Breaking the Law! Riding in Manhattan.
October 27th, 2008 
0 Comments
This weekend twenty seven Midnight Ridazz (2, 3) made the epic trip from Americas second largest metropolis to it’s largest, mostly to experience the action at Bike Kill 666 (2, 3), but also to experience New York City in all it’s epicness. Wow – this place is crazy!
In LA, I pretty much follow the traffic laws – only running reds late at night when they won’t change for me, or on certain rides. But, as soon as I got off the plane in JFK, I became an outlaw – running reds routinely, dodging between cabs and buses and just generally riding like a maniac.
I’m not the only one. It seems like the only ones obeying the law (or 90% of them) in NYC are the motorists. Cabs and buses and limos wait dutifully at green lights while pedestrians walk right in front of them against the light. Pedestrians will walk right in front of anything moving fast – me, other cyclists, cabs, trucks, garbage trucks, or Godzilla – and if it hesitates they go. Cyclists ride the right way only about twice as often as they ride the wrong way. And if you, a cyclist, come to a light, and it’s not a big street, you’re taking a look and you’re running it – that’s just how everyone rides.
Why is that? Well – NYC does it to you, particularly Manhattan. It’s not like LA where the city blocks are 150 yds to a quarter mile in length. Blocks here are sometimes as numerous as 20 in a mile. That means you’re have to stop frequently – waaay more often than in LA. As well, things are just confusing here. The first time I broke the law in NYC was when I came to a bizarre intersection. There were like five streets coming together, all at weird angles, and some of them were one-way. On top of all that it was underneath an elevated train. I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do, there was diddly for signage, so I did the logical thing and pedaled across when there were no cars that could hit me.
That seems to be the general NY attitude about non-motorized traffic: do what you want, or what you must, and be intelligent about it. Midnight Ridazz co-founder Roadblock explained “NYC is this place where you can break the law as much as you want, and no one cares, but if you do something stupid they’ll berate you for it.” That’s it in a nut shell – NYC seems to thrive on a healthy respect for the natural law: act intelligently and defensively, or get run over.
It works. Why? For one, in Manhattan, the vehicle speeds are much lower than even Downtown LA. There are more lights and the streets are narrower. Furthermore, even if pedestrians and cyclists weren’t consistently breaking the law, there are tight corners, many more people crossing the street legally, delivery trucks parked everywhere, and a lot of cabs changing lanes unexpectedly – so motorists must drive more cautiously, slower, and with greater awareness.
The other reason it works is because everyone expects it. Everyone on the street knows that pedestrians are going to jaywalk and cyclists are going to run lights or ride the wrong way with a degree of abandon. Everyone knows that cabs are going to accelerate maniacally and change lanes out of nowhere – I mean, they have reinforced bumpers, so you know to give them space. Since everyone understands that these things are going to happen, they anticipate them happening, and that’s how collissions are avoided. In essence, though it may not feel like it, there is a lot of cooperation between road users.
Several times I’ve rolled up to a light where the traffic was thick enough that I felt it would be madness to run. In some of those cases drivers and pedestrians actually stopped to make space for me, anticipating that I would run the light. Sometimes I took advantage of it, as any decent New Yorker would do, and other times I set my foot down, enjoying the perplexed looks when I didn’t run the light.
It’s actually very reasonable. Traffic laws are conventions we agree upon so that we can travel about safely and not smush each other. Los Angelinos often seem to think that if they follow the law, it doesn’t matter if they are unsafe road users. New Yorkers flip it, not really caring what you do, as long as you behave intelligently and safely. I think this more practical attitude is the reason that NYC can function, and remain a safe place to live.
Except for cyclists. Despite all that cooperation, Manhattan isn’t actually a safe place for cyclists, and Brooklyn is sketchy as well. As I’ll explain in a later post, you shouldn’t ride in Manhattan unless you are very skilled at handling traffic. And unfortunately, I can’t imagine a realistic route from the state of things now in Manhattan, to a bike friendly Manhattan.
Author Info
What a fun read. thanks! what’s with the crazy energy in nyc?! it’s awesome. so awesome i FELT it in this post.
nyc magic.
(shiver)
You nailed it, you insightful freak of nature.
Alex, despite your crap grammar (“it’s” = “it is”), you do paint a good picture. The more complex the ballet of human movement the less useful are attempts to control it (spontaneous order). Traffic controls ignore our highly-evolved ability to negotiate movement. Who is the better judge of when or how fast it’s safe to go – you and me at the time and the place, or remote lights and limits fixed by absent regulators? When given a choice, the vast majority act in a co-operative manner. Trouble is, the system deprives us of choice. It makes us obey artificial rights-of-way that negate civilised values and our instinct to co-operate. In the absence of priority rules and lights, e.g. when lights are out of action, or in NYC’s critical street mass which you evoke – we do what is natural and safe: watch the road and filter (aka all-way yield). If the law is an ass, nowhere is it more asinine – and lethal – than on the road. More at FiT Roads.
