Seniors Claim Their Street Space

New Yorkers of a certain age grill DOT, bicycling advocates, on street safety

By Daniel Fitzsimmons

Seniors from all over the city gathered last week at the JASA Club on West 76th Street for a lively -- and sometimes frustrated –- discussion about the fraught relationship they have with bicyclists while navigating city streets on foot.

JASA, a senior center on the Upper West Side, organized the forum in conjunction with Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, who sat on a panel with two representatives from Transportation Alternatives, an administrator at Riverside Park, a traffic safety officer from the 20th Precinct, and the Department of Transportation’s Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione.

Transportation Alternatives brought along a volunteer named Gene Aronowitz, 77-years-old and an avid bicyclist, who said he could relate to both sides of the debate.

Aronowitz said there have been 200 traffic fatalities so far this year, 100 of which were pedestrians; 17 cyclists were killed, he said. Although he said he recognizes that enforcement is necessary on dangerous bicyclists, he said that cars are the bigger issue, citing just two pedestrian fatalities from bicyclists compared to 98 from cars.

“The probability that I will get killed on the streets from a bicyclist is infinitesimal,” said Aronowitz. “It’s the cars that we have to look out for.”

While that may be true, seniors at the meeting said they’re not just worried about dying in a collision with a bicyclist. They’re tired of the heart-stopping near misses and watching bicyclists flout the law with impunity, to say nothing of serious injuries that occur when a collision does happen.

Sitting in the front row with a cane resting against her knee was Toby Bush, a JASA regular who said she was struck by a bicyclist going the wrong way on Park Avenue in August. Bush said she suffered a shattered hip and a broken femur.

“My life was taken away,” said Bush.

She suggested criminal liability for those who injure bicyclists and said informational campaigns by the DOT and Transportation Alternatives don’t make a difference in terms of educating bicyclists.

“All these brochures don’t do a thing, nobody reads them,” she said.

Several people in the room had stories of being struck by bicyclists, and nearly everyone who spoke knew someone who had a run-in.

Aronowitz did gain some traction when he addressed the issue of signal timing in crosswalks, which he said is inadequate for a senior’s gait.

“The lights aren’t made for us,” said Aronowitz. He cited a 2010 study that claimed seniors represent 12 percent of the city’s population, but 36 percent of pedestrian fatalities.

Aronowitz said unruly bicyclists running red lights and riding the wrong way, combined with inadequate signal timing for seniors, is a recipe for disaster.

“When we’re trying to make the light and don’t know which way the bikes are coming from, we get disoriented,” he said.

Several seniors at the forum agreed and called for the lengthening of signals at 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue.

Sgt. Felicia Montgomery, the 20th Precinct’s traffic safety officer, said so far this year police in her precinct have given out 446 summonses to bicyclists breaking the law, more than any other prior year. Violators must settle their summonses at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, said Montgomery, and face a hefty $250 fine, similar to what drivers who are caught breaking the law have to pay.

“Every day we’re out there enforcing this,” said Montgomery.

Montgomery said the department has a general policy of not pursuing bicyclists who break the law, and that in order to issue a bicyclist a summons they must be at a full stop. In response to that, Tom DeVito, a representative with Transportation Alternatives, said the NYPD should look into deploying more officers on bicycles who can more easily and safely track bicyclists who break the law.

Several people at the forum brought up the dangerous mix of bicyclists and pedestrians in Riverside Park, both of which have to share a relatively narrow ribbon of path that gets dangerous as dusk falls, said several seniors.

John Harrold, an administrator at Riverside Park, said where possible, the park attempts to separate the two streams.

“That’s not always an option, but it’s something we continue to work on,” said Harrold.

Many in the room were in favor of some sort of licensing program for bicyclists, an idea that was immediately shot down by Forgione, who said such an undertaking would be bureaucratically burdensome and not feasible. For instance, she said, how would tourists who don’t live in New York obtain licenses to tool around the city?

Others requested an audit be conducted of just how many bicyclists use the bike lanes around Columbus and 72nd Street, and suggested that the lanes weren’t used enough to justify their existence.

But Forgione said there is a need for even more bike lanes on the Upper West Side, which she claims make everyone safer.

She revealed that DOT has agents in the street, particularly around Columbus Avenue who, while lacking the authority to issue summonses to unruly bicyclists, nonetheless engage with those who disobey traffic laws and encourage both bicyclists and pedestrians to be vigilant and safe.

Forgione also said the DOT would be announcing in the coming weeks what plans they have to make Central Park safer for pedestrians.

One popular suggestion was a ticketing blitz on unruly cyclists, which Forgione said would probably need to happen over a sustained amount of time for any effect to be seen. She suggested targeted ticketing campaigns in areas that see the highest number of bicyclists breaking the law.

On the whole, seniors called for increased enforcement and stiffer penalties for bicyclists who break the law, and some sort of registration system where violators can be easily reported and held accountable.

But Forgione made it clear that any sort of registration mechanism is unlikely to be put in place, and indicated the city is committed to integrating bicycling culture to an even larger extent, a notion that was unpopular among the seniors at the JASA Club.

“I’m not hearing anything new here,” said one woman.

Suggestions that seemed to stick included maintaining the upwards trend in ticketing unruly bicyclists and making parks safer for pedestrians, as well as lengthening signal timing at key intersections.