Century Ride Exposes How Little The City Cares About Its Bicyclists

Yesterday’s Transportation Alternatives bike ride gathered about 6,000 registered riders for its 28th Century Bike Tour. Bikers followed routes that ranged from 15 to 100 miles throughout the city, showcasing parts of NYC’s 1,000 miles of bike lanes.

The ride was marred by the crash in Borough park where a drunk driver accelerated into a group of bicyclists stopped at a red light, injuring four, and one critically shortly after 9am. It happened at the intersection of 39th Street and 12th Avenue, and the driver has been charged with driving while intoxicated and driving with a suspended license.

“Every New Yorker who rides a bikes deserves to be able to travel safely and free from harm. Our thoughts are with the family of the victim, and we are praying for her speedy recovery,” Paul Steely White, Executive Director, Transportation Alternatives said yesterday.

As of this morning, Nancy Pease, the 55 year old bicyclist that was crushed under the car, is still in critical condition. “Our thoughts are with Nancy’s family, and we are praying for her recovery. It is truly outrageous that at 9am on a Sunday morning a drunk and unlicensed driver would mow-down a group of bike riders, ” Caroline Samporano of Transportation Alternatives said.

Only the 15 mile bike ride had police escort, due to focus on family rides, while the rest of bikers were taking public bike routes raising awareness of available bike infrastructure.

What the ride did highlight was how little the current administration cares.

A participant in the 100 mile route who was riding with his teenage son had strong words for De Blasio:

“I know De Blasio doesn’t share Bloomberg’s support for bikers, but the city’s obvious disdain for yesterday’s ride was insane.

It wasn’t just this horrible Borough park incident — which really does seem random. At one point in Queens, there was a fence right across the bike path — forcing riders to climb into a highway and snarling traffic.

Meanwhile there was zero attempt to secure or put a cop on the hairier parts of the route — which thousands of New Yorkers were riding.

In fact, the only officer we saw the whole day was stationed on the Marine Parkway Bridge, smugly yelling at riders to get off their bikes and walk them because there’s a “no bike” regulation on the bridge — despite there being exactly zero pedestrians.”

“We have reached out to the Parks department in an attempt to understand why the path was blocked at the last minute before our ride.  We did have a permit and that path was to be open”, said Samporano.