Recent Blog Posts

Doored while cycling in NY Daniel Flanzig's Article in the NY law Journal appeared on May 11, 2012

Dan Flanzig — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:54:00 GMT

'Doored' While Cycling in New York: Not as Simple as Riding a Bike

New York Law Journal

May 11, 2012

inShare0

Daniel Flanzig

May is bike month and with that New York is expected to see an exponential growth in cycling as we enter the cycling season. The New York City Department of Transportation reported that between 2007 and 2009 commuter cycling increased by 45 percent. The city says it remains on track to meet its goal of 1,800 bike-lane miles by 2030, as outlined in the Bike Master Plan and the Bloomberg administration's goal to expand sustainable transportation. With the aggressive promotion of cycling by advocacy groups such as Transportation Alternatives and others, we will see more cyclists on the roads than ever before.

Unfortunately, the transition to safe road-sharing between cars and bikes still has a long way to go. Crashes with motor vehicles still remain the number one concern for New York cyclists. While most assume that the typical bike vs. car crash involves one striking the other, a more common and perhaps even more dangerous crash is what is known in the cycling community as a "dooring," when a vehicle door is opened into a cyclist's path of travel. To an attorney representing the rights of an injured cyclist or to one defending this type of crash, it surprisingly creates a wealth of legal issues, including multiple statutory violations, issues of vicarious liability, conflict of laws, as well as coverage issues that one would not normally contemplate in a simple car on bike crash.

Vehicle and Traffic Law §1214

A "dooring" typically involves an alleged violation of Vehicle & Traffic Law (VTL) §1214. The statute states that: "No person shall open the door of a motor vehicle on the side available to moving traffic unless and until it is reasonably safe to do so, and can be done without interfering with the movement of other traffic, nor shall any person leave the door open on the side of the vehicle available to moving traffic for a period of time longer than necessary to load or unload passengers."

The opening of a car door into traffic in violation of VTL 1214 has been found to be the sole proximate cause of an accident and requires the granting of summary judgment against the person who opens the door into traffic. For example, in Montesinos v. Cote , 46 A.D.3d 774, 848 N.Y.S.2d 329 (2d Dept. 2007), the plaintiff, Lisa Montesinos, opened her door to exit her vehicle when her driver's door made contact with a passing tractor trailer. In her claim against the passing tractor trailer for injuries sustained, the court found that the injured plaintiff's opening of her door into traffic in violation of VTL 1214 was the sole proximate cause of the accident and dismissed her case. See also, Abbas v. Salav , 73 A.D.3d 1100, (2d Dept. 2010), Williams v. Persaud , 19 AD3d 686 (2d Dept. 2005).

In contrast, the courts seem reluctant to grant judgment to a cyclist who is injured when a door is opened into his path. In Villa v. Leandrou, 31 Misc.3d 1237(A), 932 N.Y.S.2d 764 (Sup. Ct. Queens Co. 2011), the court refused to grant plaintiff Alfredo Villa, a cyclist, summary judgment in a "dooring" crash case. Although the court found that the defendant violated VTL 1214 by opening her car door into traffic, it still left open questions of fact as to whether the cyclist's actions caused or contributed to the accident requiring denial of summary judgment to the plaintiff in the issue of liability.

Vicarious Liability

It's clear that the person opening the car door into the path of traffic of a cyclist can be found responsible for the happening of the accident, but they are not alone. Vehicle and Traffic Law 388(1) will also make the vehicle's owner vicariously liable for the acts of its passenger in causing the crash. For example, in Cohn v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. , 286 A.D.2d 699, 730 N.Y.S.2d 152 (2d Dept. 2011), a cyclist brought a claim against a taxicab owner as a result of its passenger opening the cab's door into the path of cyclists, causing injury to the rider. The Second Department found that the passenger's act of opening the taxicab door in order to exit the vehicle "constitutes use and operation of a vehicle pursuant to Vehicle and Traffic Law §388 and, accordingly, an owner of a taxicab will be liable for the Plaintiff's injuries."

The Court of Appeals, in addressing the application of Vehicle and Traffic Law §388 has held that it is not limited to situations where the vehicle is in motion, as the inclusion of loading and unloading of a vehicle fits logically with the interpretation of the law and claims predicated under §388(1) of the Vehicle and Traffic Law. Argentina v. Emery World Wide Delivery , 93 N.Y.2d 554, 693 N.Y.S.2d 493 (1999).

