Ticketing cyclists in prospect park today

I hate the racers there. they think they are lance or something.

I was walking in the park and also witnessed 10 bikers run the red light while I tried to cross at the green light at the pedestrian crossing. I say ticket away!

On weekends and daylight hours in general? Absolutely! Now, when will the City ban all of the car traffic? Has anyone else noticed that the automobiles come precariously closer to the cyclists now that the lanes have been changed?

some cops are jerks too.

99% of the ticktets are fair but sometimes its just wtf. I gotten a few of those.

One time one cop was trying to get a easy arrest not ticket related but tenant related lol.

One of my tenants left alot of fireworks in their storage/garage when they left.

I call the cops to hand them in. They were there for a long time trying to convince me to admit it was mine. he kept questioning me for like 10 mins or so. at that point i was getting angry. I told him flat out.

Are you going to take it officer or not? He tried to talk more, but at that point i was like, look I'm going to throw this into the garbage right now. If someone gets hurt, there is a record of it I called it in and you refused to take it. He stop taking and took it. and left. That guy was a huge dick.

@brooklynzoo

I think it is possible to train early in the morning on weekends and I have certainly done that on occasion. However I have noticed that there is an obvious uptick in park users after 9:00AM and the loop is no longer a safe and viable option. When that happens I generally take to the Windsor Park & South Slope areas for some hill repeats, etc..

Tomorrow, the park will be less full than today. Going thru red lights is less inconsiderate and less dangerous when there is no one around.

The police are using discretion in enforcing the law, because some park users (bikers, joggers, picnicers etc) do not adapt to the changing conditions, and need "help" from an authority figure to think things thru.

Good use of resources.

I hope the cops come back each weekend until it gets cold and the park is less used.

so they actually have a real push button that works, it was a urban myth for decades .

Here's some more background on what was going in PP yesterday.

http://brooklynspoke.com/2012/07/17/volunteers-needed-in-prospect-park/

Do you expect the police to either always be present, or never be present?

To me it seems like they are being present when most needed. The rest of the time, the pedestrians and bikers seem to be sparse enough that they will co-exist.

There are also a lot dumber bikers and pedestrians on weekends; They need to be told to think.

Well, officially it will never be ok to run red lights, but you won't get a consequence unless you do it at a really crowded time, when you should know better.

Much of life involves discretion. One thinks about whether the law makes sense at a given moment, with the probability of getting caught.

The police seem to believe too many bikers are deciding it doesn't make sense to stop, in circumstances when it is the polite and safe thing to do.

...they are trying to make them think more.

This page seems to confirm that folks acknowledge that this is going to be a tedious process for everyone involved:

http://www.prospectpark.org/about/community-news-updates-post/road_sharing_taskforce_highlights?lpid=1544603

whynot_31 said:

This page confirms that when cars are absent (such as on weekends) the traffic lights are green unless a pedestrian pushes the button:

http://www.prospectpark.org/about/community-news-updates-post/update-on-the-park-drives

So, when a biker runs a red light on a weekend, s/he is doing it not only in violation of the law but also after a pedestrian has waited to cross the street.

...sounds like said biker deserves a ticket to me.

and bikers don't stop at lights. I am not saying they shouldn't but the vast majority of bikers in NYC do not. The fact that some "Task Force" asked for some random Sunday enforcement is not going to get them to stop.

The scary thing is that someone is going to press that button and cross the roadway when it says walk. They are not going to look and they are going to get slammed into by a biker who may or may not have know they were supposed to stop.

Also, the yellow does not last long enough to get a bike to stop when it is going down the hill.

The web site you cited is a little out of date with their information as there isn't a "recreation lane" anymore.

• When the Park Drive is closed to motor vehicles, use traffic lanes - the recreation lane is for runners and walkers.

• When the Park Drive is open to motor vehicles, use the right half of the recreation lane.

My beef is with the "salmon". They are a danger to all.

Today's NYT:

Penalty for Rule-Breaking Bicyclists: A Remedial Class

By J. DAVID GOODMAN

The eight wrongdoers sat inside a windowless basement classroom, serving a court-ordered penance for their transgressions. For the next 90 minutes, they would learn about the proper rules of the road, how to use hand signals and when to change lanes safely — even if most did not believe they had done anything wrong.

