Charles Komanoff

This is the concluding installment of a five-part series looking back at the victory over the Midtown bike ban, 25 years ago. Read parts one, two, three and four for an overview of the bike ban, the advocacy of the 1970s and 80s, and my recounting of the activism that followed the uprising against the ban. Activists are organizing a September 28 bike ride and forum to commemorate and celebrate these events, and Streetsblog readers are invited to participate and contribute.

This is the fourth installment in a multi-part series looking back at the victory over the Midtown bike ban, 25 years ago. Read parts one, two, and three for an overview of the bike ban, the advocacy of the 1970s and 80s, and the aftermath of the ban. Activists are planning a September 28 bike ride and forum to commemorate and celebrate the events of 1987, and Streetsblog readers are invited to participate and contribute.

This is the third installment in a multi-part series looking back at the victory over the Midtown bike ban, 25 years ago. Read parts one and two for an overview of the bike ban and the advocacy of the 1970s and 80s. Activists are planning a September 28 bike ride and forum to commemorate and celebrate the events of 1987, and Streetsblog readers are invited to participate and contribute.

This is the second installment in a multi-part series looking back at the victory over the Midtown bike ban, 25 years ago. The first part provided an overview of the response to the ban. This post looks at that activism in the context of the previous two decades of bike advocacy. Activists are planning a September 28 bike ride and forum to commemorate and celebrate the events of 1987, and Streetsblog readers are invited to participate and contribute.

Editor's note: This post, the first in a five-part series by Streetsblog contributor Charles Komanoff, recounts the activism that saved and rejuvenated bicycling in New York City 25 years ago. Future posts in this weekly series will place the "bike ban uprising" in the historical context of cycling advocacy. Activists are planning a September 28 bike ride and forum to commemorate and celebrate the events of 1987, and Streetsblog readers are invited to participate and contribute.

Hey, remedial math teachers: the City Comptroller’s office is hiring. At least, let’s hope so. Judging from Comptroller John Liu’s innumerate broadside against the City’s Bike Share program, they badly need help in basic arithmetic, not to mention fact-checking.

The great thing about arguments favoring compulsory bike helmet laws is that they tend to stay on topic instead of degenerating into fruitless bickering over cyclists’ interactions with pedestrians, bike riders’ claim to the streets, and other tired subjects.

Good job winning River Road, Komanoff. Now go for the Taconic.

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones,” wrote John Maynard Keynes in his ground-breaking 1935 treatise, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money."

Saturday will mark two months of non-stop acclaim for Gridlock Sam’s traffic-pricing plan. The accolades kicked off on March 5 with a gushing op-ed, "Meet Sam Schwartz," by New York Times emeritus editor Bill Keller, and they haven’t let up. The Wall Street Journal, Transportation Nation, WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, Channel 13, and Crain’s New York (a profile plus an editorial) have extolled Sam’s plan to overhaul New York’s tolling network and generate $15 billion over the next decade to improve roads, bridges, subways and buses across the city. By now, any New Yorker who professes ignorance of the plan has either been hiding under the proverbial rock or is flummoxed by its political implications.