Update: Oreo, Dog Thrown Off Building, Was Euthanized
People Wait For Tomorrow's UWS Apple Store Opening
Emily and Sarah Kunstler, Filmmakers
Cheap Chicken Wing Deal Ruined by Gunslinging Teens
FIT Students Busted For Drug Dealing Get Probation
Last week, Transportation Alternatives held a friendly race to see what would be fastest way to get to work: Taking the subway, riding a bicycle, or driving car. And, yes, if you guessed that the bike rider won, you're right: Professional cyclist Kristen LaSasso made it from Junior’s Restaurant on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to Columbus Circle in just 27 minutes, while Michael Hernandez of the Straphangers' Campaign got there in 30 minutes and the driver, Travis Ruse, photographer and photography editor at Inc., took 45 minutes. This kind of race was the cyclist's to lose, even though it rained last Friday, because the subway is a delicate balance of sufficient Metrocard fares and the signals working, and the NYC roads
require traffic lights to properly line up and no delivery trucks in the way for drives to be quick and easy. And forget about the parking. Anyway, Gothamist loves races like this; when the Acela service started, we loved the race from Washington DC taking a plane, Acela and car. One day, we hope to launch a pedestrian only race, where people must travel through loads of Eurotrash tourists in SoHo, manage the countless dog poo piles on the Upper West Side, and drunken hipsters on the Lower East Side.
June 5 is the first Tour de Brooklyn. You don't have to ride, you can volunteer.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
pro biker? that's cheating! i wonder if he stopped at all traffic lights though.
i think they should have gotten a cab driver to do the car part.
Does a subway rider from the straphangers campaign count as a "pro subway rider?"
LaSasso obeyed all traffic laws.
But she's not an average bicyclist is she? I guess she could have "taken it easy," but she is in really good shape and biking is her livelyhood, right? I agree that maybe they should have gotten a really good cabbie to do the car part.
'really good cabbie' - oxymoron
What? Cab drivers are inherently bad? I meant good at getting around town fast.
So, on a Bike note: What happens tonite at the Monthly Critical mass Ride? Any odds on how many arests?
I bet it's between 20 and 25...
I understand the need to prove a point, but I think TA's point could have been proven without a professional cyclist. If AAA sponsored this event and had Jeff Gordon driving a car, cyclists would cry foul.
Given NYC's traffic and the unreliability of the subway, biking is almost always going to be a faster option. At the very least it provides the health benefit of daily exercise, even if it takes the same amount of time as taking the subway from some neighborhoods. TA could have made this point if it had selected a more average cyclist. You don't have to convince New Yorkers that biking is faster for faster riders; there's a reason we use bike messengers and not subway messengers or van delivery services for small tasks.
If AAA had Jeff Gordon in this event, he still would have lost. As a cyclist/driver/pedestrian who wished more people walked or used their bikes, I'd applaud that. It's prove the point even better.
PS -- when I was a bike messenger I occassionally took the subway with my bike.
and if jeff gordon was in the event, he would have gotten the names of all the bridges and streets wrong.
How great would it be if all Metrocards were as big as the one in the photo?
I think the point that D was trying to make was that the point would have been made even stronger if TA used an average cyclist and still won the race. But maybe it would have been too close?? THERE was only three minutes difference between the pro cyclist and the subway rider.
Also, what train did the subway rider take from Juniors to Columbus Circle?? I'm hoping he took the B train from Dekalb.
my roommate and i used to do this when we worked together. he took the subway and i rode my bike. it was from flatiron building in manhattan to prospect park area in brooklyn... no contest, i beat him every time on my bike.
we tried a taxi vs. bike once and i barely beat him then too but the traffic was above average. i'm not a messenger but i'm in relatively good shape and ride quickly. i think an average rider would usually still get home first.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2001/04/25/AR2005033115886.html
awesome ken, i'll put that into the original entry.
they should try this again with all the new security and the chinatown bus.
jeff gordon surprisingly has an apartment downtown, so he might have gotten the street/bridge names right--and he would have bump-drafted everyone out of his way to win.