Don’t blame bike lanes

To the editor:

(re: “Neighborhood road design could impact commuters,” May 19)

Regarding your recent story about plans to narrow Riverdale Avenue, I find the lamentations of Community Board 8 over the Metro-North Rail Link Bus to be absurd to the point of laughable. That bus is already incredibly unreliable, simply because the Metro-North bus operator is incompetent.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been stranded by that bus, left to scramble to the train station by any means necessary — car, bike, pogo stick, flat-out sprint.  Once a bus driver just simply parked the bus and walked away, saying “I’m not driving anymore” when I asked him when we’d be leaving.

And I swear I took a shower that morning, so it wasn’t my fault.

Blaming bus dysfunction on some proposed bike lanes just smacks of making excuses.

As an avid cycle commuter and appreciator of our clean air here in Riverdale, I’m 100 percent for the proposed changes to Riverdale Avenue. CB8’s skepticism not only doesn’t represent my views, it feels crotchety and obstructionist simply out of inertia or fear of change.

In the face of the twin crises of climate change and epidemic obesity, you’d think bike lanes would be more welcome in our community. New York City has evolved in recent years to become an absolute gem of a city to cycle in, with the exception of our community here in the North Bronx. 

It’s time for Riverdale to join the rest of our city and embrace the transportation department’s plan to add bike lanes to one of our main thoroughfares.

Danny Rogers