by Yvonne Vávra
We see what we look at. I’ve been thinking about this lately because I learned a new word: iniquitous. I had managed to get by without it since I came to this country. Never encountered it, never needed it—until one day I stumbled across this vowel-heavy, letter-salad of a word in a newspaper and looked it up. And now it’s suddenly everywhere. It shows up in articles, conversations, podcasts, and it feels iniquitous of me to have ignored such a fine word for so long.
This is what brains do. Once we notice something, we start noticing it everywhere. You see one person smoking, then maybe another, and suddenly think: Is everyone smoking again? Rest assured, from then on, your attention will keep finding more examples to confirm that they are.
I recently became aware that a lot of Upper West Siders eat ice cream in what—to me—is not ice cream weather. Now all of you are eating ice cream all the time. Are you? All I know is that my brain is tuned to spot every cone and cup and ignores anything that doesn’t support my belief that you’re all doing ice cream wrong.
The more unusual something seems, the more it sticks—especially if it feels like a threat. Like a ruthless e-bike rider. Once you’ve seen a few frightening examples of reckless cycling, your brain starts scanning for them everywhere. You notice every near miss, every bad story, every rider who confirms what you already suspect: that dangerous bikers are all over the place. What fades into the background are the dozens of completely unremarkable, friendly cyclists in between.
If what we mostly notice are rule-breaking riders, it’s understandable to be concerned about the city’s plan to add a bike lane to 72nd Street. A portion of the Upper West Side is strongly opposed to it. They’re not convinced by the city’s promise that the change will improve safety for everyone. The main worry is that pedestrians, especially seniors and people with disabilities, will be at risk when crossing the bike lane or getting into a double-parked car. At a rally against the plan last weekend, one resident said that “stepping off of your curb onto a bi-directional bike lane is suicide.”
Hm. I’d say stepping off the curb is always a risky moment. It’s a street, full of fast-moving, unpredictable traffic that can hit you if you don’t make sure it’s safe to cross.
But while my mind is racing with thoughts, I’m not going to settle the debate over the 72nd Street bike lane in this column. What interests me more is the figure at its center: “the biker.”
They ride into the conversation as an urban menace that knows no laws—a force that slips through red lights, materializes out of nowhere, and is now somehow being rewarded with infrastructure. But the thing about “bikers” is how quickly they turn back into people once you actually look at them.
It’s a woman biking to work, a guy heading to a date, a dad taking his kid to school, a delivery worker trying to make rent, me with my puppy in a basket. We’re all just ordinary New Yorkers, trying to get somewhere in one piece.
It’s hard not to think this very mixed group deserves a measure of safety too. People on bikes are also constantly navigating dangers created by others: cars veering unexpectedly, passengers flinging open doors, double-parked vehicles forcing cyclists into traffic, pedestrians wandering into bike lanes—and yes, reckless riders too.
What may feel unsettling is not simply the bike lane itself, but the attempt to reorganize a choreography the neighborhood has long learned to navigate. However, change is coming, and the conversation about the 72nd Street redesign might feel different if we looked a little more closely at the full mix of people we call “bikers,” not just the ones who stand out.
To be sure, New Yorkers on bikes have a long history of alarming parts of the Upper West Side. When the bicycle craze rolled into the city in the late 19th century, many residents regarded the new riders as a threat to the way things were. The businessmen of the West Side Association, founded in 1866 to shape the neighborhood into an investor-friendly enclave, complained bitterly about cyclists zipping through the streets and parks. Others were especially troubled by women on bikes. Some were convinced that cycling could cause sexual arousal or might even enlarge women’s hands into something distressingly masculine.
Different eras, different fears.
Yvonne Vávra is a magazine writer and author of the German book 111 Gründe New York zu lieben (111 Reasons to Love New York). Born a Berliner but an aspiring Upper West Sider since the 1990s (thanks, Nora Ephron), she came to New York in 2010 and seven years later made her Upper West Side dreams come true. She’s been obsessively walking the neighborhood ever since.
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I am a recreational cyclist, and used to love cycling on New York’s bike paths. Not anymore. It just isn’t safe, now that we have e-bikes, delivery people riding (literally) motorcycles on them, scooters (and e-scooters), and as always, careless pedestrians, especially those with small children who fail to remember that they are sharing the roads with cyclists. And I never ever felt safe cycling on New York City streets.
Irony is, last October I was in Japan, and not only felt safe cycling on the bike paths, but also felt safe cycling on busy roads (in the highly populated streets in both Kyoto and Osaka.). Why? Drivers, pedestrians, and other cyclists actually respect the law, and each other. I recently did a cycling trip in Chile, with all cycling taking place on roads (though not in large cities) and again felt safe, much safer than in NYC.
It’s a shame because Bloomberg spent so much time and efforts to create all these bike roads, but to what avail?
Yes, go ahead and create that bike lane on 72nd street, but I doubt it will do much good for the cyclists, let alone anyone else.
Wonderfully written.
I get all that, but it still totally pisses me off when I am in a crosswalk with green light and a person on a bike crosses in front of me against a red light so close I can smell the BO .
Not convinced this change will be safer for everyone as the previously implemented bike lanes make if feel more dangerous for pedestrians. Are there any stats on pedestrian injuries from bike collisions?
Police will no longer file reports on bikes hitting pedestrians unless they are “killed or maimed”. So of course the accident rate is dropping.
I agree the protected bike lanes feel much more dangerous than when bikers are forced to ride on traffic.
