Today, there's a major update: The officer has been indicted by a grand jury, according to the Times' City Room blog. But he still denies wrongdoing and, through his lawyer, blames the biker. Why am I not surprised?

Just check out all that open pavement, with not a car in sight. And right in the middle of Manhattan, no less. Ain’t it beautiful?

New York’s experiment with car-free streets -- closing down a well-traveled route through the heart of the city on a Saturday morning for pedestrians, bikers and others to enjoy -- was a smashing success, by most accounts. Nothing is without critics, of course (especially in New York), but the weather was perfect, the streets were packed, and for once, it seemed that those on foot and those on two wheels had little problem co-existing. (Amazing how the conflict disappears when traffic of the four-wheeled variety is out of the picture, isn’t it?) 

Read the coverage of Summer Streets in the New York Times, Associated Press, Village Voice and Gothamist, among others (or see Streetsblog’s extensive roundup).

For my part, the day started with a “feeder ride” led by Transportation Alternatives from the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial on Riverside Drive. We followed the 90th Street bike lane, cruised across Central Park, then entered 72nd Street and the beginning of the seven-mile car-free route to the Brooklyn Bridge. Along the way, I pedaled down Park Avenue, got to bike across the Grand Central Viaduct (which usually only takes car traffic through the historic terminal), and enjoy the streets of midtown, the Village and Chinatown before crossing over to Brooklyn. By the time we had lunch on the waterfront and biked back across the Manhattan Bridge, Summer Streets was closing down, so we headed over to the west side of the island and followed the bike path up to Riverside Park, coming full circle. 

Here are my photos chronicling the day:

Sunday morning, I was nursing my tired legs with coffee and a crepe at my favorite neighborhood café when I came across this story in the Times’ Sunday Styles. It explores the growing conflict between cyclists and other road warriors, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.

Although it’s not fun to read about a biker getting pummeled for daring to curse at a car that nearly ran him over, as the Times story leads off with, it was also hard for me to feel too down about the state of cycling after Summer Streets. Yeah, the problem is real, and we all need to work harder to respect everyone’s safety and rights to the road. But right now, I’m feeling good about our prospects. 

I guess miles of open pavement will do that to a guy.

Summer Streets continues for the next two Saturdays in New York City. Learn more here.

Considering that I had been mowed down by a bike delivery guy a couple of weeks before, I had to give them an honest, “Yes and no.” And quite honestly, that’s the truth. While New York is in some ways a biker’s paradise -- relatively flat, lots of parks and bike paths -- it has plenty of dangers, too, like car doors opening in bike lanes, thieves armed with bolt cutters, office buildings that won’t let bikes in, and of course, the bicycle’s natural predator: speeding cabs.

At least it keeps your heart pumping (and unfortunately, leads to heated feelings sometimes). But this weekend, I’m looking forward to a more laid-back outing. For the next three Saturdays, New York is closing a 7-mile route along some of its busiest streets to cars so that bikers, pedestrians, rollerbladers and everyone else can enjoy themselves without clogged traffic or exhaust fumes. 

Hard to imagine, isn’t it? After all, before spending much time in New York, my dominant mental image of city streets was a tangle of delivery trucks and taxi cabs that no mere mortal would dare to enter -- certainly not on two wheels (maybe if I owned an Abrams tank). Car-free streets, even for a few Saturdays in the summer, certainly don’t fit that picture.

There’s a movement in New York, however, to reclaim streets from the automobile (or at least give equal time, so to speak, to other options). Efforts by groups such as Transportation Alternatives and the crusading Streetsblog, among many others, have pushed the notion that we shouldn’t allow one form of transportation to dominate all of our planning and thinking about how to get around. Especially when that form contributes so much to greenhouse gas emissions and the warming of our planet. 

Mayor Bloomy appears to get it. Here’s what he said yesterday at a presser promoting the Summer Streets event (via City Room):

Cars are important, but streets are there for everybody. And we’re going to try, for three days in a row -- three Saturdays in a row -- to see if the public wants to go out in the streets and reconnect with each other and bicycle and skateboard and walk and kibbitz and maybe a lot of restaurants will put tables out -- something different. 

