Terrorist attack in lower Manhattan

Barriers on the Hudson River Greenway

The newly placed barriers on the Hudson River Greenway are grossly misguided and are causing problems. They will cause more problems, and they solve no problem whatsoever. It was a problem that a terrorist killed and injured so many people. Believe me, I am shaken, as I ride that path every day. But this response is not a solution. Doing nothing would have been better than this response. Some may be comforted that the city did something. It may give some the illusion of increased safety. That illusion serves no one. Doing something, anything, as long as it’s something, is not rational or humane or even intelligent. The barriers create pinch points which will cause bike-bike and bike-pedestrian collisions. I’m sure it will, and if they stay for much longer, you will see this, I promise. And they will not prevent any terrorist attacks. Those attacks rely on opportunity and surprise. The next attack will be of a completely different nature in a different kind of place precisely because surprise is a key ingredient. Therefore, creating this kind of widespread inconvenience serves no one and disserves many of us. Let’s use resources in that will combat the risk that are in proportion to the risk. That risk is very small even though the attack was so horrific. We accept that we might die of heart disease or in a car collision, but we do not want to die with many others all at once through a vile deliberate act. Yet the disgust over such a kind of death does not justify any and all costs or precautions. We need to move as freely and as quickly and as enjoyably as is reasonable. The barriers are a disproportionate and unreasonable measure.

Tom_Reingold said:

Barriers on the Hudson River Greenway

The newly placed barriers on the Hudson River Greenway are grossly misguided and are causing problems. They will cause more problems, and they solve no problem whatsoever. It was a problem that a terrorist killed and injured so many people. Believe me, I am shaken, as I ride that path every day. But this response is not a solution. Doing nothing would have been better than this response. Some may be comforted that the city did something. It may give some the illusion of increased safety. That illusion serves no one. Doing something, anything, as long as it’s something, is not rational or humane or even intelligent. The barriers create pinch points which will cause bike-bike and bike-pedestrian collisions. I’m sure it will, and if they stay for much longer, you will see this, I promise. And they will not prevent any terrorist attacks. 

I agree. Of course the bollards won't prevent terrorist attacks. If not there, then some sidewalk or other pedestrian or bike path. Are we to bollarize the whole city?

We're told that we're brave and we won't let this terrorist change our way of life. 

NY'ers are brave. But the politicians? They tell us how this terrorist has failed because we will keep on going as before. But then they change everything on us with these bollards. Did the terrorist then really fail? How many bicyclists really wanted these bollards?

Wannabe terrorists must be smirking.

It is all a matter of degree but I saw a report that drunk and maybe even just confused drivers have at times gone onto the path. So it seems as if some kind of narrowing at intersections is prudent. 

The other TomR & BG,

I'm gonna take your words for it that the bollards adjacent to the bike paths are inconvenient to some.

The bollards at Foley Square were inconvenient to me when erected. The ID process at airports is inconvenient; as are the carry-on restrictions.

A lot of things are not what we'd like, post September 11. 2001.

Personally, I'd rather leave security to the intelligence agencies; and let the general public go about their business unimpeded, absent reasonable suspicion.

But, that's just one man's opinion. Of course, I could be wrong.

-----

BG,

You think that wannabe terrorists must be smirking. I think that Ben Franklin is laughing out loud.

TomR

The use of these barricades is a proven defense tactic against vehicular attacks or accidents. They should have been in place already. Whether or not bikers find them inconvenient is probably a small price to pay.

I'm hesitant to be divisive here... but... as a pedestrian, I'm ok with inconveniencing NYC bikers. Bikes are still vehicles, and when they're in close proximity to pedestrians, they should be going slower.

If you want to argue that we should ban cars from most of Manhattan and have bikes be in the streets and pedestrians on the sidewalks, I'm there 100%. But complaining that putting up barriers in mixed bike/pedestrian pathways is inconvenient to bikers? Sorry, no. People > Bikes > Cars is my priority list.

this is a pretty stupid response by the city.  There are still plenty of other places where a driver can plow into scores of pedestrians.  I was riding the greenway from the Upper West to the ferry terminal over the summer.  It's actually one of the least dense pedestrian/cyclist areas of the city, proof of which is that the attacker last week rode for a mile and killed 8 people.  A driver would kill more people than that if he/she drove into a crowd at 34th and 7th during rush hour.

Yes these other places are called streets. certainly traffic is needed there to get 8 million people to/from work.

ml1 said:

this is a pretty stupid response by the city.  There are still plenty of other places where a driver can plow into scores of pedestrians.  I was riding the greenway from the Upper West to the ferry terminal over the summer.  It's actually one of the least dense pedestrian/cyclist areas of the city, proof of which is that the attacker last week rode for a mile and killed 8 people.  A driver would kill more people than that if he/she drove into a crowd at 34th and 7th during rush hour.

ml1 said:

this is a pretty stupid response by the city.  There are still plenty of other places where a driver can plow into scores of pedestrians.  I was riding the greenway from the Upper West to the ferry terminal over the summer.  It's actually one of the least dense pedestrian/cyclist areas of the city, proof of which is that the attacker last week rode for a mile and killed 8 people.  A driver would kill more people than that if he/she drove into a crowd at 34th and 7th during rush hour.

Have you noticed how many major intersections in the City have those big concrete planters or other obstacles on the sidewalk edges?

Though really these are half measures. Whether the cause is terrorism, drunkenness, or just poor driving, the truth is we give too much space to cars and not enough to people, with deadly consequences. Get the cars out of the central city. That would also have the ancillary benefit of freeing up the streets for bikes, as the pedestrian vs bike arguments are really just a result of the fact that we entertain getting rid of cars altogether so we can properly separate bikes from pedestrians.

 Cities should be for humans, not vehicles. 

conandrob240 said:

The use of these barricades is a proven defense tactic against vehicular attacks or accidents. They should have been in place already. Whether or not bikers find them inconvenient is probably a small price to pay.

If you say that, then I haven't conveyed how badly they are placed. They leave a tiny amount of space with a large volume of both pedestrian and bike traffic to go through. They are preventing normal motion.

I've seen them and I disagree.

PVW said:

I'm hesitant to be divisive here... but... as a pedestrian, I'm ok with inconveniencing NYC bikers. Bikes are still vehicles, and when they're in close proximity to pedestrians, they should be going slower.

If you want to argue that we should ban cars from most of Manhattan and have bikes be in the streets and pedestrians on the sidewalks, I'm there 100%. But complaining that putting up barriers in mixed bike/pedestrian pathways is inconvenient to bikers? Sorry, no. People > Bikes > Cars is my priority list.

As a cyclist and pedestrian, I agree with your hierarchy.

I also agree that bikes shouldn't go faster than about 13 mph on mixed-use paths.

But these barriers leave tiny openings and caused me to slow down more severely than a speed hump makes a car slow down. For example, you'll drive a car a 25 mph and then slow down to, say, 12 mph over the hump. That's a reduction by half. When I have to go from 13 mph to 2 mph, that's a bigger drop, and doing that repeatedly makes the whole exercise seem fruitless. Does that make it clearer?

I just learned that they've spun these barriers so they are now oriented parallel to the direction of traffic. I didn't ride the path today. So perhaps there is now a happy medium.

Also, people should know that this path has different designs in different sections. Some sections are divided where the cyclists and pedestrians are not supposed to mix at all, which means that there are bike-only parts of the path.