If the peace and quiet around Mayor Bloomberg's mansion or the forced sterility of Union Square isn't enough to convince you that the NYPD is using your tax dollars appropriately, let this arrest of a cyclist and Vietnam veteran after not breaking the law assuage you. more ›

Cyclist Evan Neumann was biking up Allen Street on the Lower East Side last February when he was pulled over by an NYPD officer and issued a ticket for something that isn't against the law in NYC. As Neumann was approaching Stanton Street, he checked behind him to make sure there was no oncoming traffic, and left the bike lane to switch to the right side of Allen, in order to make the right turn on Stanton. He was then issued a ticket for failing to use the bike lane. Thing is, cyclists are not legally required to stay in the bike lane in NYC in every situation. more ›

While the DOT is hard at work installing barriers at the bottom of the Williamsburg Bridge bike/pedestrian path in Manhattan, the NYPD is hard at work on the other side of the bridge writing tickets to cyclists. During yesterday's p.m. rush hour, a tipster sent us these photos of the NYPD issuing a slew of summonses. The offense? Riding the wrong way down a wide, sleepy half-block to get to the cyclist entrance to the bridge. The witness estimates that he saw "16-20 people" ticketed in twenty minutes, which seems hard to believe, but he tells us the offending cyclists were ordered to stand on line and wait their turn as the cops took care of business (literally). more ›

Some of you may have seen that video of the NYPD arresting a man for heckling a cyclist as he got a ticket and decided to meekly keep your mouth shut when witnessing police action. Not Barbara Ross, a Time's Up! volunteer and self-professed "frequent user and fan of 2nd and 1st avenue downtown bike lane." Here's video she took last night of an NYPD officer writing a cyclist a ticket for running red light on Second Avenue near Fifth Street. As much as it irks us when cops block bike lanes, we can't deny our urge to applaud this officer for showing such patience as Ross pounces on him. 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 ›

The Hasidic community in South Williamsburg has been very vocal about scofflaw cyclists blowing by school buses picking up and discharging children, but a new video shows it's not just bike riders acting like jerks. The video, shot with a helmet camera, shows a Hasidic school bus driver nearly running a cyclist off the road, and when the cyclist confronts the driver, he's asked, "Do you stop for bus signs?" The cyclists says yes, at which point the driver apologizes. But hey—when in doubt, assume all cyclists are "jerks" and crush them like bugs, right? (We're guessing this driver's a Gothamist commenter in his spare time.) more ›

Today the DOT launched its "highly anticipated" (their words) public service advertising campaign intended to school cyclists on the rules of the road, including always yielding to pedestrians; riding with traffic, not against it; and riding on the street, not on the sidewalks. The campaign is called "Don't Be a Jerk," and seems likely to exacerbate the already hostile attitude toward cyclists seen in the media, in the NYPD's crackdown, and on certain websites' comments sections. Funny enough, one of the ads stars celebrity chef Mario Batali, whom we once watched drive his Vespa in the Prince Street bike lane like a total jerk. So it makes sense that in this video he also portrays the titular "jerk": more ›

The NYPD's escalating crackdown on cyclists, "Operation Safe Cycle," has resulted in a spike in frivolous tickets for such non-violations as riding a bike with a tote bag on the handlebars and not wearing a helmet. It's obvious the average cop on the beat has no clue what's illegal and what isn't, but they've been ordered to target cyclists, so that's what they'll do. And to help them fill their quotas, NYPD higher-ups distributed this "cheat sheet" [pdf] informing—or, we should say, misinforming—cops about the biking rules. Streetsblog got their hot little hands on it. more ›

On the dedicated bike lanes on Ninth Avenue and Allen Street, the DOT has also installed additional traffic lights just for cyclists. They are to be obeyed, even if it's a T intersection and the traffic light for drivers is green. Ken Stanek, a graphic designer who lives in Crown Heights, learned this lesson this morning, when he got slapped with a $270 ticket (below). In an email, Stanek explained how it happened: more ›

As we noted earlier, a cyclist was killed yesterday in an accident with a car in Gravesend; as it happens, the scene of the accident isn't far from Bay Ridge Parkway, where a proposed bike lane was shot down by local politicians earlier this month. If the initial report about the accident is accurate—that the driver had a green light—there's little a bike lane could have done to save the victim. But the tragic collision serves as another sobering reminder of the dangers of cycling. And it comes as both the Daily News and the Post fan the flames of the cyclist backlash with even more anti-bike lane articles today. more ›

Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, whose hilarious play The Motherfucker With the Hat you should definitely go see, tells Vulture he just got slapped with a $330 ticket for blowing through a red light on his bicycle on 72nd Street. As if that wasn't infuriating enough, the officer who wrote him the ticket offered an apologetic explanation—as they tend to do—for giving Guirgis the ticket. As in all things, the blame can be placed on Robin Williams. Just in case Old Dogs wasn't enough of an outrage, Guirgis gives us this: more ›

As you may have read, Robin Williams was on The View yesterday, where he again rolled out his anecdote about getting pulled over by the NYPD for biking on the sidewalk. "I wasn't dressed, like, in bike clothing," Williams explained. "I had a single-speed track bike, and I had on a bal aclava, which basically makes me look like a terrorist or a crack dealer. No one was on the sidewalk, and all of a sudden woop-woop!" The View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck wasn't amused, telling Wiliams, "I got hit by a bike on a sidewalk!" Williams replied, "Well, it's the law because of her." And because of every other inconsiderate jerk who bikes on the sidewalk—these people should be ticketed, to be sure. more ›

Let's get this Friday started right, let's get this Friday started quickly: For too long New Yorkers have chafed under the boot of spandex hipster fixie cyclists and their ironic tote bags, and now, finally, the NYPD is riding to the rescue. The NY Post, of all rags, is running buck wild with a story of a woman who was issued a summons for riding her bike on Columbus Avenue with a tote bag hanging on the handlebars. And the Post, which has published countless cartoonish anti-cyclist rants, is suddenly shocked that police would ever do such an absurd thing! more ›

We've seen plenty of anecdotal evidence that the NYPD has a major hard-on for cyclists in Brooklyn these days, but now we have some actual stats, thanks to the Brooklyn Paper, which reports that cops' cycling crackdown resulted in nearly twice as many tickets in February than it did last February. Officers wrote at least 695 bicycle summonses throughout Brooklyn that month, compared to 375 in the same period last year. Naturally, cyclists are fuming. 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 ›

As of February 11th, the NYPD handed out 123 tickets to cyclists for traffic infractions in Central Park. We're trying to determine how many citations were issued to motor vehicle drivers during that time, but we're guessing it's fewer, if this video is any indication. The speed limit in the Central Park loop is 25 mph, but this video documents drivers speeding with impunity. 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 ›

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 ›