Special Bulletin

Spot the T.A. Landmarks

On this Sunday's NYC Century Bike Tour you'll see a lot of popular NYC landmarks: Museum Mile, Brooklyn Bridge, Coney Island, Kissena Park, Yankee Stadium and the Harlem River just to name a few. You’ll also see plenty of popular 'T.A. landmarks', that is places where T.A. has won (or will soon win) major improvements to your bicycling environment.

At the bottom of this bulletin find a status update of select T.A. advocacy campaigns at locations along your route.

The Rally for a Car-Free Central Park

RSVP for the Car-Free Central Park Rally

I am coming to the Car-Free Central Park Rally on Tuesday, October 26th, 2004, 7 - 8:30 pm at Landmark on the Park, 160 Central Park West at 76th Street

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On October 26, join T.A., your elected representatives and notable New Yorkers for what will surely be a milestone event in the growing campaign to return the Central Park loop drive to its original car-free state. Speakers include the Honorable Gale Brewer, Columbia University historian Kenneth T. Jackson, Harlem Hospital's Dr. Barbara Barlow, authors Jane Holtz Kay, James Howard Kunstler and many more. Also see the new short film by Clarence Eckerson that features a wide array of citizens, leading urbanists, public health and environmental advocates in favor of a car-free loop drive.

RSVP for this event online at www.transalt.org/campaigns/cpark/rsvp.html
or use the form to the right.

The Mayor should celebrate Central Park's 150th birthday by converting select street entrances to grassy areas and instituting a three-month car-free summer.

The Mass Appeal to put Bikers and Walkers First

54% of New York City households do not own cars, and that number is on the rise. Yet New York City still puts cars first. Evidence of this injustice is everywhere.

Traffic signals provide too little walk time. Overcrowded sidewalks abut multiple-lane streets with abundant parking. Kids hemmed in by polluting traffic suffer obesity and asthma. Bicyclists must tread an impossibly narrow path between speeding traffic and opening car doors.

Walking and biking New Yorkers want more safe places; they want to be put first. In June, a Baruch College survey of 125 neighborhood leaders found "dangerous intersections" to be the top concern of citizens throughout the Five Boroughs. New Yorkers are flocking in greater numbers to car-free parks and mainstream car-free events like the City’s seventy festivals, 150 street fairs and hundreds of block parties. Over thirty thousand people attend Bike Month NYC every year. Daily bicycle ridership has increased from 75,000 to 110,000 over the last decade. And, 75,000 people have now signed the petition to permanently return Central Park’s loop drive to its original car-free state.

Critical Mass, a monthly bike ride that attracts up to a thousand riders and on August 27's pre-RNC ride attracted 5,000, is receiving much public attention as the most defiant expression of the rising pressure to put cars in their place.

After allowing the ride for years, the NYPD has now enacted a zero tolerance policy towards the Critical Mass rides. At the August 27 ride, the NYPD arrested 265 riders and confiscated almost as many bicycles. The upcoming ride on September 24 may see a similar outcome.

Whether you see Critical Mass as a celebratory call for a less car-centric city or an illegal, traffic-jamming nuisance, it would be tragic if the NYPD's change of tack serves to stem the rising number of daily bikers and the overwhelming call from all parts of NYC to give bikers and walkers more priority.

T.A. neither organizes nor speaks for Critical Mass. And while T.A. continues to be a leading voice for lawful cycling, the message of Critical Mass, however irreverently delivered, cannot be ignored: it's time to put bikers and walkers first in NYC.

T.A. has recently received some troubling reports of wrongful arrests and bicycle confiscations. If you think your civil liberties were violated during the RNC, please contact the New York Civil Liberties Union at www.nyclu.org/rnc_intake_form.html. If your bicycle was confiscated, contact the National Lawyers Guild for help: www.nlgnyc.org/arrests.htm.

Spot the T.A. Landmarks Continued...

All five NYC Century routes will start in Central Park and ride to Prospect Park. The two parks are the focus of T.A.’s car-free parks campaigns, which have won more car-free hours but still aim to close the loop roads in Central and Prospect Park to motorists 24/7.

For thirty years, T.A. has worked to win biking and walking access to all four East River bridges and to make it safer and easier for people to walk and bike to and from them. Here’s the latest on each bridge campaign:

All riders will cross the Brooklyn Bridge, where the City DOT is studying the construction of a fly-over ramp that would connect the bridge path with Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn, routing cyclists around currently dangerous bridge access on the median of Adams Street at Tillary Street. T.A. supports the study and is encouraging elected officials to do so as well.

As you cross the Brooklyn, look left (be sure to watch for pedestrians too!) and take in the elegant Manhattan Bridge. This summer, the DOT announced that it will install new diamond-shaped bicycle warning signs on the Brooklyn off-ramp of the bridge to warn motorists exiting on to Jay Street of the presence of bicyclists and walkers. This is a good start towards improving bridge path user safety, and T.A. will continue to ask the DOT to make further improvements, such a bike lane and traffic light at the location.

From Prospect Park, 35-mile riders, and eventually 55-milers too, will pedal up the North Brooklyn and Queens waterfront and under the Williamsburg Bridge. In an effort to remove the dangerous bumps on the Willy-B, T.A. is surveying bicyclists and walkers to find out how many people have crashed, injured themselves and/or damaged their bikes due to the bumps.

35 and 55-milers will also pass under the Queensboro Bridge. T.A. is urging the NYC Department of City Planning to release a study that proposes safety improvements for bicyclists and walkers on the Manhattan side of the bridge path. Releasing the study is the first step in gaining public support and, eventually, implementing the improvements.

55-, 75, and 100-milers will head off for the car-free Shore Parkway Greenway. There is a break in the Shore Parkway Greenway between Bay Parkway and Knapp Street, so bicyclists must ride with motor vehicle traffic. T.A. is urging the City DOT to implement a system of bike lanes and paths, developed by City Planning, which would lead bicyclists on a safe and easy to follow route between Bath Beach, where the path ends, and Sheepshead Bay, where it resumes.

100-milers will cross the Bronx River, where T.A. and a coalition of community advocates led by the Bronx River Alliance are pushing the State DOT to build a greenway from Bronx Park in the north to Hunts Point in the South Bronx.

Ladies – are you signed up for the NYC Century Bike Tour? Do you ride your bike regularly in New York? Join us TOMORROW – Friday Sept. 10th at a special taping of Good Morning America. They are looking to fill the audience with great women like you! They’d love it if you brought your bike too. Show up at 6am for a 6am-9am taping. Studio Address: 44th Street/Broadway (Across the street from Toys R Us). Look for us, we’ll be wearing our T.A. and/or NYC Century T-shirts!

Help out at the NYC Century Bike Tour this Sunday!

Help make the ride move at our beautiful start and finish line in Central Park this Sunday. Volunteers help set up the start, register riders, hand out t-shirts and clean up the area. Shifts are still available all day long. To get involved please email Annie at volunteer@transalt.org or call 212-629-8080. Visit www.transalt.org/calendar/century/volunteer.html for a list of available opportunities. Thank you!

Promoting Safe Walking and Cycling to Improve Public Health: Lessons from Europe

Prof. John Pucher, Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University
Tuesday, September 28
6-8 pm
104 Washington Street, conference room (just north of Rector Street, NYPD Downtown Center)

Sponsored by Auto-Free New York and Transportation Alternatives

Presenting detailed information and illustrations of truly state-of-the-art walking and cycling facilities in the Netherlands and Germany, Pucher demonstrates what COULD and should be done, even here in New York, to vastly improve conditions for walking and cycling.