This is a bit of a tongue in cheek post, but maybe not as much as I think.
I’ve been spending more time in Manhattan over the last three years, and I’m also now a resident. I was born and raised in New York City, but I was born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens. After three years of marriage I moved to a beautiful green and sprawling New Jersey suburb.
Growing up in Ozone Park Queens, going to the city meant going to Manhattan. You can protest all you want, but New York city is really just Manhattan. Everything else is the outskirts.
I’ll save my thoughts and discussion about that for a later day. I just wanted to throw out an observation and thought I had recently. I was struggling to get to lunch to meet a friend in midtown and kept getting blocked and stuck behind a variety of people not walking along at the Manhattan pace. Oh you know what I’m talking about. The Manhattan pace. It’s just shy of competitive walking pace of Olympics.
Look, I get the concept of slowing down and taking it easy. Why are we in such a hurry? However, sometimes we just are. It’s life. It’s what we’ve chosen for now. If you don’t want to play along, then you have to get out of the way. Hence my idea.
Im sure if you frequent the city, you are seeing all of these lane changes and new dividers on the streets to create bike lanes. Personally, in my opinion, and I’m a biker, I don’t think adding more bikes to Manhattan is a great idea. Perhaps in the outer boroughs where we are not dealing with so many taxis, black cars, Ubers, Lyfts etc. it’s conceivable. It is just not working in Manhattan.
My thoughts for this blog however, are about the sidewalks. I believe in appropriate locations where sidewalks are wide enough and tourist traffic is high, we should create a tourist lane, a texting lane and an express lane.
We’ve all been there. Stuck behind a sky gazing picture taking tourist. I think it’s great they are here and love our city, but I don’t have time to crawl behind them trying to get to my next meeting or lunch. In today’s world, we have the sidewalk texter. Let’s be honest, many people can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, you throw in texting and they think they are still walking, but they could crawl faster. Give them a lane but let’s make a lane for the focused non distracted pedestrian on a mission.
So that’s it. Tourist lane, texting lane, express lane for major sidewalks in Manhattan. Are you listening Mayor De Blasio? Oh, by the way. I can’t wait to see the snow plows maneuver around all these new cement barriers put up for bike lanes. Good Luck.
If you got this far…..sunshine always!!!
sitelock.quinathen
Great blog Chris ( call you my neighbor) love the city , and great idea about bike lanes , but the congestion!, Me and the wife boss married and lived a couple of years in Howard beach about 10 years, but my parents are still in Howard beach and Me/ my wife and my son moved outside to the outer NY north counties Rockland, For the school system for my son ( property taxes!!!!) yikes, well worth it . Well enjoy the weekend. FYI- Nativity Blessed Virgin Mary , is Academy of Mercy, same school but combined with St stan’s and Nativity. Enjoy the weekend.
Great idea!
Now how to enforce this concept, which exists on the highways, yet there are still slow pokes in the left lane? If you can figure that out, you are truly genius! 😃
Thoroughly and completely enjoy and appreciate ALL the blogs written and posted here. A wonderful, additional discovery for me is that you’re also a damn good writer (I suspect, better than you realize). I look forward to ALL of the installments included here. Thank You! and by now, you know I always wish you well — wonderful Friend.
New York’s slogan should be “Get the **** Outta My Way!” After decades working in NYC, I got to be adept at swerving and swooping through the crowds at breakneck pace.
I once asked a cop, “If someone is standing stock-still in front of you on the subway steps at rush hour staring into their phone, is it legal to kick them the hell down the steps?” The cop laughed and said, “It really should be.”