The DOT has what it calls “stats”, but their methodology is, to put it politely, questionable. Under NYS Vehicle & Traffic Law, accidents are reported without distiction between whether the “vehicle” involved is a car, ebike, or bicycle. Thus, of the thousands of crashes with pedestrians every year, it’s possible that 1% were caused by bikes and it’s also possible that 99% were caused by bikes, and it’s likely that the percentage was somewhere in between. But DOT has no actual stats. The V&TL was revised effective 2025 but use of updated reporting forms has not been implemented. What you can find are reports of hundreds of pedestrians who have been injured (and some killed) by bikes, most of which never involved any official report. https://www.nycevsa.org/ recounts some of those incidents.
Having been seriously injured (3 broken ribs) by a speeding biker who left the scene before he could be identified, I have no sympathy for bikers who break the law, as so many do. And it is normal people on regular bikes as well as the messengers on e-bikes.
How about having some form of law enforcement against bikers who do not follow traffic rules? Or require some form of rules of the road tests and licensing for e-bikes? So many bikers and e-bikers choose not to stop at lights, use arm signals for turns, and otherwise abuse a lax system making it unsafe for themselves, drivers in cars and pedestrians. And what about enforcing helmet laws?
The premise of the author’s column is cute, but I don’t think it applies. I’m looking at every biker that’s coming and going in both directions (even on what is supposed to be a one-way street) every single time I cross the street every day. The amount of bikers that slow down all the way and stop and wait at a red light pales in comparison to the number of bikers that barely slow down, except to make sure there isn’t a car coming, veritably ignoring pedestrians who have the right of way. The amount of bikers who stop properly is so few in number that I intentionally make eye contact with them and say thank you for stopping. To those that speed by, I yell, “Red light!” The overwhelming majority of those don’t miss a single beat.
I think you left out the plethora of e-bike delivery people.
Those are a danger and go unreported.
The problem is many of the “bicycles” you encounter are actually motorcycles; like the one in the last photo. These should be classified motor vehicles. That would solve everyone’s fears.
It’s so simple. Why isn’t it implemented? If your conveyance has a motor of any kind, you must have insurance and registration. It won’t be expensive.
For that matter, if they sold insurance for un-motored bicycles, it would be dirt cheap.
A seemingly thoughtful point of view. But also an apologist for people in general on bikes. I doubt there would be such a backlash if bikers, whether on e-bikes or on traditional ones, observed traffic laws and the safety of pedestrians. Currently, most don’t, and almost everyone in the city has dodged bikers coming at them from every direction, been hit by a bike, or knows someone who has either been injured or narrowly escaped being badly hurt. No pun intended, but what goes around, comes around, and if bikers won’t ride responsibly, they should be treated as the menace to public safety that many of them currently are.
Spot on and wonderfully written as usual Yvonne!
Thank you for such a well written article. I am 76 and have biked in the city for years. This spring I decided to limit my cycling to Central Park. I am fortunate that I live a block away from the Park so getting there is not a problem, I used to love my rides across the Brooklyn Bridge, down to Governor’s Island, up to the Cloisters etc etc. However it’s become simply too dangerous. While there are many factors contributing to this the single greatest is the delivery guys. Even on the West Side Bike bath they speed on their scooters often with loud music playing. Of course every pedestrian is aware of the danger they present. I live on 57th St. and there is a mid block light. Never once have I seen a delivery guy stop at it. Of course so many of them ride on the sidewalk it’s maddening. I personally think serious enforcement with serious penalties is long overdue.
I never had the courage to bicycle on the streets of Manhattan, and so I fully understand and support the expansion of bike lanes. BUT, bicyclists have to begin complete adherence to traffic laws that apply to them. It is not just the messengers who ignore the rules of the road. It is also the everyday people you describe in your article. Law-abiding bicyclists are so rare, I actually thank them when I witness their compliance with a red light or other rule. Until then, they will remain a frightening addition to the roadscape, especially for us aging population with slowing reflexes and lessening ability to jump out of the way in a flash.
Once a bike crashed into me on my peugeot racer and destroyed it bicycling is a hobby of my past. Though I purchased an electric Cannondale for use on Cape Cod and decided I’ll stop riding .
Fine article by the way. Bus lane, bike lane no one enforces the rules except the parking rules.
Note: This is for the Bike Touring Groups that will not obey the laws 20 people on bike in a group with 1 instructor. Where are the rules in this industry. The professionals will do what they want, and so will the deli8very guys. This re-design is for these Touring Companies.
I was almost flattened yesterday (thankfully, I’m quite slow and extra careful with a broken foot and a cane, so I my pace was slower than I would’ve normally been) by a zoom-by-on-E-wheels who was weaving through traffic and burst into the crosswalk in a red light. I took (an ouchy!) sudden step back to avoid becoming a pancake. There was zero acknowledgement, zero apology, zero regard for others. I have nothing against all bikes, and I appreciate the unobstructed view that is (usually) available to see whether bikers are arriving). However, the enforcement for E-bikes and E-scooters and for against-traffic-riders needs to be revamped along with the addition of more protected lanes for bikers. The bikers who ride by the rules are not the problem. The lack of enforcement (or way to enforce, even) is. Why not have bikes be registered so errant ones can be tracked, and fines be actually levied on those who give all bike riders a bad name?
We need accountability! Licensing And, there must be required safety features — a simple light – so we can see them coming at night, and they can see each other. What happened to plan common sense rules?