Kibitzing in the streets. Now that does sound very New York.

If you want to learn more about Summer Streets or plan to participate, there’s plenty of information here, here and here. Look for me cruising Park Avenue on my black Cannondale! And trust me Uncle Eddie, I'll make sure to keep it safe.

'Go Green Team!' 

Fortunately, people were perfectly willing – even eager – to help us out. The first time I squeezed through the metal fencing into one of the big pens and started yelling, “Anybody got bottles and cans for recycling? Empties, anyone,” I got some surprised looks. But quickly, people caught on, and pretty much everywhere I turned someone was holding up a plastic bottle. I’d thank them for recycling, and they’d thank me for doing this. A few even cheered, “Go Green Team!”

“People seem genuinely thankful,” said my wife, Jaime, who volunteered with me. “Almost everyone says thank you. It’s really nice.”

“I got some high fives,” one of the other volunteers told me. And NRDC’s Matt Cohen (right, with volunteer coordinator James Hands) actually had people cheering “Yay, Matt!” when he came through.

People also asked where we got our Green Team T-shirts – although that might have had something to do with the fact that wearing them allowed us to get through the security fences. “I hope someone doesn’t jump me for my shirt,” joked NRDC intern Chris Long.

Our bags were big enough to haul away a couple of 6-year-old kids, but you could fill them up with plastic bottles in less than 10 minutes while walking through the crowd. At one point, I found myself in the middle of a pen with a bulging bag, far from where we dumped them for pickup. Even though I was out of room, people were still eagerly holding out bottles for me to take. So I wound up pulling out a second bag and double fisting. I strode through the masses with two big sacks slung over my shoulder, like some sort of recycling Santa.

You had to be careful where you stepped, of course (I apologize to anyone that I might have tripped over), and at one point I had to dodge an errant Frisbee zooming straight at my head. The guy who threw it apologized heartily, though. “It’s a great thing you guys are doing,” he said.

Getting the message 

The bags we piled up will all be collected by New York-based Sims Metal Management, which, according to the company’s website, processes about 240,000 tons of plastic, glass and metal that New Yorkers toss into recycling bins each year. One of the company’s supervisors said the Green Team’s work on Saturday was part of what, in his experience, must be one of the largest public recycling efforts in New York City history.

One of the most encouraging signs, he said, was that not only were the bags that we were hauling around filled with bottles and cans, but the regular recycling bins placed throughout the park seemed to be filled with 90 to 95 percent recycling materials, too. He had seen very little trash in them – and very little recycling in the trash, which isn’t the case at most big events like this.

That’s a good sign, he said, that people were getting the message and making an effort to recycle themselves, even when we weren’t walking up to them with bags and making it easy.

I noticed this myself. Some of the people who gave me their bottles and cans had already divided them in separate plastic bags from their regular trash. So while it’s great that we were there to help, it’s even better that so many people were already thinking about recycling on their own.

Now it will be great if some of the concert-goers take Saturday’s experience and think about other easy ways that they can help the planet in their daily lives. Here are some ideas for getting started.

After four hours of filling up bags, my shift ended and Bon Jovi came on stage. I was so hoarse from yelling, “Anybody got recycling?” that I could barely scream along with, “Whooah, ooh, living on a prayer.” But somehow, I managed.

I don’t doubt that after the concert was over and everyone filed out, the Great Lawn still had a lot of trash on it. That’s when the professionals went to work. But imagine what it would have been like if we hadn’t been there to help, and if people hadn’t made an effort to recycle on their own.

A big waste, that’s what.
 

NRDC's Green Team in action at Saturday's Bon Jovi concert in Central Park. Photos by Matt Cohen. 

The Green Team volunteers get instructions on Friday in preparation for Saturday's show in Central Park. Photos by Lisa Whiteman.