T.A. StreetBeat


	June 23, 2011

T.A. wants you to show off the way you ride. When a bicyclist is well-behaved, passing cyclists feel pressure to do the same. If we all wear our behavior on our sleeve (or back or bag), the message becomes a movement.

Declare yourself a New Yorker for Bicycling to receive your free T.A. Bicycle Ambassador badge in the mail. Get yours FREE today!

To find out how T.A. is protecting your [expletive] bike lanes, connect with T.A. on Facebook and Twitter. T.A. promises to keep it PG and SFW.

Articles and Actions

Statistically Safer
Meet the T.A. Bicycle Ambassadors: Bin Feng Zheng

Events and Alerts

Members Only: Better than Groupon
A Brief History of the Tour de Queens
Vigil For Public Transit
Free Breakfast!

T.A. in the News

"All it takes is Photoshop, a color printer and a bit of poster board to crank out a real-looking government placard to place in your dashboard - and nary a ticket will come your way. The News proved it yesterday while working with the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, which made a bogus placard from the fictional "New York State Numismatic Agency" - aka the agency of coin collection."

-- "Bogus parking placard allows advocacy group to park all over New York City without a single ticket" New York Daily News, 6/22.

Statistically Safer

Police in your neighborhood focused on the wrong kind of tickets? With T.A.'s new law,
now you can know.
Image courtesy bitchcakesny

Even the most casual street corner observer can see that Newton's Law of Motion does not apply to New York City traffic. Rather, for every speeder, cellphone chatter and bicycle lane blocker there is hardly any reaction, at least on the part of the New York City Police Department. To get the NYPD moving, T.A. passed the Saving Lives through Better Information Act. Yesterday, the law went into effect, and soon proactive New Yorkers can help the NYPD understand the physics of a safer street.

Formerly, traffic's chaos was anecdotal; vocal citizens storytelling too many crashes and nary a summons in response. Now the NYPD is required to publish exactly what they do to curb dangerous traffic, and how often that traffic reaches the danger zone. Traffic enforcement will be public information, with each precinct publishing the number and type of summonses issued every month. The city's most dangerous streets will be defined, with pinpointed locations of traffic crashes and the violations that caused them.

New York City is a safer place than it was 20 years ago because of NYPD crime data: analyzed, transparent, published. Now, with traffic data published too, T.A. expects equivalent reduction in traffic's danger. Every month, every NYPD precinct will share the information integral to making New York City streets safe. T.A. expects the first batch of data should roll in mid-July. What we learn will allow T.A. and every New Yorker to work with the NYPD to improve their traffic safety record, and set a goal of reducing the fatality rate to zero.

Get ready: When the NYPD's traffic safety record is illuminated, T.A. needs every New Yorker to look up their local results. July is the month to come on down to your precinct Community Council. Join us as we look up, show up and speak up at NYPD precincts citywide.

Here's where you can find the NYPD in your neighborhood.

Meet the T.A. Bicycle Ambassadors: Bin Feng Zheng

For Bin, being polyglot makes it easy to enlist a diversity of New Yorkers for Bicycling.

For someone who rides a bicycle every day, Bin Feng Zheng has a lot to say about what it's like to be a pedestrian in New York. That's because this 23-year-old New Yorker only just learned how to ride a bike. With his fresh perspective on New York City cycling, and a pedestrian's understanding of why city streets require cooperation, Bin was a Bicycle Ambassador before T.A. ever bestowed the title. When he tells a New York City cyclist to be polite, it's more than a suggestion for civility; it's a question of upbringing.

"I bike polite because my parents raised me well and that does not change when you're on a bicycle." For this profile, first in a series introducing the T.A. Bicycle Ambassadors, Bin explained, "Getting to ride a bicycle is a blessing but when you are caught up in the mentality of pedestrians versus bicyclists versus cars, you lose that joy. I refuse to limit myself to that type of conversation."

T.A. received hundreds of applications to captain our new Bicycle Ambassador campaign. At the outset, T.A.'s goal was simple: talk to as many New Yorkers about bicycling as is possible in a single summer. Among the paper trail of applicants, Bin stood out as uniquely New York. He was raised in the city, and is fluent in the city's most common languages: English, Spanish and Mandarin. With his belief that there is no tool more effective than community organizing and few things more beautiful than a bicycle, Bin was an easy choice for T.A. For the past two months, he and the T.A. Bicycle Ambassadors have been out on New York's most trafficked bicycle routes, talking up every passing bicyclist and pedestrian about how bicycles change New York City.

