They've finally done it.
Please watch out for law enforcement in Central Park, they have been issuing $50 tickets for going over 15 & running red lights and not adhering to Park Drive rules. Be aware of park rules before you ride...here they are!
http://www.centralparknyc.org/activities/sports/bikeriding
Central Park:
Park Drives: Circling the entire Park, the drives provide three long-distance routes — 6.1 miles, 5.2 miles or 1.7 miles — or shorter distances if you cross the Park at a number of scenic locations. Cycling is prohibited on all pedestrian pathways. Cyclists are required to obey all traffic laws, such as traffic signals, stop signs, and a 15 mph speed limit. They must always travel counterclockwise. Cyclists must use only the outer half of the recreation lane when the drives are open to cars; when they are closed to cars, cyclists must stay out of the recreation lane, which is for runners and walkers only. Pedestrians have the right of way at all times. At crosswalks, cyclists must slow down, yield, and then proceed cautiously.
$50 fines in CP now
When are these rules being enforced? I have yet to see the police around to hand out tickets, but I am usually done with my training ride by 7:30 am.
If cyclists must use only the outer half of the recreation lane when the drives are open to cars, are runners restricted to the inner half only? Too often runners are in the outer half leaving the cyclist with the dilemma of either passing in the car lane or passing on inside, either of which is risky.
Are they at least giving out tickets to wrong-way cyclists too? What about peds that cross against the light?
15 mph isn't a big deal. Just bring the air pressure down to 75 psi from 130 and put a couple saddles filled with 30 lbs of rice on the rear. The increased weight and rolling resistance will require you to exert as much energy to maintain 15 mph as you did to maintain 19+ mph.
A third hand email.... but worth a warm up lap at 19.5 MPH and getting a good sprint out of the lights...
NYPD and Park Enforcement Patrol (PEP) will be organizing a large-scale ticket blitz in Central Park tomorrow, Tuesday, July 11. I don't know exactly where they will be or what times, but they will be issuing tickets for SPEEDING (they will be using radar guns on cars AND BIKES) and other traffic violations, including BIKES THAT RUN RED LIGHTS!!
So, spread the word to all your biker friends and foes - stop at all the lights and obey the speed limit (25 mph) in Central Park tomorrow!!!
F = M xA. Force = Mass X Acceleration. The heavier an object the greater its force at equal speed.
Therefore, explain why, in the name of safety, a 4500 lb. car is permitted to go 30 MPH when it is just as close to runners/walkers/joggers/skaters who wrongly populate the so-called cycling lane with impunity, as the runners/walkers/joggers/skaters are to a 20 lb. bicycle which is limited to 15MPH.
When we sued the city in 1992-93 for its imposition of this speed limit, the suit was based on the Parks Dept. not having followed required procedure in announcing and passing it.
Is there a pro bono lawyer out there who would like to take on a case based on the daffiness of the above reasoning as a class action suit against the city?
If so, please contact me.
_______
I have been repeatedly rebuffed by the NYPD's public information/press information office (to which I've been referred by the Central Park police precinct (office of the commander and the community affairs director) in seeking to learn over the years how many tickets have been issued to drivers for speeding in Central Park and for being in Central Park when it is closed to cars. I have been told there are no records/statistics kept of this. I don't believe it.
This is getting out of hand. Richard, what you say makes obvious sense - couldn't we (collectively) pursue legal action on the grounds that bicycles are considered 'vehicles' by law, and therefore should be subjected to the same speed limits as cars? (I think this was mentioned in an earlier thread). Does the Parks Dept even have the authority to 'make up their own rules' and have them enforced by the NYPD?
Please contact Noah Budnick at Transportation Alternatives and ask him if this is something the NYC Bicycle Coalition can take up. I'm in Poland at the moment (midway through cycling from St. Petersberg to Istanbul) so I can't take this on.
Thanks,
Carol
"I'm concerned that if we fight to be recognized as ""vehicles"" subject to the same laws as cars, we will win the 30mph battle but we'll get ticketed for going through red lights. I've never seen a car in Central Park blow through a red light.