Spencer Aste, left, rode his bike to class, in the basement of a sporting goods store. He said he had been wrongly given a ticket after traffic forced him from the road and into a crosswalk.

“He said I wasn’t in the bike lane,” said Kenny McKissick, a 32-year-old messenger. “But I was on the line.”

This spring, the Midtown Community Court began sentencing cyclists who had been issued tickets for certain offenses in and around Midtown Manhattan to a class to learn about bicycles and traffic.

Think remedial driver’s education — for bike riders.

“You couldn’t possibly ticket all of the stuff you see irresponsible cyclists do,” said Judge Felicia Mennin, who worked with the nonprofit organization Bike New York to develop the new sentencing option.

But, she acknowledged, some riders may be honestly confused about what is allowed. “There are a lot of laws and not always clarity about abiding by the law,” she said.

The class, held below a sports store on the Upper West Side, is the first dedicated to cyclists but is a close cousin to other education programs at the court, which seeks to address quality of life offenses like prostitution and graffiti with alternatives to jail or fines.

It comes amid broad agreement among bike advocates and the Transportation Department that compelling riders to obey traffic signals, go with traffic and stay off the sidewalk is critical to improving the image of cycling and ensuring the long-term health of New York City’s expanding bicycle network. That mission will become even more important once the city’s bike-share program rolls out in the next month or so.

So far, 30 cyclists have been sent to the class, the court said. The two most common offenses have been riding on the sidewalk and not using the bicycle lane.

Mr. McKissick was hardly alone in complaining of unfair treatment at a class last week. Several cyclists admitted riding on the sidewalk for a few feet and complained that the sentence — often a day of community service in addition to the class — was excessive.

“It was literally three seconds,” Steve Galiczynski said of his short sidewalk ride to his parking spot on the Upper West Side, witnessed by a police officer. He said he had already spent a day cleaning up trash in Times Square. “This whole thing is nuts. It’s like I’m in a Russian novel — a crazy Russian novel.”

The class included slide presentations on bicycle law, hand signals and moving safely through traffic, as well as a discussion of cyclists’ rights and how abiding by the law could help them curry good favor from the broader public. Some of the men sat with folded arms; there was palpable resentment after each described the reason for his ticket. It emerged that none were there for what they considered serious offenses, like running a red light or going the wrong way.

“Normally,” said Rich Conroy, the instructor from Bike New York, “red light running is a traffic violation and they send that to the D.M.V. courts.” Wrong-way riding is treated similarly. Mr. Conroy said he would like to see those types of violations end up in his class, but that would mean changing the way the police write up tickets for cyclists.

Since starting the new class, Mr. Conroy has also made shorter presentations to police officers in Midtown to help clarify the finer points of the law. “I focus on the bike lane law because a quarter of the students I’ve seen have gotten tickets for riding outside of the lane,” he said. While cyclists are required to use bike lanes when available, there are exceptions: when preparing to make a turn or the lane is obstructed or unsafe. “There’s nothing in the law that says you have to bike suicidally,” he said.

If there is one thing that unites New Yorkers who see bikes as a menace with others who view them as a mainstream form of urban transportation, it is a mutual disdain for the lawbreaking cyclist.

It has always been thus in the city, at least since the days a century ago when pedestrians, buggy drivers and leisure cyclists alike railed against the dangers of speedy riders, known at the time as scorchers.

Mr. Conroy said he hoped that by spreading knowledge about the law to both cyclists and to the police, he could alleviate what appeared to be confusion over what is permissible and help focus enforcement on dangerous riding.

But for now, it remains a work in progress.

Spencer Aste, 47, an actor who lives on the Upper West Side and rode his bike to the class last week, said he had been cited after being forced off the road by traffic and clattering to the pavement in a crosswalk.

“I’m on my face, bleeding,” he said. “When I got up, the cop was writing me a ticket.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/nyregion/manhattan-court-sends-erring-cyclists-to-remedial-class.html?_r=1