RAISING AWARENESS OF THE CYCLISTS
Saturday morning I was at FedEx as soon as they opened and printed 20 posters with the Central Park bicycle rules and proceeded to post them at 17 locations on the electrical panels that control the crosswalk lights on the South Loop, which includes our crosswalk at West Drive at the 63rd Street entrance. CPC does nothing to passively inform cyclists of the rules and at the very least there should be signs posted where cyclists can see them. Pedestrians who do not press the button to turn on the red stoplight are also a big part of the problem, so these posters also included an arrow pointing to the crosswalk button and a notice that the button actually does work. Then I surveyed these locations again and photographed the results.
While I was hanging the posters, I noticed the tour guide from Unlimited Biking, who had led her entire tour group thru the red light at our crosswalk last week, leading another bicycle tour near Bethesda Fountain and shot a clip of her. Armed with this clip and a copy of the Central Park bicycle rules, I headed to their location on W 56th Street and sought out a manager. My purpose here was not to complain about the tour guide but to ask that they educate their guides about the park rules for bicycles. My rationale here was that the behavior of the bicycle tour group leader sets an example, not just for the cyclists in her group but also for all the other cyclists who see their tour group. When others see a bicycle tour group charge thru the red light as soon as pedestrians are clear, then all those other people think that is ok to do that, too. Then I went to their 57th Street location with the same request and for good measure, on the way there, stopped at another bicycle shop offering tours and repeated my entreaties.
All this activity left very little time to shoot clips in the crosswalk. I'll get back to that tomorrow.
Today's photo is a collage of 16 of the 17 locations where I posted the Central Park bicycle rules. There was no room to add the 17th.