Today I read a characteristically honest and level-headed piece of analysis by Steve Cuozzo (of stevecuozzo.com) in the New York Post titled “Bike Lanes, Bike Lies: The ‘Bicycle Boom’ is Blatantly Bogus”. Cuozzo makes a lot of good points about how “food delivery personnel” aren’t really people and don’t deserve bike lanes, and how the “once majestic” Prospect Park West has been ruined by a simultaneously extremely dangerous and completely empty bike lane.
But me, I’m a pictures guy, so what really caught my eye was the photograph used to illustrate the story. It’s a photo of the Prospect Park West bike lane, with the caption “Totally empty — as usual”.
Holy shit! I thought to myself. It IS totally empty! Now, I’ve taken some photos of my own of this particular bike lane, and it was busy with cyclists of all ages and abilities. But then, that was weeks ago.
The Post is doing a valuable service by bringing this waste of resources to our attention, and it’s all so beautifully and dispassionately illustrated through a photojournalist’s lens. The camera never lies – any photographer will tell you that. Now, I don’t work for the Post (At least not yet! I’m avaaaailable!), but I wanted to help too, so I ventured out today to see if I could shine the harsh light of unpaid photojournalism on any other wasted resources on our streets.
I’m sorry to say, it’s much worse than we thought:
Where is everybody? And do we really need this street?
It was as if I’d come to in some sort of nightmarish, “I am Legend”-like post-apocalyptic scenario. It was just me, my truth-clicker (that’s what all photojournalists secretly call their camera), and the empty, desolate car lanes.
Totally empty. As usual. (Except for the double-parked cable van). Good lord, what is that thing headed this way?
A great silence reigned, interrupted only by the occasional whir of a passing cyclist.
Kent Ave. Totally empty. As usual.
Chilling.
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adamdoesit - Mr. Gudkov (if that really is your name): Had you waited for some old people to try to cross the street, you would have found yourself buried up to the truth-clicker in speeding, reckless cyclists. Truly, they are rolling death-panels: invisible to the young and hale, imminent to the aged and infirm.
max silver - Bite me! I also see there are no cars on their traffic lanes either. Why not rip up all the pavement and put in some trees and wildlife? The facts are if you cherry pic the time you take the photograph, on a shitty and cold day, in the very early spring, then you get what you have here.
Go back and take photos from 5am to 9am, and maybe do so on a warm day! I am so sick of you fat assed whiny morons bitching because your gas guzzling, death fume spewing weapon of choice (the automobile) is in any way inconvenienced by a bike lane. Let’s get rid of the bikes and bike lanes, get rid of the pedestrians and sidewalks and make the road from building to building wide!
That way, when you have left 10 minutes late, and are trying to be a nascar driver to get to work even close to on time, you wont have pedestrians and bikes to worry about! And while we are at it, lets remove the cabs and busses so you hot head, road rage spewing motorists can go back to punching out and shooting each other for being in the way….
Save a life, right now. In fact, save hundreds. « BikingInLA - […] photographic proof that the city’s traffic-clogged streets are just a myth, and are actually occupied only by bike riders. Robin Williams gets stopped as part of NYC’s bike crackdown, while talk show host Chelsea […]
cycler - Umm, Max, I think you missed the point….
Here’s a hint- no cars in those photos…
Perhaps you need to take a ride and relax a bit.
jen petersen - I don’t know Dmitri, Cuozzo’s article offered a nice lens into his empty head, I thought. I’m concerned about you posing like yours is likewise missing some filler…show us more of what he misses!
shmuli - The photo in the post must have been a long exposure shot that just show the streets, not the traffic…
i like the photos that you shot of Kent and the others…