Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is considered one of the most powerful men in New York State, but even he doesn't have power over the conditions of the streets he bikes on. Capital New York's Azi Paybarah reports, "Half of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's face is bruised and purple, and there are stitches over his left eyebrow and a scab across his nose and the back of one of his hands. Silver sustained the injuries while riding a bicycle when he hit a pothole and fell, according to a spokesman for the lower Manhattan Democrat." more ›

What was once the Native American's Wickquasgeck Trail through Manhattan is now Broadway, probably the most famous thoroughfare in all the land. Stretching north from Bowling Green all the way up to Westchester, it rambles even further as U.S. 9. Perhaps inspired by all that pavement's potential, one intrepid cyclist recently picked up the trail in the Bronx and pedaled all the way down to the bottom of Manhattan, filming the entire trip. Here's the kinetic time lapse video of the adventure—be sure to stay tuned for a "terrible idea" at the 2:44 mark. more ›

This Sunday thousands of New Yorkers will hit the streets to participate in the 22nd Annual NYC Century Bike Tour. With a 6:00 a.m. start from Central Park, the 100-mile route takes riders south toward the Brooklyn Bridge, over to the Rockaways, winding through the Greenways in Queens, up the hills in the Bronx, and finally down through historic Harlem. Registration is still open at a cost of $65 if you sign up online by midnight tonight, and proceeds benefit Transportation Alternatives. more ›

In response to the record-breaking number of summonses for bicyclists this year, as well as the NYPD's reluctance to release the data on the cycling crackdown, Transportation Nation have crowd-sourced a map of the locations where cyclists have gotten tickets, and what for. Take a closer look at it below. more ›

The NYPD's citywide cyclist ticket blitz has yielded a record-breaking number of summonses so far this year, according to a report in the Post. The NYPD has issued 13,843 tickets to cyclists in 2011, up from 9,345 tickets written over the same period in 2010, and 3,708 for the same period of 2009. The tickets are for such offenses as running red lights, running stop signs, biking on sidewalks, speeding, not wearing a helmet, and hanging tote bags on their handlebars. Fun fact: only some of those things are actually violations in NYC! And that's why a group of cyclists are suing. more ›

Ha, those hippie bicycle advocates at Streetfilms just made one of their propaganda videos about how everyone in NYC should form a bloodthirsty cyclist army to ride over Post columnist Steve Cuozzo's well-heeled feet. This one features your typical spandex hipster cycling Nazi showing off her tattoos on her fixed gear bike in Bushwick. Or actually it's a profile of a firefighter who commutes everywhere by bike. In Queens. Her name is Sarinya Srisakul, and she's blasting some people's reductive cyclist stereotypes out of sight with a fire hose. more ›

An analysis of census data culled in 2009 suggests that cycling in NYC has declined slightly compared to 2007, contradicting Department of Transportation studies that show a cycling boom. In their annual State of New York report, NYU's Furman Center examined census data to determine that only 0.6 percent of New Yorkers use bikes as their preferred mode of transportation [pdf]. This flies in the face of DOT numbers that show the number of cyclists doubling over the past four years [pdf]. It also flies in the face of what we see with our eyes when we're riding all over NYC, from South Brooklyn to Washington Heights. So what the deuce is going on here? more ›

On the last Friday of every month, advocates for better bicycling conditions in NYC gather in Union Square park to embark on an unplanned group ride. Part social outing, part demonstration, Critical Mass has tangled with the NYPD at least as far back as the Republican Convention, when police set the tone for the weekend's protest by arresting 200 cyclists, many of whom weren't released until well over 24 hours later. Despite lawsuits, the NYPD continues to deploy a heavy police presence at Critical Mass, and last month's ride was no exception, with over 20 cops on motorcycles on hand. The number of cyclists? 10. Here's video... with the right set of eyes you can almost see your tax dollars spiraling down the toilet: more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] After a meeting last week with some 300 angry cyclists protesting the NYPD's Central Park red light crackdown, Captain Philip Wishnia conceded that "there’s a possible way of correcting” the policy of strictly applying driving laws to bike riders. But it looks like that correction was not made, because early this morning the NYPD set up a speed trap at the bottom of a hill in Central Park and, using a radar gun, ticketed cyclists for speeding—in the early morning twilight, when the park is closed to traffic and largely used for exercise. more ›

Tomorrow Brooklyn's Community Board 6 transportation committee will vote on the DOT's proposed changes to the famous Prospect Park West bike lane in Park Slope. Among the adjustments on the table: installing rumble strips at intersections to slow cyclists down, narrowing the buffer between the bike lane and the floating parking lane in order to widen the traffic lane, and installing raised cement pedestrian refuges to give people a better view of oncoming cyclists (and keep cars from illegally parking there). But the bike lane's determined opponents have another idea: relocating half of the bike lane to Eighth Avenue, a block west. more ›

If Gandalf the Grey was brought to life in Brooklyn, deprived of his magic wand and put under a magic spell that made him curse like a sailor, he might sound a little something like this gentleman. YouTube user MessiahSez is possessed of a deep, abiding hatred for bike lanes, which must make his marriage quite lively, since his wife happens to be "a very big environmentalist and bike lane advocate." Perhaps that's why he's so pissed off. In this video, he settles the great Prospect Park West bike lane debate once and for all with a decisive deployment of F-bombs. If you've got sensitive ears or workplace rules about vulgarities, it's time to put on the earmuffs: more ›