I think that a better solution - and one more likely to be accepted by everyone - is to relax the rules for cyclists before 7 A.M. and after 7 P.M."
"Sienna writes, above, ""I've never seen a car in Central Park blow through a red light.""
Question: Ah, but have you ever seen a driver in Central Park ticketed for being in the park when it is closed to cars or for speeding? I haven't.
"
Plenty of times, actually, Richard. 72nd street entrance from CPW - HOV tickets.
I agree in spirit, but your science is flawed. 20lb bicycle? The rider's weight counts in a collision.
Unless you know of motor vehicles that drive themselves.
"""F = M xA. Force = Mass X Acceleration. The heavier an object the greater its force at equal speed.""
That's not exactly what Mr. Newton said.
I think you mean momentum. Momentum = Mass x Velocity
""Chainwheel"""
"The Place: Central Park, 72nd Street Transverse where it crosses the loop road.
The Time: 9:03 am, Friday July 7th
The Action: With the transverse north of 72nd closed to automotive traffic, two uniformed Central Park whatever-they-ares (not cops) are waving paddles at passing cyclists and hollering, ""Slow down! Slow down! I'm going to have to ticket you if you don't slow down.""
From just south of them, some pissed-off looking dude in what from my vantage point appears to be a T-shirt begins hollering back words to this effect; ""This is ridiculous! The speed limit for cars is 25 mph. The speed limit for bicycles ought to be the same!""
The whatever-they-ares holler back something I can't hear.
Hey T-shirt dude, you're absolutely right, but yelling at the whatever-they-ares is like yelling at a traffic light or a parking meter. They're just doing what they've been put there to do and have zippo ability or authority to change it.
Nevertheless, a number of issues come to mind:
When the whatever-they-ares (Let's call them that always, from now on) try to ticket us, on what are they going to base their charge of exceeding the 15 mph bicycle limit? Visual estimation? C'mon, we all know this wouldn't stand up in court for a millisecond, unless it's a court presided over by a kangaroo. So tickets from whatever-they-ares are just a form of officially sanctioned harassment.
As we've learned from Bernie Ebbers, Ken Lay and others, when an organization rots, it rots from the head. The real bicycle harasser is none other than ""Mike"" Bloomberg.
I don't care that you happen to like his policy on something else. The only way to stop bicycle harassment is to spread the true word: That Bloomberg is a horror story and pro police state, as illustrated by his oppressive policing policies.
Yeah this morning's Central Park story was only Charles Addams Gothic, not true horror story gothic. On the other hand, last night on Third Avenue and 52nd Street, around 8:45 pm, I saw a trio of plainclothes cops in an unmarked vehicle nearly run down a well-dressed middle aged couple trying to get into a cab that the coups evidently thought they saw commmit some minor traffic infraction. At the very last minute they turned on their siren and the couple jumped back. They were missed by inches.
They'll kill innocent bystanders to admonish a minor traffic infraction by someone else? They must be feeling that the mayor wouldn't be much bothered by it. He certainly expressed no concern that I'm aware of after a police vehicle ran down and killed a cyclist on a protected bike path.
Any cyclist who supports Bloomberg for anything deserves to have his wheels pretzled.
Your Pal,
Etoain Shrdlu
""I won't say that Hitler was all bad. He built the autobahns.""
--Some ex-nazi hausfrau in a movie about the Nuremberg Trials
Your Pal,
Etoain Shrdlu
"
"""As we've learned from Bernie Ebbers, Ken Lay and others, when an organization rots, it rots from the head. The real bicycle harasser is none other than ""Mike"" Bloomberg.""
So because these gentlemen cheated and plundered, all people in authority positions must have? I demand the immediate sacking of the president of the NYCC. Followed by the sacking of whomever takes over from Carol. I saw a NYCC member run a red light and buzz a pedestrian. Carol must not be bothered much by it.
Pull your head out of your ass. There are laws and rules. They are being enforced. Work to change them if you don't like them.
