It's a shame to see a perfectly pristine bike lane go to waste without anybody parking in it, so kudos to the NYPD for setting a fine example in Windsor Terrace, where the DOT recently added a green bike lane to the rotary at the Southwest corner of Prospect Park. The tipster who took this photo tells us "the trucks have been there about a month, since before the 1st big snow storm." Of course, this isn't the first time the NYPD's turned bike lanes into parking lots, and we suspect it won't be the last. The familiar sight goes a long way toward explaining why civilian motorists throughout the city routinely block bike lanes without fear of punishment. "With one hand the City giveth, with the other, it taketh away," says Wiley Norvell, spokesman for Transportation Alternatives. "This brazen illegal parking throws cyclists into moving traffic lanes, to say nothing of undercutting the City's efforts to make Park Circle safer." more ›

Bicyclists love griping about motorists parking in bike lanes with impunity, and we've made a cottage industry out of publishing photos of the best bike lane blocks. So, in the interest of fair and balanced reportage, here is a photo showing one Utopian block of Maple Street in Brooklyn, where drivers double park outside the bike lane during alternate side parking. Is our incessant hectoring making a dent? Are Maple Street residents exceptionally considerate? Or is this just some devious Photoshop work? Whatever the case, it's an astonishing image. [Via Chrysanthe Tenentes's Twitter] more ›

The bus lane on 42nd Street isn't quite living up to its name, the Daily News reports. The lane is supposed to be dedicated to the M42 bus — which just last month was called out as the city's slowest bus — but it is so congested with unauthorized vehicles that a two-mile bus trip moves at a 2.85 mph crawl (slower than the average person walks) and takes up to 43 minutes. more ›

This year the DOT reached a goal of adding 200 more miles of parking space bike lanes in NYC—but as every cyclist knows, these also double as sweet traffic lanes, loading/unloading zones, and parking lots. The danger in all this, of course, is that when a bike lane is blocked, bicyclists are forced to merge with auto traffic, sometimes causing accidents and fatalities. more ›

Anyone who rides a bike regularly in NYC quickly realizes that the NYPD is pretty lax when it comes to keeping drivers from parking in bike lanes—hell, even the NYPD's own patrol cars are often seen blocking bike lanes. But according to the city's Department of Finance, some 70,000 tickets were issued for stopping in a bike lane last year, out of 10 million tickets issued citywide. One's inclined to dismiss that statistic as utter BS, but NY1 actually found a driver who claims he was issued a $115 ticket for blocking a bike lane on the Lower East Side. It sounds crazy, which is why it made the news! Shocked motorist Ernest Marshall says it all happened when he was picking up his wife:

As my wife was leaving the sidewalk to get into the car, a traffic officer pulled in front of me, blocked me in and then proceeded to give me a traffic ticket. There's parking, a bike lane and traffic on both sides of the street. It's impossible to load or unload passengers from a car without blocking a bike lane or traffic itself. It's unfair.

Might as well check your trenchcoat with the Skycap, fellas; American Airlines has reversed course and decided to filter pornographic content on its in-flight Internet service. You'll recall that flight attendants had been pressuring the airline to block porn because they didn't want to police pervs who can't go a couple hours without pleasuring themselves to Edward Penishands or Sex Trek: The Next Penetration. Wired reports that Girls Against Porn has also been lobbying American to install filters, citing a lawsuit against American over a particularly nauseating masturbatory incident that, incidentally, occurred without pornographic inspiration. Of course privacy rights advocates are alarmed that once airlines take away the pornos, they'll start blocking other sites like maybe all the ones trashing American Airlines. more ›

Making good on a campaign promise, State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (pictured) has put pressure on three major Internet service providers to shut down online groups that share child pornography. Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner have each agreed to cut off access to websites and bulletin boards disseminating the illicit images, with a special emphasis on Usenet, one of the oldest computer network communications systems that uses no central server. more ›

Barbecue fans will want to start bracing their colons for the 6th Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, which has been announced for June 7th and 8th in Madison Square Park. Gothamist tore through the festival of regional barbecue last year, devouring everything from pork shoulder to Brunswick stew to candied ribs. more ›