Midtown Cyclists Routinely Break Law, Study Finds

From New York Times

An expanded study of bicycle behavior in Midtown Manhattan has found that “a large number of cyclists routinely disobey many traffic laws.” Thirty-seven percent rode through red lights, while 28.7 percent paused to look — then ran the light. More than 10 percent rode against traffic, and fully two-thirds were riding without a helmet, a requirement for delivery workers and children under 14.

Those were some of the less-than-stellar observations made in the research study [text, pdf] by Peter S. Tuckel, professor of sociology, and William Milczarski, professor of urban planning, both at Hunter College.

The study, based on 5,275 observations by Hunter college students of riders at 45 randomly generated intersections across Midtown from First to 10th Avenues and 14th to 59th Streets, was a rigorous and scientific version of a survey the professors conducted in November 2008. The 2008 survey saw similar bad cycling behavior, but its results could not be generalized to all riders in central Manhattan, because it was based on a “convenience sample,” the researchers said.

How bad bike behavior ought to be judged relative to bad car and pedestrian behavior is not addressed by the study, though Spokes readers have offered their own suggestions in the past and have atoned for their own bicycle sins.

The current study, based on observations at randomly generated intersections, can be broadly applied to Midtown bikers, Dr. Tuckel said in a phone interview.

“It’s an enormous sample — so we’re very confident with the results,” he said.

Yet some cycling advocates were quick to dismiss the results.

“They picked probably one of the only areas of the city that is bereft of bike lanes,” said Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for Transportation Alternatives, a transit advocacy group. According to the city’s cycling map, the area under study has about six bike lanes. Below 14th Street, there are more than a dozen.

“It makes no mention of bicycling infrastructure,” he added. “It’s like we’re talking about this in 1995 and they haven’t been paying attention for the last five years.”

A thoroughly unscientific study conducted Monday by this Spokes reporter on the corner of 40th and Broadway, where the city has recently built a protected bike lane, found that from 2:22 to 2:32 P.M., most riders used the lane (15 of the 24 observed were using it, including a huge cargo pedicab pulling a large rack with 12 more bikes).

From April 1 to 28, the students, undergraduates in the sociology department and graduate students in urban planning, recorded several variables, including: helmet use; behavior at lights; riding with traffic, on the sidewalk or in the bike lane (if available); and the use of an iPod, cellphone or other electronic device. The students also collected demographic information, including whether the riders were commercial or “general.”

However, as Mr. Norvell pointed out, the study does not specify how the students determined that a given cyclist was a commercial rider if there was no visible commercial insignia. It is therefore difficult to say how many of those riders were accurately tallied, and also whether in fact only 23.6 percent of delivery riders complied with the city law requiring helmets for delivery cyclists.

“That’s troubling, because there’s a different set of laws that apply to commerical cycling than to the general public,” Mr. Norvell said. “In the methodology, it does not state how they’re making that distinction.”

“I think that’s a major failure,” he added.

Among the riders observed in the study, 49.8 percent were general and 44.4 percent were commercial or “delivery riders.” (For about 5 percent of cyclists, the student observers were unable to determine whether the riders were commercial or general.)

Ninety-one percent of all riders in the study — and 99 percent of commercial riders — were male, though those few women who were observed by students were found to be more law-abiding, Dr. Tuckel said.

Few riders were seen holding mobile phones, but about 10 percent had some sort of electronic device like a hands-free phone or an iPod, the study said.

Lest the bike-friendly be inclined to accuse the Hunter College professors of partisanship in favor of bipeds or the four-wheeled, Dr. Tuckel assures that the study was done with general public safety in mind.

“I’m not interested in apportioning blame” among riders, drivers and pedestrians, he said. “Motorists could learn more about orienting themselves to the presence of cyclists.”

“The only agenda we have is to promote public safety,” he added. In the past, Dr. Tuckel’s students have also studied distracted drivers.

In their conclusion, the professors recommend greater enforcement of existing traffic laws and float the idea that commercial bikes be required to have license plates. (They add in a footnote that the license plate idea came from Bunny Abraham, an Upper West Sider who traded letters last fall with Transportation Alternatives in a community newspaper over bike behavior.)

The release of the Hunter College study coincides with bike month and with the unveiling of Transportation Alternatives’ new Street Code for the city’s bikers, a “major civic cycling education campaign” with the goal of establishing a pecking order, with pedestrians on top, followed by cyclists, followed by motor vehicles. On May 15, bike to work day, the group handed out 5,000 copies of the code at East River crossings and at City Hall.

“This is the kind of thing that we think is a productive and concerted way to improve bicycling behavior on New York City streets,” Mr. Norvell said.

The No. 1 rule of the new code: always yield to pedestrians.