"I think the Bike Ambassadors' message is a life message: we're all in this together, we all have a responsibility to make our city streets safe." Bin convinces passersby to declare themselves New Yorkers for Bicycling by explaining the big picture, "it's never just about bicycling -- it's about having calmer streets, more transit choices and a better, more sustainable and vibrant community."

When you declare yourself a New Yorker for Bicycling, you become an ambassador for safe bicycle behavior and a more livable city. Help the T.A. Bicycle Ambassadors on their mission and get a free Bicycle Ambassador badge in the mail. Declare yourself a New Yorker for Bicycling today.

T.A. membership is so economical that we make Groupon look like Xanadu. At more than 110 bike shops, card-carrying T.A. members get discounts as high as 15 percent. For accessories, like Crumpler bags, T.A. members get a 20 percent discount and for online accoutrements, like those on Swobo.com, 10 percent off plus a donation to T.A. for every dollar you spend. Discounts on cycling tours worldwide are available to T.A. members too. But it's bigger than bicycles: T.A. members get discounts on acupuncture and massages, free wine at restaurants, half-off at New York's best bakery and a cheaper stay at some of Brooklyn's most beautiful bed and breakfasts. Here is everything T.A. members get a break on. Don't forget your card! If you are not a T.A. member, you can get in on the deal here.

A Brief History of the Tour de Queens

Schlep the young'uns and strap �em in:
the Tour de Queens is friendly to kids.
Image courtesy Daniel S. Burnstein

The Panorama of the City of New York was built by Robert Moses for the 1964 World's Fair: A scale model including every single building structure standing in New York City before 1992 (which means, more likely than not, your apartment is in a museum). As a bicyclist on T.A.'s Tour de Queens, you get free admission to observe this model-making feat, and all the other extraordinary history the Queens Museum of Art contains.

The land that would become Forest Park was first purchased by New York City in 1895, but really became a special place in 1914, when 2,500 pines were planted to root its now sprawling pine grove. Besides the pines, Forest Park boasts 413 acres of red and white oak forest, the largest continuous oak forest in the nation. As a bicyclist on T.A.'s Tour de Queens, you get to enjoy a leisurely lunchtime snack in this idyllic New York marvel.

The borough of Queens is home to a lot more than a magnificent forests and a microscopic city. On T.A.'s Tour de Queens, you and thousands of other bicyclers can learn even more about this extraordinary borough, all while on a fun ride on New York City streets. The Tour de Queens is a 20 mile, police-escorted bicycle tour, ideal for bicyclists of every age and ability.

Queens may be spacious, but the Tour de Queens has a registration cap. Register today!

The Fourth Annual Tour de Queens
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, near the Queens Museum of Art
Check in at 8 am
Register Here

Vigil For Public Transit

The day the W died.

This time last year, you and seven million other New Yorkers got more broke, less efficient and notably later to get where you were going. One year ago, on Monday, June 27th, New York City had two subway lines, 36 bus routes and 570 bus stops taken away. Neither derailment nor hackers made those transit options disappear. In Albany, our own state elected representatives stole funds dedicated for public transit and used them to patch up other holes in the budget. That embezzlement meant the MTA did not have enough cash to keep all our transit up and running.

To show our respect for the effective transit we lost, and ensure everyone remembers the fiscal irresponsibility that let it happen, T.A is joining with community leaders in Western Queens to host a Public Transit Memorial. Please join us with artifacts of the transit you most miss, and signs to show what has been lost.

T.A.'s Public Transit Memorial
Monday, June 27, 2011
Ditmars Boulevard and 31st Street, Queens
6:30 pm

Free Breakfast!

The T.A. diet: Apples, Clif Bars and a bit of advocacy on your morning ride.
Image courtesy Andrew Hinderaker

T.A. loves that you ride your bike. It's good for you and good for New York. That is why T.A. advocates -- the thousands of members and tens of thousands subscribers who ensure T.A. is effective -- are working every day to ensure your bicycle ride is safe enough to be sociable, and easy enough to be an every day activity.

While T.A. is no stranger to your e-mail inbox, this summer T.A. has planned a better way to keep you posted on all the ways we're making your commute better. And our mobile information station -- to be found traveling across New York City this summer -- comes with breakfast, free.

Look for T.A. all summer on borough bridges and bike commuter corners. Follow T.A. on Twitter or search for T.A.s Commuter Breakfast at #bikebfast to find out when we will be out and about. Here's where we will be next week:

T.A.'s Commuter Breakfast
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Queens Side of the Queensboro Bridge
8 - 10 am