For One Car-Free Day, Peddlers Will Rule

Try to imagine a New York City without automobiles. That seemingly impossible vision becomes reality for one day every spring when streets in all five boroughs are turned over to bicyclists.

This year, on Sunday, May 2, an estimated 30,000 cyclists will ride on 42 miles of traffic-free streets, in the largest bicycle tour in the United States.

Bike New York begins at 7 a.m. in Battery Park in Manhattan and travels through the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn and into Staten Island over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

The event closes with a festival at Fort Wadsworth in Gateway National Recreation Area on Staten Island.

Bike New York got its start in 1977 when a local schoolteacher asked the city’s hostelling organization HI-AYH to help create a bicycle education and safety program for the New York City Board of Education. The result was bicycle clinics followed by a tour around the five boroughs to practice bicycle safety.

Judging by the comments on the “Reviews and Raves” section of the event’s Web site at www.bikenewyork.org, Bike New York might be in danger of becoming a victim of its own success.

One anonymous writer warns, “If there were 30,000 riders, there were at least 20,000 cell phones.” But, another participant wrote, “The ride itself is so well run from the water stops to traffic control and much, much more!”

Most participants come from the Northeastern part of the United States, but Japan sends a large contingent because of the country’s television publicity of the event.

More information on Bike New York is posted online at www.bikenewyork.org. ▪