Coverage

Having established who is responsible for the act of "dooring" a cyclist, the next issue then becomes applicable coverage for the occurrence. While the owner may be responsible for the act of its passenger, the Court of Appeals has held that the vehicle's liability policy may not indemnify and defend the negligent passenger for his violation of VTL 1214. In Kohl v. American Transit Insurance , 15 N.Y.3d 763, 906 N.Y.S.2d 809 (2010), passenger Christopher Kohl was exiting a New York City taxicab when he opened the taxicab's door in the path of a cyclist. The cyclist brought a claim against Kohl and others for injuries sustained in the crash. The Court of Appeals, affirming the Appellate Division, held that Kohl was not an insured under the taxi owner's policy of automobile liability insurance. The policy said that it "shall inure to the benefit of any person legally operating" the insured's vehicle in the business of the insured. The word "operating" cannot be stretched to include passengers riding in a car or opening the door. As such, the court refused to require American Transit, the taxi's insurance company, to defend and indemnify the passenger for the act of opening the door into traffic in violation of VTL 1214.

Statutes—Which Apply?

Vehicle and Traffic Law §1214 establishes a clear statutory violation under New York state law, and is helpful to cyclists throughout the state. However, within the confines of New York City, other accident scenarios involving a "dooring" by a cab or private vehicle may find the rider predicating its case under sections of the Traffic Rules and Regulations of the City of New York as well.

Section 1642 of the VTL authorizes the City of New York by local law to supersede the provisions of the VTL, including those that regulate parking. Somersall v. New York Tel. , 52 N.Y.2d 157 (1981). However, pursuant to this authority, the City of New York has not superseded VTL 1214 (See N.Y.C. Traffic Rules and Regulations§4–02 [e]; 34 RCNY 4–02[e]) and the statute remains binding on motorists within the city.

There are several examples of applicable New York City codes that can apply to a "dooring" crash. For instance, Section 4-08(e) of the Traffic Rules and Regulations prohibits the stopping, standing or parking of a vehicle within a designated bicycle lane. If a vehicle illegally stops in or adjacent to the bike lane, and the vehicle's door is opened into a cyclist's path, this should create a sufficient code violation to be submitted to a jury. Another example of a potential code violation is §411(c) which requires "taxis while engaged in picking up or discharging passengers must be within 12 inches of the curb or parallel thereto." The rule also prohibits the picking up or discharging of passengers within a bicycle lane. Again, if the door of a cab is opened into a cyclist path, while engaging in the picking up or discharging of passengers in violation of the regulation, this violation of the traffic rules can be charged in addition to VTL 1214.

When representing the cyclist, it is much more advantageous to have the jury charged on a violation of the Vehicle and Traffic Law as a violation of the VTL constitutes negligence as a matter of law and the jury "cannot disregard a violation of the statute and substitute some standard of care other than that set forth in the statute." See, P.J.I. 2:26; see also, Collazo v. Metro . Suburban Bus Auth ., 68 AD3d 803, 804 (2d Dept. 2009); Tepoz v. Sosa , 241 A.D.2d 449 (2d Dept. 1997).

By contrast, violation of a municipal ordinance would only constitute "some evidence of negligence." Elliot v. City of New York , 95 N.Y.2d 730, 734 (2001). Where appropriate, the jury would be charged that, if a party violated one or more provisions of the New York City Traffic Rules and Regulations, the jury "may consider the violation as some evidence of negligence, along with the other evidence in the case, provided that such violation was a substantial factor in bringing about the occurrence." (See Pattern Jury Instruction 2:29; see also Ferrer v. Harris , 55 N.Y.2d 285, 293 (1982); Schneider v. Diallo , 14 AD3d 445, 446 (1st Dept. 2005)).

Neither the Vehicle and Traffic Law or Regulation are mutually exclusive and the jury can be charged on both the VTL as well as a municipal ordinance as long as the two statutes are not essentially consistent with each other. Collazo, supra., Fox v. Lyte, 143 A.D.2d 390, 532 N.Y.S.2d 432 (2d Dept. 1988).

However, whether a provision of the Vehicle and Traffic Law or a provision of the New York City Traffic Rules and Regulations is at issue, the jury should not be charged as to an alleged violation "if the statute [or local rule] is intended to protect against a particular hazard, and a hazard of a different kind is the occasion of the injury." Narducci v. Manhasset Bay Assocs. , 96 N.Y.2d 259, 267 (2001), DiPonzio v. Reardon , 89 N.Y.2d 578, 584–85 (1997). It will be incumbent upon the attorney representing the cyclist to present to the trier of fact sufficient proof that the alleged statutory violation is applicable to the facts of the crash and that it was the intent of the statute to protect the cyclist, among others, from harm.

