Noah Kazis

While it's shocking to think that, in this day and age, a New York City police officer would stop and harass a female cyclist for biking in a short skirt, as Jasmijn Rijcken said happened to her last month, it also seems to fit the zeitgeist, coming amidst the well-publicized NYPD bike crackdown and following the sordid trial of two cops on rape charges (and their stunning acquittal). But when Streetsblog and Gothamist readers discovered that Rijcken touts her expertise in "guerrilla marketing" on her LinkedIn profile (sample prose: "We provide marketing in disguise and make YOU the talk of the town"), rumors started fluttering on Twitter that the story might have been too perfectly placed. Was it all a ploy to drum up publicity for the bikes that she was in town to promote?

With five bus lines, two subway stops, a busy commercial strip, the only entrance to the Hudson River Greenway for blocks, and major bridge crossings at both ends of the street, Washington Heights' 181st Street is a tangle of cars, buses, bikes and pedestrians. For years, DOT has been looking to redesign the corridor entirely, with the goal of finding a way to serve all those different needs.

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When Jasmijn Rijcken, the general manager of the VANMOOF bicycle company, traveled from Amsterdam to New York in late April, she was excited to see what she'd heard described as a city that had embraced bicycling. It wasn't NYC's new protected bike lanes that defined her ride through the city, however, but the New York Police Department, currently in the midst of a major crackdown against cyclists.

Just months ago, Queens Assembly Member Michael DenDekker was reaping widespread scorn for his proposal to require every cyclist in the state, even those just off their training wheels, to obtain a license. He also floated the idea of enforcing non-existent helmet laws with the widespread use of cameras. (He eventually withdrew the bike license legislation.)

The traffic and transportation committee of Brooklyn CB 10 endorsed the concept of a weekend street closure along Bay Ridge's Third Avenue Wednesday night, but due to a large number of unknowns, they held off on voting for the actual proposal. The elected officials supporting the Bay Ridge Summer Streets plan -- State Senator Marty Golden and City Council Member Vincent Gentile -- are now working to find answers to the community board's questions in time for the full board to vote on the plan.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Pedestrians over the age of 60 are particularly at risk when walking on the streets of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, a new report from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign shows. According to "Older Pedestrians at Risk," an updated version of similar research from last year, the pedestrian fatality rate for those over 60 is more than 2.5 times as high as for those under 60. Senior citizens over the age of 75 are likelier still to be killed by cars while walking, with a fatality rate 3.1 times higher than for those under 60.

Another day, another unanimous show of support for a summertime trial of a car-free Central Park. Last night, the transportation committee of Manhattan Community Board 10, representing central Harlem, voted seven to zero in favor of the car-free trial, with one abstention.

Here's something Marcia Kramer, Dov Hikind, and Marty Markowitz forgot to mention in all their accumulated lawsuit threats, media events, and TV coverage on the Fort Hamilton Parkway pedestrian refuges: FDNY and Maimonides hospital report that the project has not affected response times.