There are two explanations given for the removal of a bicycle lane on a street in Brooklyn:
1) Some say that the Orthodox Jews in the neighborhood were concerned about women bicycling through the neighborhood in shorts and short sleeves.
2) Some say that people in the neighborhood were worried that a bicycle lane threatened the safety of their children getting off of school buses.
I’m not an inside dealer in the offices of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, so I have no idea which is the real explanation. I can say that, in a city where the filthy air threatens public health, where cars strike down pedestrians and bicyclists alike, both explanations of the lane removal demonstrate an appalling lack of perspective.
There are much bigger problems facing residents of New York City than bicycles. Whatever the explanation, there’s an orthodoxy of some sort at work that’s grown far too isolated from reality.