Conclusion

A "dooring" crash, which seems simple at first glance, creates a wealth of legal issues not normally contemplated in a bike vs. car collision. When representing a cyclist, a practitioner needs to be familiar with both the state and local laws of its jurisdiction, and be able to present a compelling case to take advantage of the applicable laws that are in effect to protect cyclists in New York.

Daniel Flanzigis a partner at Flanzig and Flanzig. He can be reached at DFlanzig@NewYorkBikeLawyers.com.

Mold Exposure Suits Are Not Automatically Barred, Panel Says

Dan Flanzig — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 17:46:00 GMT

A divided state appeals panel has ruled that personal injury claims against a landlord for exposure to mold and other toxins are not categorically barred by an earlier decision, reversing a lower court.

The 3-2 panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, ruled on March 6 in Cornell v. 360 West 51st Street Corp. , 113104/04, that Supreme Court Justice Marcy S. Friedman (See Profile) had interpreted its 2008 decision in Fraser v. 301-52 Townhouse Corp. , 57 AD3d 416, too broadly when she dismissed a midtown Manhattan tenant's lawsuit against her former landlord.

C.D.C. May Lower Threshold for Lead Poisoning

Dan Flanzig — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:10:00 GMT

A federal advisory committee has recommended that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lower the threshold for diagnosing lead poisoning in children, the first recommendation of its kind in 20 years and one that would mean hundreds of thousands more kids meet the standard for lead poisoning.

Lead poisoning, as any parent knows, is serious: a high level of lead in the blood harms developing brains, kidneys and other organs, and the advisory committee relied on recent research linking any elevated levels of lead in the blood with adverse cognitive and other physiological consequences. Those effects appear to be irreversible.

Lead exposure most typically comes from exposure to paint in homes built before 1978. “All homes built before 1978 are likely to contain some lead-based paint,” says the C.D.C. on its Web site, but it’s the deterioration of that paint into contaminated flakes and dust that poses a danger. A close friend of mine moved into a new home just months before her youngest child’s birth, and had the painted surfaces in the hundred-plus-year-old house tested for lead — but in spite of a clean test at the time, her son, now a toddler, tested positive for lead poisoning a few weeks ago. Her best guess for the source of the problem, while she waits for more testing, is minor repairs her husband made to a windowsill, and the opening of a part of the house which was used for storage, and might not have been tested.

Lowering the threshold at which lead poisoning is diagnosed primarily means more attention to an existing problem. Right now in the United States, about 250,000 children are considered to suffer from lead poisoning. Lowering the blood level required for the official diagnosis from 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood to 5 would raise that number by hundreds of thousands, if not more. Towns and communities often use the number of local children with a lead poisoning diagnosis to determine whether to screen all children (which the C.D.C. recommends) or implement other prevention strategies.

A lawyer who handles both tenant and personal injury claims associated with lead exposure, says a lower standard is likely to place a greater responsibility on property owners, who are responsible for maintaining safe conditions in their buildings (particularly in New York City, which has one of the strictest lead-abatement laws in the country). A change “may ultimately make living conditions safer for children,” Mr. Baum said. Medicaid, too, bases the treatment (and amelioration) it covers on the levels set by the C.D.C. Currently, Medicaid only funds services like family lead education, follow-up testing, and referrals to social services agencies for assistance with the problem for children with a blood lead level greater than 10 micrograms. Lowering the levels that require attention may challenge local agencies to find funding for more prevention, screening and follow-up. But the words “the effects appear to be irreversible” strike fear into every parent’s heart.

Flanzig and Flanzig, LLP-www.flanziglaw.com

Number of Bicyclists Keeps Climbing, City Says

Dan Flanzig — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:48:00 GMT

The Bloomberg administration has aggressively expanded New York City's bicycle infrastructure, creating hundreds of miles of bicycle lanes and encouraging residents to try out the cleaner, often speedier mode of transport.

On Thursday, the city said that the number of regular city bicycle riders increased by 8 percent this year, extending a decade-long trend that has nearly quadrupled the number of regular cyclists since 2001, according to the city's Department of Transportation.

Clicker-carrying counters hired by the city ticked off the number of cyclists at six locations: the Manhattan side of the four East River bridges, the Hudson River Greenway at West 50th Street, and the Whitehall Terminal of the Staten Island Ferry in Lower Manhattan. The counts are taken 10 times a year, on weekdays between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.

