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Expanding bike lanes, handing out free helmets and making lessons free: New York is making great strides in encouraging pedal power at the expense of exhaust fumes, even if some cyclists are still nervous about navigating bottleneck traffic.
For years, the city of 8.5 million—which has the most extensive public transport network in the United States—stood and watched the bike boom take off in European capitals.
In 2013, then billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg launched the Citi Bike sharing scheme and since then, New York has seen the fastest growth rate in cycle use of any big US city.
"The city has come a long ways in terms of having a much stronger commitment to promoting bicycling," says Rich Conroy, education director for Bike New York, a non-profit organization that encourages safe cycling.
"People realize we can't grow as a city by building more streets and adding more cars," explained Conroy.
Get exercise time in, lose weight, get to work, and save money all at the same time. What's not to love?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 22 2017, @11:57AM (1 child)
N of 1 story first: I got to work one winter day, riding through the tire ruts in the snow, to find myself alone except for the servers. Even the building security, which our landlord hired, didn't show. Turns out the schools had a snow day so all the parents kept back... and then everyone else did too.
But it varies - mostly by conditions!
Slush is fine. It's slow. It'll clog rim brakes a bit. It's a little more like a boat than a bike normally is. But unless temps are dropping and a brake line re-freezes on a downhill, or some other avoidable control loss, it's just kinda gross.
Very cold is fine. It's dry and generally roads get salted, gritted, cleared, and stay that way. If the road has snow it'll stay solid and not really be a problem even if it builds up between tire and frame, where it just self-coagulates into a fatter fender. Have warm gloves and earmuffs! Don't ride with wet hair!
Hardpack is so-so. Sometimes it'll kind of crumble under-tire which slows but eases handling and isn't unpleasant. Sometimes it'll just keep its texture and then it's like mountain biking on moderately bumpy terrain. This is the condition that spike tires are suited for.
Melting and refreezing is sketchy. Water over ice is dangerous on two wheels, as one drops instead of side-sliding. In particular avoid places where people were walking, their refrozen footsteps will act like brutally slippery cobblestones, jolting the bike around.
Black ice and other straight slick ice is of course lethal. Frost is worse than snow on downhills.
On the whole, I find winter riding faster than bussing, about the same as driving for 2-4km, and a little slower but much more pleasant than driving for 4-20km. I haven't done more than 20km in real winter conditions. I expect the drag would be pretty tiring.
(Score: 4, Informative) by tonyPick on Wednesday November 22 2017, @02:03PM
Frequent cycle commuter here - and the above is basically spot on. I'd add that fresh snow is actually a lot of fun to ride on with the right kind of knobbly MTB tires, and I'd be a bit warier over packed car tire tracks since sometimes the snow can compress down into a solid slippery block, but tracks versus fresh depends a bit on the exact conditions.
In general there aren't many conditions when I don't feel it'd safe to cycle to cycle through a city in winter, and it's never so bad you can't get off and walk for a few meters, at which point you've got a bike as an inline zimmer frame and a helmet on.
Country lanes, some "tend to refreeze overnight and don't get gritted" back roads, and the odd downhill stretch cover pretty much the only places I'll avoid, and those are the places you don't really want to walk down either.