovelier, quieter, less polluted town, and a healthier populace. Wouldn&#039;t that be better than a dozen stadiums?

Just my opinion. I hope a lot of people had fun biking to work, and keep doing it once spring rolls around. In the meantime, everyone call 311 and ask for better bike lanes!</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I bike to work during better weather pretty regularly, and I love it. I think that the main obstacle for most people is the traffic problem; it&#8217;s just very dangerous to bike in NYC, for the same reasons it&#8217;s dangerous to walk here. These conditions can &amp; should be improved.</p>
<p>Personally, I&#8217;d love to see very strict regulation of noncommercial traffic in lower Manhattan. </p>
<p>Tourists don&#8217;t (and for God&#8217;s sake shouldn&#8217;t!) drive in Manhattan; they take cabs. The adventurous ones take the subways or walk. As a city, if we want to attract visitors, what better way than to make a pedestrian-friendly, beautiful metropolis? </p>
<p>Let&#8217;s face it: cars don&#8217;t belong in Manhattan. If we want a city for the 21st century, we&#8217;d better deal with that fact soon. The infrastructure investments we make in roads have to be redirected at least in part to public transit and bike &amp; pedestrian paths. Private car travel in NYC simply has no future.</p>
<p>More bike lanes, more bike parking, congestion pricing (which is working well in other major cities), and what we&#8217;ll get for the investment is a lovelier, quieter, less polluted town, and a healthier populace. Wouldn&#8217;t that be better than a dozen stadiums?</p>
<p>Just my opinion. I hope a lot of people had fun biking to work, and keep doing it once spring rolls around. In the meantime, everyone call 311 and ask for better bike lanes!</p>
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		<title>By: harris silver</title>
		<link>http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2005/12/22/looking-on-the-bright-side/comment-page-1/#comment-307</link>
		<dc:creator>harris silver</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Dec 2005 07:02:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2005/12/22/looking-on-the-bright-side/#comment-307</guid>
		<description>As the writer of the oped I wanted to respond to Adam&#039;s good comments.

I agree with the adam that bicycle parking both at point of desitnation and origin is problem. I do think this is a solvable problem. One simple solutions would be for every garage in the city could to be required to designate 2 car spaces for bikes. This would hold approx 20 bikes. Rates could be set low by the city to encourage non motorized use. There are other possible solutions but this is the type of simple policy solutions that can help solve this. 

That said the more important problem to solve is to create a safe riding infrastructure for human and electric powered light modes. And this can be done by designating an emergency lane on all avenues that can be used by bikes, rollerblades, segways when not being used by emergency vehicles, which is most of the time. This is what I suggest in my column.


I think my bigger insight with carpooling that adam may have missed was the suggestion to combine a hov requirement with modern communication devices and develop a dynamic ride sharing program. So people traveling by car can easily find each other. This is an offshoot of what me and Dan Sturges proposed as part of the Citystreets redesign of the New York City Taxi.


harris silver</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As the writer of the oped I wanted to respond to Adam&#8217;s good comments.</p>
<p>I agree with the adam that bicycle parking both at point of desitnation and origin is problem. I do think this is a solvable problem. One simple solutions would be for every garage in the city could to be required to designate 2 car spaces for bikes. This would hold approx 20 bikes. Rates could be set low by the city to encourage non motorized use. There are other possible solutions but this is the type of simple policy solutions that can help solve this. </p>
<p>That said the more important problem to solve is to create a safe riding infrastructure for human and electric powered light modes. And this can be done by designating an emergency lane on all avenues that can be used by bikes, rollerblades, segways when not being used by emergency vehicles, which is most of the time. This is what I suggest in my column.</p>
<p>I think my bigger insight with carpooling that adam may have missed was the suggestion to combine a hov requirement with modern communication devices and develop a dynamic ride sharing program. So people traveling by car can easily find each other. This is an offshoot of what me and Dan Sturges proposed as part of the Citystreets redesign of the New York City Taxi.</p>
<p>harris silver</p>
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		<title>By: Adam Piontek</title>
		<link>http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2005/12/22/looking-on-the-bright-side/comment-page-1/#comment-290</link>
		<dc:creator>Adam Piontek</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Dec 2005 16:02:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2005/12/22/looking-on-the-bright-side/#comment-290</guid>
		<description>I am not a member of TransAlt or Citystreets or any similar organization, nor do I own a bike, but this strike has opened my eyes.  It seems within reach that we could have streets that encourage bicycling more.  I would buy one - the main reason I don&#039;t own one is I can&#039;t use it for the daily commute, so it&#039;s value is greatly diminished.

However, two things stick in my mind when I read things like this:

1) Although we do need more bike lanes, because the existing lanes and greenpath system are not enough for increased levels of bikers, we need to couple this with sufficient places for cycling commuters to park their bikes during the work day.  That&#039;s the real sticking point for me.  I could use the greenways down the east side, but once I get to work downtown there&#039;s nowhere good to put a bike all day.  And the same goes for parking at home - most people have no room for a bike in their apartment, and there aren&#039;t sufficient places to chain them up outside.

2) For requiring carpooling in the city - as a resident, I&#039;d love it - but what about tourists?  A lot of city drivers aren&#039;t just suburbinte workers, they&#039;re tourists that many businesses rely on.  Will they be required to park outside of Manhattan and take sightseeing tour buses into it?  What&#039;s the proposal for dealing with tourists?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I am not a member of TransAlt or Citystreets or any similar organization, nor do I own a bike, but this strike has opened my eyes.  It seems within reach that we could have streets that encourage bicycling more.  I would buy one &#8211; the main reason I don&#8217;t own one is I can&#8217;t use it for the daily commute, so it&#8217;s value is greatly diminished.</p>
<p>However, two things stick in my mind when I read things like this:</p>
<p>1) Although we do need more bike lanes, because the existing lanes and greenpath system are not enough for increased levels of bikers, we need to couple this with sufficient places for cycling commuters to park their bikes during the work day.  That&#8217;s the real sticking point for me.  I could use the greenways down the east side, but once I get to work downtown there&#8217;s nowhere good to put a bike all day.  And the same goes for parking at home &#8211; most people have no room for a bike in their apartment, and there aren&#8217;t sufficient places to chain them up outside.</p>
<p>2) For requiring carpooling in the city &#8211; as a resident, I&#8217;d love it &#8211; but what about tourists?  A lot of city drivers aren&#8217;t just suburbinte workers, they&#8217;re tourists that many businesses rely on.  Will they be required to park outside of Manhattan and take sightseeing tour buses into it?  What&#8217;s the proposal for dealing with tourists?</p>
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