Making biking a more accessible and safe mode of transportation is on the minds of everyone from lawmakers to citizens. Just as Provo has been working to install more bike racks in an effort of making the city more biker friendly, New York is making monumental changes to their roadways to allow safer passage for the brave bikers of the largest city in the United States. The difference between the two situations? New Yorkers aren’t too thrilled.
It is the efforts of Sadik-Khan and Mayor Bloomberg that are changing New York’s roadways in ways that the city has never seen. The amount of bike lanes has doubled, making it 500 and protected lanes that completely separate bikers from the street have also been installed on major roadways in the city.
Sadik-Khan has not gone without criticism for her biking revamp. Critics stoop as low as to even make fun of her name and hopeful successors to Bloomberg use ridding the city of the new bike lanes as a platform. Luckily for the bikers of New York, these two know that no changes could have begun without someone paving the way.
The streets of New York were so dangerous to bike on and provided such little accommodation in the ways of bike racks and police enforcement that it was almost impossible to increase the numbers of dedicated bikers. This in turn makes political reform even more difficult because the population requesting change is so small.
Biking can account for increases in different kinds of tourism and a demand for products to support that tourism. Biking is also a less expensive way to get around. If it was also safe then it could be a way for the unemployed to get to interviews and possible jobs. Not only is it a logical monetary strategy but it is also an environmental one as well because bikes don’t have any emissions.
Provo is another city working to become a cycling destination and increase the tourism that would come along with that. They have already begun the process of providing more bike racks and are promoting their unique biking trails. New Yorkers, however, don’t feel as if they need any more tourism. People already flock to the city and state for numerous other forms of entertainment and the citizens feel they should leave biking tourism to the already infamous green states like Oregon.
None of this has slowed the work of New York City’s cycling advocates Sadik-Khan and Mayor Bloomberg. Many changes have already taken place and just as many are in the works. One hopes that this will be enough for biking to begin a steady increase in popularity for the city of New York. Change is often opposed at first until that change becomes so much a part of life that you cannot remember being without it.