You never know what you're going to find in New York City. I'm walking from Park Ave West on Union Square South (17th Street) toward Broadway and I see something that resembles one of the new city bus stops. I'm thinking to myself, no bus runs along this street, and if it did, it would create a heck of a lot of traffic when it stopped on this narrow two stretch that connects Broadway to Union Square South. As I get closer and look, I realize that it's some sort of fancy, high tech, high end bicycling parking station. Who knew? How contradictory – just across the street in Union Square Park, on the first Friday of every month (I think) they hold one of those critical mass rides where cyclists from all over the city gather, exchange pleasantries and embark on a monthly sojourn to some far off part of the city, perhaps midtown or the lower east side. In anticipation of all the "chaos" that the "man" believes will ensue, the city floods the park and the surrounding neighborhood with police. You'd think President Bush was planning on riding his track bike down Broadway. On one hand, you seem to have police looking to "shut down" these folks who only want to advocate the use of bicycle transportation in the city, and just across the street you have the city actually making an effort to encourage cycling by creating this. I guess that's why I love New York, it's just layered, rife with inconsistency and nothing really is as it seems.
In any event, the station is pretty cool, there is ample room to park multiple bikes, the signage is nice and it has a detailed map of the city's current and proposed cycling routes. I guess pretty soon we'll be like some Scandinavian country – all we need now is more vacation, better health care, less crime and cleaner streets. We're almost there.
The one funny thing is that in New York, anything new, even something as benign as a bike station, will manage to really excite some people but piss other people off. The woman pictured below just unchained her bike (as side note, while it's great to have this bike station, it might be better if you didn't have to buy a 200 lb chain to lock your bike up – they will steal anything that isn't nailed down in Union Square) and was impressed by the city's efforts to encourage cycling. Another woman standing nearby, a vendor selling I don't know what, thought that the creation of the bike station was part of a larger conspiracy to take away space from and ultimately get rid of all local street vendors. It was an interesting perspective, and one I couldn't dismiss – I mean, this IS New York after all.
In any event, the station is pretty cool, there is ample room to park multiple bikes, the signage is nice and it has a detailed map of the city's current and proposed cycling routes. I guess pretty soon we'll be like some Scandinavian country – all we need now is more vacation, better health care, less crime and cleaner streets. We're almost there.
The one funny thing is that in New York, anything new, even something as benign as a bike station, will manage to really excite some people but piss other people off. The woman pictured below just unchained her bike (as side note, while it's great to have this bike station, it might be better if you didn't have to buy a 200 lb chain to lock your bike up – they will steal anything that isn't nailed down in Union Square) and was impressed by the city's efforts to encourage cycling. Another woman standing nearby, a vendor selling I don't know what, thought that the creation of the bike station was part of a larger conspiracy to take away space from and ultimately get rid of all local street vendors. It was an interesting perspective, and one I couldn't dismiss – I mean, this IS New York after all.
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