Kallos/D.O.T. bike safety event draws 3
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
Turnout at an Upper East Side bicycle
safety event hosted by the
city Department of Transportation
was surprisingly low.
Only three men decided to come to
the July 15 event in the basement of
St. Joseph’s Church on E. 87th St. at 2
p.m. The event, which lasted an hour,
was advertised by D.O.T. as an interactive
forum for business owners to learn
how to comply with city law on deliveries
by bicycle, in order to keep cyclists,
drivers and pedestrians safe. All three
attendees were delivery bicyclists working
for nearby restaurants.
Although the event was organized
by D.O.T, funding for it was provided
by the offi ce of Councilmember Ben
Kallos, who started organizing cycling
safety events in 2014 after community
members in his Upper East Side district
repeatedly expressed concern about
what they called reckless bicycling.
Usually, bike safety events like this
are held around twice a year. At past
bicycle education forums, free helmets,
jackets, bells and lights have been given
out. But at the July 15 event, there was
no helmet giveaway, which might have
increased attendance.
“It’s a very controversial issue and
most people report near misses,” Kallos
said about bicycle deliverymen in
his district. “At the same time, I think
we happen to have more takeout deliveries
than any other place in the city
— if not the world.”
“If you ask what’s for dinner in the
Upper East Side, the answer is ‘takeout,'”
Councilmember Ben Kallos, second from left, with Department of Transportation
representatives and bicycle deliveryman Lucas Lopez, third from right, at
the recent Bike Safety Training for Business Forum.
he added.
According to New York Police Department
data, in the Upper East Side’s
19th and 17th precincts, police have
made a total of 81 e-bike seizures and
issued 1,749 summonses to bicycles —
mainly for not giving the right of way
to pedestrians or running a red light
—since October 2018. This year, New
York State lawmakers legalized e-bikes
and e-scooters at the state level, but
allowed for local jurisdictions to ban
them. E-bikes and e-scooters still remain
illegal in the city.
Attendance at past bicycling education
events has averaged 15 to 20 participants,
according to a Kallos spokesperson,
though the last event, held in
PHOTO BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
December 2017, boasted 60 attendees.
D.O.T., the agency in charge of distributing
fl iers and educating nearby
businesses about such events, has yet to
respond to questions about its outreach
methods to this paper.
According to a Kallos spokesperson,
D.O.T. sent canvassers to deliver fl iers
about the event to restaurants and other
businesses utilizing delivery cyclists
across the Upper East Side. A trio of interns
from the councilmember’s offi ce
also delivered fl iers between E. 93rd
and E. 85th Sts. on First and Second
Aves. a week prior to the event.
During their time with members of
Councilmember Kallos’s staff, attendees
were given a bicycle bell, a yellow
vest, bicycle lights and a thin handbook
on what businesses using bicycle delivery
are required to do under the law.
Businesses must display the Commercial
Bicyclists Safety poster in an
area that delivery cyclists can easily see
it, in a language they understand, and
have a roster of every delivery cyclist,
including their name, home address,
start date, and discharge date, if need
be, plus unique three-digit ID number,
along with the date and completion of
the D.O.T. Commercial Bicyclist Safety
Course that cyclists must take. Businesses
must supply their delivery cyclists
with a unique three-digit number,
a helmet, a business ID card and refl ective
jacket that features the business’s
name and cyclist’s ID number.
According to Kallos, the number
of cyclists colliding with pedestrians
or with cars has dropped due to his
efforts. Along with other education
public events and supporting physical
infrastructure changes, Kallos has a
partnership with the E. 72nd Neighborhood
Association to give letter
grades to restaurants utilizing delivery
bicycles. Association members will sit
outside of restaurants and wait to inspect
delivery workers for appropriate
gear and signage.
“If they are using an e-bike, they get
an automatic ‘F,’ and if they are missing
any of the materials they might get
a ‘B’ or a ‘C,'” said Kallos, who added
that the neighborhood watchdogs have
increased compliance by about 20 percent.
A list of the restaurants with their
corresponding grades is printed out
and made available in the councilmember’s
offi ce, at 244 E. 93rd St.
Takin’ it to the (car-free) street: Broadway gets mural
BY GABE HERMAN
Talk about street art!
A new mural that stretches
along Broadway for a block
in Midtown is part of the annual Urban
Garden program by the Garment
District Alliance, which cordons off a
street to cars to create more pedestrian
oriented space.
The closed-off block, Broadway between
W. 37th and 38th Sts., features
a 180-foot-long mural — on the street.
Called “Nymph Pond,” it’s by artist
Carla Torres and debuted on July 11.
The artwork was inspired by a small
pond in the Galapagos Islands where
the artist used to visit, according to
the Garment District Alliance, which
is a business improvement district, or
BID. Torres is originally from Quito,
Ecuador, and moved to New York City
in 2006 to pursue a career as an artist
and illustrator.
The block is also part of the BID’s
year-round Art on the Plaza program,
Strolling in an “urban garden” of sorts on Broadway, without cars.
which has run since 2010, along with
the Department of Transportation’s
Seasonal Streets Program, which turns
streets into public plazas.
PHOTO BY GABE HERMAN
The closed-off block includes stretches
of green turf, cafe chairs and tables,
birch trees, planters and a bike lane that
runs alongside the mural. There will
also be free lemonade and live music
on Wednesday afternoons. The Urban
Garden will run through Aug. 31.
This is one of several attempts in the
city to transform streets temporarily
into public spaces. The fi rst three Saturdays
in August will see the return of
D.O.T.’s Summer Streets program; on
Aug. 3, 10 and 17, between 7 a.m. and
1 p.m., seven miles of streets will be
car-free from the Brooklyn Bridge to
Central Park, including Park Ave. and
connecting streets.
Free activities on the closed-off
Summer Streets will include fi tness
programs, play areas for kids and food
stands. Last year the program drew
almost 300,000 people, according to
D.O.T. It’s modeled after similar events
that occur worldwide, including in Paris,
Bogota and London.
Earlier this year, the city also held its
annual Car-Free Day on April 27, during
which 30 blocks of Broadway were
closed to traffi c between Times Square
and Union Square.
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