@Katie & Katie
THANKS!!
@Martin Cassini
Well put. I think it’s reasonable to have rules of the road so that when someone acts unsafely, there is a specific recourse. But, when we rely on them as immutable guides to acceptable conduct then we = FAIL.
It’s short format, high turnover, so these it’s its’ mistakes happen. I put that “But, . . .” ^^^ in just for you!
Great post. Perhaps all LA DOT Bikeways staff should be sent on a “Bike Tour of Duty” in Ny before they’re allowed to start posting the little green Bike route signs .
It was great to follow your exploits, I look forward to the full Director’s Cut version of “Midnight Ridazz – In for the BikeKill!”
Yeah – let’s make them ride NYC alleycats and only the top placers get the job.
Man, I got super sick and my NYC exploits now consist of laying in bed for 15 hours at a time. Microbes – damn you.
you forgot one critical fact in this wonderful essay. the big T-REX got p0wn3d by monster masher Roadblock in all this manhattan madness.
Alex, great stories from NYC. This was a great passage:
It’s actually very reasonable. Traffic laws are conventions we agree upon so that we can travel about safely and not smush each other. Los Angelinos often seem to think that if they follow the law, it doesn’t matter if they are unsafe road users. New Yorkers flip it, not really caring what you do, as long as you behave intelligently and safely. I think this more practical attitude is the reason that NYC can function, and remain a safe place to live.
With your earlier comment about vehicle speeds, I think you’re getting at something really interesting (and ultimately, kind of frustrating) about Los Angeles. So much of our infrastructure is built around this myth of speed: That everywhere, traffic permitting, can be 20 minutes away. The way our roads are built is with an eye towards uninterrupted flow of traffic. Efficiency. And we really tend to take it all for granted. What you found in New York, I think, is a city in which people know that traffic will not be fast. It can’t be. It’d be great to do some sort of comparison mapping to figure out the relative densities of New York and Los Angeles traffic, the number of people – using all sorts of transportation – per block…
All a bit far afield, but nice work.
@Roadblock
TREX was defeated, I’ll admit. But pwned? A defeat of epic proportions? Hardly. TREX lives to fight another day!
@Timur
Kind of an aside – I sat down with Noah Budnick from Transportation Alternatives yesterday and one thing he related was that New Yorkers have the longest commute times in the country. So even though they have excellent public transit, the way they’re using it, or perhaps the fact that they’re right at it’s capacity, means they still spend a lot of time commuting. Noah said that a famous transit advocate, when this commute time fact is mentioned, habitually replies that “New Yorkers read a lot.”
New York is closer to a videogame than LA, that’s for damn sure. It definitely is a different mentality as soon as you get in the saddle. I once was riding on a questionable rented Cannondale for a day, with a bottommed out front shock and no helmet (that costs extra), and I instantly felt like my survival instincts kicked up a notch. Riding on one way streets in NYC confused the bejesus out of me. Lots of delivery dudes balancing pizzas on their handlebars coming right at me. I was dodging more cyclists than cars.
The traffic there does clear up a bit by nighttime, riding through the streets of Manhattan at night is a beautiful thing. I would gladly pay a toll to get on the Williamsburg bridge every time…
Riding in NYC over the summer made me appreciate the nice straight bike lanes in LA. It’s pretty obvious that one of the biggest challenges is ensuring cyclists’ safety near turns or intersections. I haven’t been to Western Europe yet, and I have to see a North American city with bike boxes. I hope all this fancy LUCE planning in Santa Monica gets it right.
Yeah, Mihai, I feel as if people are far more alert her – riders and non riders. Last night at the end of Halloween we set up an L shaped couch in the middle of a deserted intersection in Brooklyn and had a spontaneous couch party with passersby. Those few motorists that did come through noticed us and drove around. In LA I expect 1 in 50 would have been busy texting and just plowed into the couch.
An interesting thing happened to me at NY Critical Mass last night. The police started enforcing the law. I’ve run reds in front of police a few times already, and I’ve watched hundreds of other anonymous cyclists do it. But as soon as it was a coordinated, and likely safer, group activity, the police put a stop to it.
I got a ticket! NYC stripes baby.
Bombing through the streets of Manhattan was the most fun I have had in the saddle in a long time. For those who ride bikes for the sheer adrenaline rush, this is something to be experiences.
By the way, a brief look at Bike Kill HERE. More in-depth blog about it to come after I have finally processed it all.
For a sobering picture of Biking and the Law in NYC, ask someone about the RNC. They have shittier roads and its harder to work up a fast ride in NY. But they have the enormous advantage of public understanding. Where as it seems every motorist in L.A. feels its thier civic responsibilty to run you off the road, heckle you, and or run you over completley. ALso I think LA riders are in much better shape. I cant see anyone in NY pulling off the hills in Elysian to the beach in one ride.