I recently moved to NYC which while slightly less hellish than expected, still manages to be very unfriendly to cyclists. NYPD routinely blames cyclists for their own deaths, seemingly always looking for some excuse for the driver's distraction/unawareness/aggressiveness.
I've lived in a few major American cities, where cycle infrastructure is poor and subservient to car traffic, and also in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany where cycling infrastructure is (mostly) reasonable and well-maintained. I've written on Metafilter before about the swedish infrastructure: http://www.metafilter.com/140136/Intersection-Protection#559...
It's pretty pathetic that the "greatest city" in the wealthiest country in the world can't provide better infrastructure.
Comments
I recently moved to NYC which while slightly less hellish than expected, still manages to be very unfriendly to cyclists. NYPD routinely blames cyclists for their own deaths, seemingly always looking for some excuse for the driver's distraction/unawareness/aggressiveness.
If you want a taste of the local discussion, just peruse the Streetsblog NYC bicycling category: http://nyc.streetsblog.org/category/bicycling/
I've lived in a few major American cities, where cycle infrastructure is poor and subservient to car traffic, and also in Sweden, Denmark, and Germany where cycling infrastructure is (mostly) reasonable and well-maintained. I've written on Metafilter before about the swedish infrastructure: http://www.metafilter.com/140136/Intersection-Protection#559...
It's pretty pathetic that the "greatest city" in the wealthiest country in the world can't provide better infrastructure.