In the context of a city of eight million residents, the numbers are small: on average, the city recorded 18,846 cyclists a day this year at those six locations, up from 17,491 riders in 2010.

But in 2001, that figure was under 5,000. In 2007, it was about 9,300.

A few critics, including some bicycling advocates, have expressed concerns about the city's figures, saying they are difficult to extrapolate for the city as a whole. John Pucher, a professor of planning at Rutgers University who is a fierce advocate of bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly cities, said he believed bicycling was on the rise, but that the city's survey overstated the size of the increase.

"New York City D.O.T. is only picking those spots where bike commuting is increasing the most," he said, and leaving out the Bronx and eastern parts of Brooklyn and Queens. "I happen to agree with their policies," he added, "but their numbers are not representative of the city as a whole."

The Transportation Department, in its official report on Thursday, took pains to say the counts represented trends in cycling habits, but were not an estimate of the total number of cyclists in New York.

A survey by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that about 500,000 city residents ride a bicycle a few times a month, if not regularly.

Cycling appeared to be most popular in August, according to a month-by-month breakdown of the city's data. (The full report is available as a PDF.) The bike path along the Hudson River attracted the most bicyclists of the six sites, and more riders were recorded at the Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges than at the Brooklyn and Queensboro Bridges.

The expansion of bike lanes has coincided with a drop in pedestrian fatalities, and the city said bicycling-related injuries and deaths have not risen despite the growth in ridership.

Janette Sadik-Khan, the transportation commissioner, said in a statement that the city's streets must "keep pace with new demands," and she announced that her department would install 175 new hoop-shaped bike racks, made of ductile iron, across four boroughs, using the stumps of decommissioned, decapitated parking meters. The city has solicited vendors to manufacture an additional 6,000 racks, which could be on the way soon.

Daniel Flanzig, Esq.

Flanzig and Flanzig LLP

323 Willis Avenue

PO Box 669

Mineola, New York 11501-0669

P-516-741-8222

F-516- 665-7812

www.flanziglaw.com

www.nyelderabuse.com

www.newyorkbikelawyers.com

Nassau County Judge Denies video to lawsuit plaintiff

Dan Flanzig — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:19:00 GMT

Agency Found Exempt From Turning Over Traffic-Camera Footage

Andrew Keshner Contact All Articles

New York Law Journal

December 8, 2011

An insurance company cannot force a Nassau County traffic agency to turn over recordings from a program that tracks drivers who go through red lights, a state judge has ruled in an apparent case of first impression.

After one of its insured drivers was involved in a June 2011 accident at an intersection using a red-light camera, Travelers Property Casualty Company of America sought a court order that would have required the Nassau County Traffic and Parking Violations Agency to produce the footage. The insurer wanted the recordings because it expected litigation, based on the fact that both drivers said they had a green light.

The traffic agency opposed the insurer's request, saying, among other things, that the recordings were exempt from disclosure under the state's Freedom of Information Law. The agency said the red-light enforcement program was not enacted to aid lawsuits and argued that turning over the video footage would constitute a bad precedent by encouraging other requests.

Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey S. Brown (See Profile) agreed with the agency, observing that when the state authorized Nassau County's program the Legislature amended Public Officers Law §87(2) to exempt the recordings from FOIL disclosure.

Justice Brown observed in Travelers Property Casualty Company of America v. Nassau County Traffic and Parking Violations Agency , 10470-2011, that the Legislature "intended that the information contained on the photographs, microphotographs, videotape or other recorded images obtained from a traffic-control signal photo violation-monitoring system should be excluded from the information generally made available to the public." The judge noted that if the insurance company wanted to see the recordings it could contact the vendor operating the program

Brooklyn woman suing City after serious collision with cyclist

Dan Flanzig — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:52:00 GMT

countersued for his own injuries, alleging that the woman improperly crossed into the bike lane

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

A Windsor Terrace woman is suing New York City for $3 million after nearly dying in a pedestrian-v-bicycle accident that occurred on June 11. The life-threatening crash took place in Prospect Park while the 37-year-old woman was walking her dog along West Lake Drive. She was crossing a bike path at Center Drive when she collided with a man on his bicycle.

The woman nearly died from injuries to her brain, skull and face. According to The Brooklyn Paper, she remained hospitalized for 25 days following the accident.

The woman filed a lawsuit against the cyclist - a Park Slope man - and he has countersued for his own injuries, alleging that the woman improperly crossed into the bike lane. That case has yet to be resolved, but the woman has now filed a lawsuit against NYC for a "careless and reckless" failure to enforce traffic laws in the Prospect Park area. There have been at least three reported pedestrian-bicyclist collisions in the same area this year.

