The Williamsburg biking community is planning on staging a naked ride (!) at sundown on the Sabbath (!!) , through the Hassidic community. What are the bikers angry about? One of their bike lanes (just a green stripe in the street that reserves the margin of the road for bikes) is being removed from a street, Bedford, that is heavily trafficked by the Jewish community in Williamsburg (link at Huffington Post, includes decent comments -- scroll down).
What's the biker's problem! There is no shortage at all of bike routes in W'Burg: every single street is a quiet idyllic path already. "They're only about two blocks from another route, a deluxe one that is the Cadillac of bike-routes" , noted a spokesman from the city. This is an almost unbelievable level of intolerance on the part of the bikers. In an odd irony it almost makes these young, white, priveleged hipsters and artists seem like fascists. Is Slacker Fascist an accepted label yet?
I lived and worked for two years in South Williamsburg and I ever found the Hassidim there to be reasonable, generous, good-hearted, and actively pursuing harmony with their non-Hassidim neighbors. My Hassidic landlord was great (albeit eccentric) and more than once older fellows on the street helped me out with something. "What are neighbors for" one commented at the time.Given the good and wholesome nature that I have experienced as an outsider among Williamsburg's south side Hassidim, I can only feel shame for my own demographic, the Brooklyn Bike Riders. And I continue to feel loyalty to Mayor Mike Bloomberg for his pro-active bike lane creation program.
In more upbeat bike news, I offer this photo of me in Boston last week. They are so liberal, civic minded, and unafraid of taxes up there in Massachussets that someone has initiated a tools-for-bikeracks program. Here I hold aloft a cabled cluster of wrenches, hex keys, and levers. A tire pump was there too.
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