If you read through the other similar threads or check it out, you'll see, which I'm sure you already know, that these rules and laws were in place before Bloomie took over. He's reacting to a recent spate of accidents and trying to minimize danger to pedestrians by enforcing the law. That's not harrasment.
I personally don't like the CP rules, but if everyone followed them there would almost certainly be a drop in people/bike accidents. And if there wasn't, there'd be solid proof that they're pointless and then we'd have an even better case for changing them.
"
Dude, save the high and mighty routine for another topic.
If your line of thinking prevailed (i.e., they are rules and must be followed) we would still be paying taxes to England, Martin Luther King Jr. and company would have never marched on Washington and women would not be allowed to vote.
[removed by request]
"Keep going, Noah. I adore the way you think.
I'll be teaching a course called Introduction to Analogy - Critical Thinking 101 at Columbia next term and...
Well, actually I won't be. Probably because they're prejudiced against Montenegrins. Or maybe because I haven't asked them, they don't know me, and I don't have a Ph.D anyway.
Anyway, analogy is not the same as equivalent. It's a way of helping people understand things by drawing comparison to something else that they do understand. But I can see it's not working.
However, you're right about being off to a positive start. People are questioning more and more where the city comes up with these idiotic rules.
In this case we know. Betsy Gotbaum invented the 15 mile an hour rule when she was Parks Commissioner. I'm reciting this from memory and it was a long time go, but my best recollection of what she was quoted as saying was something roughly like this: ""I tried riding a bicycle around the park and after 15 miles an hour it's terrifying. Somebody could get killed."" So I suppose that's an expert opinion.
Bloomberg chooses to enforce the Gotbaum rule. This tells us he is more interested in persecuting cyclists than he is in allowing the park to be used for cycling. You're not going to prevent pedestrian/bicycle/vehicle accidents by slowing down the speed limit for one class of users only. All you do is perpetrate a sense of injustice.
Here's one real cheap thing they Bloomberg could try if he were truly interested in saving lives, as opposed to showing how irked he is about Time's Up demonstrations:
Put up signs at park crosswalks that say, ""Danger. Look out for cyclists.""
As Czulzcic, the Village Idiot used to say, ""Gee, Tito could have thought of that. I guess he's too busy.""
Your Pal,
Etoain Shrdlu"
"A couple of friends and I were just wondering if rollerbladers are subject to the 15mph rule? Certainly one can skate faster than 15mph at certain points in the park. Are skates a ""vehicle?"" Do I have to stop at red lights if I'm on skates? How about those those things that look like cross country skis on wheels? Or those other unusual contraptions that you only see in New York? I suspect that only bicycles are subject to the Central Park rules."
I'd say no they are not.
http://www.centralparknyc.org/activities/sports/inlineskating
What are the stats on the number of peds hit by bikers in the park? There are a lot of hot doggers in the park, so I would not be surprised if the number was higher than say the number of peds hit by cars.
The Park website links to the CRCA for more information. Since cyclists must obey all rules of the park, does this mean that CRCA races must not exceed 15mph? It is going to be a Park Police payday tomorrow! :)
CRCA has a permit to conduct their races in CP. That puts them out of the 15 mph restriction during the time of the race.
Can we now lay that argument to rest?
...especially if they're pacelining around the park. -don
Despite Bloomberg's lip service to recreational use of the park drives with his partial closures, the priorities of cars continues to be obvious. A prime example is the way the serious pothole problem was handled. Despite the clear dangers to cyclists and skaters, it took months to fill the potholes. As I'm sure everyone has noticed, there was no attempt to fill the holes to even the road surface, but instead turned 6 inch holes into 4-5 inch speed bumps. These are not a problem for cars, but are just as dangerous as the potholes were for recreational users of the park.
So who were the potholes fixed for?
Cities' dispositions toward driving/bicyling are formed and influenced from the top down. Bloomberg is responsible for the dangerous conditions for cyclists in New York and the lack of city planning to address it.
