After four deaths in the last two weeks, a horrifying 15 bicyclists have been killed on New York City streets so far this year, up from 10 in all of 2018. For a mayor whose Vision Zero initiative promised and for many years delivered a falling tide of fatalities, this is an emergency.
Alas, Mayor de Blasio’s proposed solution, a three-week surge of enhanced traffic enforcement, is tragically half-hearted. No matter how many tickets NYPD officers hand out in the short term, surges in the numbers of bike riders and erratic law enforcement will almost surely mean more deaths around the bend.
A far better answer is sustained enforcement coupled with street redesign that gives bicycles their own, protected lanes on designated thoroughfares.
New York residents and visitors took almost half a million bike rides per day in the city in 2017, more than double the number a decade earlier. In part because Mayors Bloomberg and de Blasio encouraged their proliferation, in part because of broader cultural trends, cyclists aren’t a novelty. They can’t be wished away. They’re a fixture.
Yet according to the city, 11 of the cyclists killed this year were riding on streets without bike lanes.
Not every street needs a bike lane, but where they exist, they must function properly. Cops must consistently punish trucks, buses and cars — including police cars — that block them. Wherever possible, lanes should be protected, with barriers preventing heavy vehicles from encroaching on bicycles’ space.
The burden is not on drivers alone. Too many cyclists ride outside of bike lanes even where they exist. A shocking number of city bicyclists was recently counted flouting traffic laws.
Even though those breaches don’t typically threaten lives as the bad behavior of drivers does, they shouldn’t be tolerated. Why aren’t highly visible bike safety campaigns as ubiquitous as other city sponsored public health ads?
Safer streets depend upon the actions of thousands of actors. But the heaviest burden by far is on de Blasio and the NYPD.
