An artist and CUNY professor who was participating in a group bike ride along the Hudson River Greenway was allegedly kicked off his bike by a pedestrian Thursday evening around 7:30 p.m. Michael Mandiberg, 33, was treated at Manhattan hospital for bruising, cuts, abrasions and injuries to his shoulder and ankle. Reached by phone in Brooklyn, Mandiberg tells us, "A group of us were riding up the west side highway and a pedestrian unprovoked and clearly intentionally kicked out my front wheel causing me to fall. A cop came about 30 minutes later and he was arrested." Is this the inevitable result of the NYC bikelash, or just a random jerk? more ›

Michael Strasmich, a retired small business owner in his late 50s, was riding his bike over on the west side's Hudson River Greenway in March 2007 when a helicopter landed at the West 30th Street airport. According to his attorney, David Rankin, the aircraft’s top blade was approximately 30 feet from Strasmich at the time of the incident, and a gust of wind from the chopper knocked him off his bike! Strasmich has hit by another cyclist and injured, but it was all for a good cause: the helicopter was delivering important executives from the East Side of Manhattan to the West Side. more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] A report that just came in over the wires that sounds appalling: Two bike riders collided on the Hudson River Greenway down in Tribeca, and one of them got impaled. According to preliminary reports, a female cyclist "has her hands impaled in the bicycle." We're trying to figure out how this happened, but it's possible one of the cyclists had unwrapped handlebars? What's not surprising is that there was a collision on the bike path—though deceptively safe, that bike path is often packed with cyclists who ride even more recklessly because they're not pedaling through traffic. Take it easy, people! more ›

The west side of Manhattan is an idyllic utopia along the river, where an interconnected series of parks and paths give New Yorkers the ability to travel on foot or by bike from the Battery up to Washington Heights, without mingling with motor vehicles. Much of the route along the Hudson River is green and well-maintained, which makes the contrast with the shabby East Side all the more striking. And so over the weekend Transportation Alternatives held a bike ride press opp along the East River to highlight his side's glaring inadequacy. more ›

Transportation Alternatives, the bicycling, pedestrian, and public transit advocacy group, shared this photograph proving that, yes, the bollards installed on the Hudson River Greenway (the bike path along the West Side HIghway) do work. The bollards were installed in mid-2008—over a year after two deaths of bicyclists along the bike path. more ›

A tipster sent us this photo taken today on the Hudson River Greenway. To the untrained eye nothing seems out of the ordinary here: bikes and cars sharing the road in Utopian harmony. But although it looks like a normal street, this is actually a bike path; the car here is supposed to be over on the left on the West Side Highway. What makes this really galling is that this photo was taken on the same bike path where a drunk driver killed 22-year-old cyclist Eric Ng back in 2006. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg has been leading the city for over five years, but the way he handles dealing with the public during crises - no matter how big or how small - remains curious. As some people think he should have stayed in NYC after Wednesday's brutal Bronx fire - and not gone to Miami, some people ascribe his cool "delegate issues to underlings" and "move onto the next thing" attitude to his business management experience. more ›

Today, there's a fascinating Op-Ed by Robert Sullivan about the state of NYC streets. Titled, "The City That Never Walks," Sullivan describes how NYC has "lost [its] golden pedestrian touch."

...yet, here in New York, we even have the debate over bicycle traffic backwards. We focus on drivers’ complaints about the bicycle commuter who races through red lights, rather than on the concerns of the mother biking her child around organic-food delivery trucks that idle in bike-only lanes. In December, the police say, a bicyclist was killed on the Hudson River Greenway by a drunken driver speeding along a bike lane that was completely separated from the road. Asked what was being done to improve safety in light of the biker’s death, Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested that bikers “pay attention.” more ›

One much discussed issue in the comments following bicyclist Eric Ng's death last week is how to prevent motor vehicles from getting on the Hudson River Park bike path. The New York State Transportation Department is responsible for the path and the Times is reporting this morning that state transportation officials are considering installing bollards to keep cars away. The concrete and steel bollards are likely to replace the plastic pylons at major intersections and other locations where cars might enter the pathway. more ›

If you're in the West Village or Chelsea today, swing by one of these happenings: more ›

We're always looking for current bike path maps. The most authoratative comes from Transportation Alternatives, but it's a 1.5MB PDF, and hasn't been updated this year. The NYC Bike Map 2006 mashup pictured above is attempting to fill in the gaps, but seems to be missing a bunch of the smaller paths. We've already featured the Secret Bike Maps page-- but still haven't taken that trip to City Island. Has anyone successfully biked up there from Manhattan? We've circled the route on the map above, but we're not sure how long it would take to get there and back, and none of our pansy-ass friends will do it without some more information. more ›