My guess is that Bloomberg is choosing to pursue the Guiliani strategy of policing--nail people on so-called quality of life crimes and minor infractions (public urination, turnstyle jumping, traffic and parking violations) to catch the bad guys in the process.
Bikers are not the only ones being persecuted. I have a car and have heard that police have a quota of 40 tickets a day. I'm going to try to find out if park police have a quota as well.
My guess also is that the push for a car-free Central Park--that has pitted cyclists against police at demonstration rides--has led to more enforcement. Darkest before dawn? Maybe this is all going to lead to a car free park and a sensible speed limit for cyclists, which would be 30mph like cars. Simple.
Karol
Motorcyclists/scooterists are also being harrassed - it's MUCH easier to target 2-wheeled vehicles (motorized or not) than giant FUVs.
"I've been reading the thread about CP ""enforcement"" regarding bicycles. I can't for the life of me figure out where the NYC Parks Dept. derives its authority to promulgate these so called rules. Can they really preempt NY State transportation statutes?
I'd love it if someone could shed some light on this for me (and I *know* there are at least a few lawyers here).
- Jeff"
The department of parks is a division of New York City and I guess they have been delegated limited rule-making authority over designated parks.
About two weeks ago I was riding in CP at 6:30 Pm and a cop pulled along side me and said I should ride in the recreation lane until 7pm. I was going fast enough to get a ticket but nothing was said on that subject. Of course the outside cycling lane south of 72nd is filled with runners, 'their' lane is inside the concrete curbing...
I don't know of the timing of these $50.00 tickets. Was it in congested parts of the park when the south end is teeming with workers returning home, tourists looking at maps, baby carriages etc, and someone is doing the the 4-lap time trial?
So, how bad is the problem?
Central Park is part of the NYC Dept of Parks, which has turned it over to a private otganization, the Central Park Conservency. The DoP has its Park Enforcement Patrol (PEP?) and of course there's the NYPD.....
The question is are the park drives city streets and subject to whose laws? Are there different rules when the park is open to cars, i.e an extension of the city streets or not? When the park drives are closed to cars what authority does the NYPD have to enforce speed limits?
Are there (legal) cracks in this setup that a lawsuit or defense of refusal to pay the fine can be driven though?
Its park. I'm no lawyer but I think we are on thin ice legally.
Its completely abitrary, starting with the establishment of the 15mph limit based on Ms Gottbaum's expertise as a cyclist.
But if cyclists behave stupidly it only takes a few to make Ms. Gottbaum look good.
We need an interlocutor. Many of us are members of the Central Park Conservency. (My membership has lapsed). This would be a good place to start a dialog on this subject, since nobody else is talking to us about this. Maybe some rational emails to the CPC would help. They solicit our money, maybe they will listen to our gripe.
I asked a cop today who was ticketing a car about the speed limit for bikes and the ticket spree. He said that it's primarily for pedestrian safety that bikes are not allowed to go fast and this is the rule in all NYC parks.
So if someone does want to be the voice of reason for the club, how do we reasonably tell the Central Park Conservancy that we want to go 20mph and up to get in a nice work out and, yeah, we really do not want to slow down for crosswalks because that screws up the flow.
Is our sole argument that cars can travel 30mph in the park; we are vehicles too; ergo 30mph for cyclists too? How do we account for pedestrian safety, especially at crosswalks?
"But we've got to be careful about using the ""We're vehicles and should be allowed to go 30mph"" argument. It's a double-edged sword. Those making the rules could easily give in to that request and, since we'd then be true vehicles just like cars, be BANNED from using the park all weekend and during the week days.
It's a slippery slope...
- Gordo"
Would we then have to be licensed?
"When I visited the USSR 25 years ago, I saw firsthand the application of the ""they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work"" philosophy. The corollary here is ""they pretend to enforce the cycling rules in CP and we pretend to observe them.""
