Mayor mulls Citi
Biker helmets
From NorthEast to Far East and bike licenses
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
During a monthly crime-stats press conference
last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio said
that he was considering making Citi Bike
riders wear helmets and requiring all cyclists to get
licenses.
The comments were made after CBS2 reporter
Marcia Kramer asked if the mayor had considered
forcing Citi Bike users to wear helmets given the
high number of cyclist deaths in the city this year,
according to Streetsblog.
“I have thought about that,” de Blasio responded.
Later, during the press conference, de Blasio stated
that he he was also considering requiring cyclists in
New York City to have licenses.
But some cycling activists think that both measures
would do more harm than good.
“It’s just a bad idea,” said Bill Di Paola, director
of Time’s Up, an environmental organization that
promotes bicycling as a greener transportation alternative.
“It’s such a tight city and every day people think
about how they are going to move around and the
idea that they would have to carry a helmet around…
they would probably not use a bicycle,” he said.
It would be a slippery slope from implementing
a helmet law and license requirement, to decreasing
bicycling safety in the city, Di Paola argues. A
helmet law would deter ridership, decreasing the
number of cyclists on the streets, and so car drivers
would become less accustomed to safely sharing the
road, the activist said.
According to City Lab, helmet laws played a major
role in dismantling some bike-share programs in
Seattle and Melbourne, while bicycle licensing laws
implemented in cities like Chicago, Houston and
Los Angeles across the country also have failed.
But in Honolulu, a bicycle license law has been
successful. But its success lies in obtaining the fee
at the point of purchase. When residents buy a bike,
they pay an additional $15 fee for a license, which is
then delivered to their home.
Just four days before the press conference, a
47-year-old man was killed after an enraged SUV
driver in Bushwick, Brooklyn, intentionally plowed
into him, making him the 21st cyclist killed in New
York City this year, more than doubling last year’s
total.
After the city’s 17th bicyclist death of the year in
July, the mayor declared a bicycling “emergency”
and announced a new $58.4 million “Green Wave”
plan to add new bike lanes, redesign intersections
and increase enforcement of traffi c laws over the
next fi ve years.
The Department of Transportation did not respond
to comment by press time about the mayor’s
statements on helmets for Citi Bike riders and licenses
for all New York City cyclists.
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