New Yorker columnist John Cassidy usually writes about economics, but he also drives a Jaguar around NYC, and the man is sick and tired of seeing bike lanes "poach on our territory." The phrase is telling, because it underscores Cassidy's unsustainable and ahistorical assumption that streets are for cars and cars alone (we remember when horses and bikes shared the roads). His smug, ill-informed essay applauds the anti-bike lane backlash, but not because Cassidy has anything against cyclists, mind you; he used to ride a bike himself, back when he was in college at Oxford and a dissolute East Villager in his 20s: more ›

The Times's engrossing and infuriating expose on NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan certainly starts off with a bangin' lede, with a surprise cameo from Representative Anthony Weiner! While Weiner has positioned himself as progressive with his aggressive push for health care reform, he also plays well with conservatives because of his staunch support of Israel's occupation of Palestine. And it looks like his position on bike lanes would make him look right at home on the editorial board of the NY Post: more ›

This afternoon we spoke with State Assemblyman Michael DenDekker, a Queens Democrat who has introduced legislation that would require every bicycle in New York State to have a license plate. The registration and inspection fee would cost $25 for "private" (i.e. non-commercial) bicyclists and $50 for commercial bicyclists, with a $5 fee every subsequent year to renew the license. Reached by phone, DenDekker elaborated on the bill, and said he looks forward to the day when cameras in bike lanes will help identify scofflaw cyclists and hold them to the same standard of accountability as drivers. (We're assuming motorists and police officers in bike lanes would continue to be exempt from any enforcement.) more ›

The NYPD has been relentlessly cracking down on cyclists who pedal through red lights in Central Park, handing out numerous $270 tickets to violators. Despite an outcry from cyclists who say it's absurd to stop at a red light when the crosswalk is clear, one police source says they're going to enforce the letter of the law from now until "forever." But there's one thing the NYPD didn't count on: a petition. more ›

NYPD Internal Affairs is investigating allegations of police brutality related to the arrest of a teenager in a Bronx bodega last Friday night. Surveillance video (below) from the bodega shows the teen, Jorge Cartagena Jr., saying something to an unidentified officer as the cop exits the deli. The cop then whirls around, grabs the teen, and flings him against a shelf of snack food. Moments earlier, outside the bodega, the officer had given Cartagena Jr., 19, a warning about riding his bike on the sidewalk. more ›

As you probably know, the NYPD is handing out hefty $270 tickets to cyclists who roll through red lights in Central Park—even if there isn't a pedestrian in the intersection. Today, bike blogger Chasing Wheels posted this video showing just how annoying and absurd it is for cyclists to come to a complete stop at every red light, of which there are potentially 46 (if you've got unbelievably terrible luck and get stuck at red at every intersection). more ›

The City Council unanimously voted to pass a package of traffic bills yesterday that finally requires the city to collect data on cyclist and pedestrian accidents. Previously, the city had no method for collecting these stats. One bill in particular, TrafficStat, was born out of a tragic event that happened two years ago when Nancy Gruskin's husband, Stuart, died after colliding with a cyclist that was riding the wrong way in midtown. His death prompted Nancy to create the Stuart C. Gruskin Foundation, which has been advocating for pedestrian awareness in cities across the country, and pushed to get this bill passed. We spoke with Nancy yesterday about the safety hazards that happen when a city gets too big for its cycling-infrastructure britches, and better ways to end what she calls the "civil war between cyclists and pedestrians and motorists." more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] In case it wasn't crystal clear, the NYPD is serious about the bicycling crackdown. And, fittingly, Central Park seems to be at the heart of the so-called "enhanced enforcement" of traffic laws that bike riders have routinely flouted since forever. We previously broke the story about a cyclist who was shocked to find cops pulling him over for running a red light. He wasn't alone; we continue to get e-mails about the Central Park crackdown—earlier this week, one jogger told us: more ›

The NY Post HATES the bike lanes because they take street space away from cars, and they inconvenience columnist Steve Cuozzo when he walks to work through Times Square. But it's a challenge to come up with a new rabble-rousing anti-cyclist article seven days a week. So to fill the gap when there's no bike lane "news" to "report," the tabloid has come up with an easy solution: just pull some anti-bike lane mail from the inbox to fill the column inches. Voila, the haterade is stirred another day! Here's what NY Post reader G. Davis of Staten Island has to say: more ›

Police sources have confirmed that the man killed on the BQE last Thursday morning was in fact riding a bike. He's been identified as 45-year-old Dominik Perez, a homeless Brooklyn man who was inexplicably cycling on the Staten Island-bound side of the BQE near the Atlantic Avenue exit. A driver in a Lincoln Town Car hit Perez at around 4:15 a.m., and Perez was knocked into the path of a Toyota Camry. more ›

Back in April, as the Prospect Park Bike Lane war raged in Park Slope, bike lane hating Borough President Marty Markowitz told WNYC that if the new bike lane "causes no bottlenecks, no inconvenience, and if it works, I’ll be the first to say I was wrong." A new report on the bike lane's impact proved just that, but instead of eating his shoe, Markowitz is getting conspiratorial. In an angry, unhinged interview with WCBS, Markowitz contends that cycling activists were secretly tipped off about which days the DOT contractor was counting bike riders, enabling them to flood the lane to skew the stats. Watch him expose what Streetsblog dubs a "vast biking conspiracy." more ›

The NYPD is making good on its promise to crackdown on cyclists who ride through red lights, go the wrong way on streets, or pedal on sidewalks. The Post reports that cops handed out nearly 1,000 tickets to bicyclists in Manhattan in the first two weeks of January. 315 were issued in Brooklyn and 167 were written for cyclists in Queens. "It's an all-time high," one high-ranking source told the tabloid, while another NYPD source says, "I think the moral of the story is it's not just obey the rules of the road, but to utilize the bike lanes and safety first." Speaking of bike lanes, two City Councilmen from Staten Island are joining forces to try and stop their rapid expansion. more ›