Everyone should cool it here about the park cycling rules. Every year they do some concerted effort for a while of encouraging compliance with the rules, usually involving handing out written notices at times. (This year there may have been a few tickets for ""reckless operation of a bicycle"" which involved blowing through red light crosswalks with pedestrians, but as far as I know, and I'm there a lot, no tickets for exceeding the 15 mph speed limit. I should point out that if the posted speed limit was the only one that applied--25 mph, reduced to 20 mph on 3 hilly curve sections, many cyclists exceed that anyway.)
Each year usually everything goes back to normal until the next year. However, if cyclists keep making a big fuss about this, thereby bringing attention to the fact that they are flouting the rules and claim the need to do so, they are just asking for trouble, because as the Parks Commissioner said on WNYC today, the general philosophy for parks is to provide the greatest good for the greatest number of people. If that rule is vigorously applied in CP, it's not going to help cyclists.
Please just shut up about it, remember that this is a city park and not a velodrome, and practice the golden rule when you ride (e.g., don't blast through crosswalks and scream at people to get out of your way)."
af's comments are real world politics; a word to the wise which we should heed.
Best post on this subject so far - Don't make a big stink....
"What makes sense in the park, makes sense everywhere.
At the outset of my rides I tell the group, while I'll be pissed off if any driver or pedestrian violates your right-of-way (and might point this out to him), I'll be REALLY pissed off if YOU violate the right-of-way of any pedestrian...or, for that matter, even a driver.
...Which *isn't* to say ""Don't go through red lights."" It IS to say: Do not do ANYTHING to make another user of the road in the least bit apprehensive—yes, even merely apprehensive—when s/he has the right-of-way.
As the current Switzer commercial concludes, ""...And that's not a bad standard."""
1. ban cars from the park
2. remove all traffic lights not servicing active crosswalks
3. reactivate or install crosswalk buttons
4. cyclists and other 'vehicles' honor crosswalks
I doubt that the problems in CP are being caused by the members of this club (at least I hope not). I ride in CP both in the morning and in the afternoon. It never ceases to amaze me (and this is based on my personal observations and not meant to be a wholesale indictment of an entire class of people) that tri riders will try and blast through the park at 7:00 P.M. at full speed on a perfect summer night when there are people everywhere. Use some common sense! If you want to ride hard and you have the fitness, go in the morning before 7. After work and on the weekends, the park is full of recreational users and you should adjust your speed and riding style accordingly.
"As the initiator of this post, I know my initial vitriol was fueled from the very recent spate of 4 car/bike accidents and 3 cyclist deaths in the city, so I felt like I was being ""forced back out to the dangerous streets."" I also believed the CP regulations were the city's knee jerk reaction to the one recent cyclist-pedestrian incident.
However, the preceding posts are wise - probably an annual cycle (no pun intended) of ticket activity; we do pose a danger to pedestrians; pedestrians should be more careful(the signs idea at crosswalks is a good one); we should be cautious/cannot ride with impunity.
I think we'd all love a town hall on the subjects of riding in CP/Prospect Park, as well as the lack of progress the city has on making itself more bike friendly. I may have a contact within the Parks Service, FYI, which might help with the former - not sure how we can make progress on the latter (more a city hall/Bloomberg issue.)
Thanks all for your posts.
P.S. I had two points last nite during my ride where I had to slow down for children, fyi, so best to anticipate and be careful. (First was on his bicylce making one of those wide, slow, sweeping and hence dangerous ""u-turns"" on his bicycle. Another inexplicably let go of his guardian's hand and ran right in front of my path while looking at me wanting to get to the other side..Note: I do use a flashing headlight.)
P.P.S. When I observe pedestrians not looking when about to cross the CP road (independant of whether they are at a crosswalk or not), I have personally found using a loud, stern-voiced ""Hel-lo"" to be effective in alerting them to my rapidly arriving presence (and hopefully without giving cyclists a bad name in selecting a non-angry tone nor inflamatory word/phrase.)
P.P.P.S. I have also found it dangerous to ride tight on the inside of the long curved descent preceding the top of the park (before Harlem Hill.) Often people/children are right on the other side as you come out of the turn, fyi."