As New York continues to experience growing pains with the rapidly growing cyclist population, it is important for both pedestrians and cyclists to exercise caution. Each bicycle accident is different: sometimes the cyclist is at fault, sometimes the pedestrian and sometimes both parties bear part of the blame.

If you have been injured in an accident as a cyclist, contact an experienced new york cycle and bike attorney today.

Source: The Brooklyn Paper, "Pedestrian injured in collision with Park cyclist sues City," Natalie O'Neill, Nov. 21, 2011

Tags: Brooklyn, bicycle accident, brain damage, head injuries, lawsuits, pedestrian accident

Traffic Warnings, NY's new fun signs

Dan Flanzig — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:53:00 GMT

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

James Estrin/The New York TimesSafety-warning poems / sprouting from city sign poles / look for one near you.

Look! It's a street sign
with a haiku underneath.
They are new, Tuesday.

The city says they
are an eye-catching way to
encourage safety.

You will find 12 signs
that are designed by John Morse,
artist and poet.

James Estrin/The New York Times

Want an example?
Imagine a bike, askew.
The caption below:

A sudden car door, Cyclist's story rewritten. Fractured narrative

At crash-prone crosswalks,
200 will be installed.
(Some are in Spanish.)

"A lot of our signs
are largely ubiquitous,"
said J. Sadik-Khan.

"We look for new ways
to get through to the public,"
she said on Tuesday.

Look for them on poles
from Queens to Staten Island.
Twelve sites in total.

Want one? You can buy
a sign for personal use.
Sixty-five bucks each.

And if you would like,
submit your own sign below.
We'll post the best here.

www.Flanziglaw.com

www.nyelderabuse.com

Electric Bikes caught in Limbo

Dan Flanzig — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:15:00 GMT

What happens to a bicycle when it gains an electric motor? Is it still a bicycle? Is it a scooter? Or is a different beast entirely, a patched-together monstrosity with no place on the road?

The legal answer to these questions depends on where the bicycle in question is being ridden. In some places in the United States (and in the larger world), an electric bicycle is treated exactly the same as a pedal-powered one. In other places, an e-bike is subject to additional restrictions. And in some places, like New York City, it exists in a legal limbo that keeps it off public streets altogether.

Right now, the tangle of laws governing e-bikes affects only a small handful of people. But the bikes are gaining in popularity. In New York City, legal restrictions aren't stopping commuters and deliverymen from riding them. And the cycling community is warming toward electric-assisted bikes because they provide an opening for the less-than-hardcore to join the ranks of bike commuters.

On a federal level, the status of an electric bike is simple. It is not a motorized vehicle as long as it has operable pedals, its motor does not exceed 750 watts, and it moves no faster than 20 mph. States also have power over wheeled vehicles, though-from trucks down to bikes-and their ideas about electric bikes differ dramatically. Most places put the limit on their top speed between 20 and 30 mph. Some states require riders to have a license and to register the bike. Some states require a helmet. Others mandate that riders must be over a certain age.

But because e-bikes do not fit neatly into existing legal categories, in some places they're banned altogether. The problem is that, legally, the bikes aren't motorized vehicles, so they're not allowed to operate as a car or motorcycle would. But they can't be registered as bikes, either. The solution to that conundrum so far has been to ban e-bikes. New York state, for instance, has decided that electric bikes cannot be ridden on public streets, sidewalks, or parking lots. (They're allowed on private property.) In some places, like Florida, gas-powered motorized bikes complicate the issue further, since they are considered motor vehicles.

In New York City, e-bikes have attracted more attention and acrimony as they become more popular, particularly with delivery people. Annoyance at the bikes has led to strange second-order effects, too: One local community board decided that it would automatically withhold its support for any establishment that used e-bike delivery.

A handful of shops in New York City are selling e-bikes, even though they're not allowed on the streets. Niko Klansek, the CEO of e-bike startup FlyKly, says he tried contacting city and state officials about the legal tangle but received no response. His customers sometimes are hassled by police but report back that the tickets they've received (for riding an unregistered vehicle, for instance) are generally dismissed in court. And he found that other e-bike sellers weren't interested in making a fuss and calling attention to the legalities of using their products. But the current situation is not sustainable, he says. "I would like that they do something about it," Klansek says. "Not that they leave it hanging and nobody knows" what the law is.

Daniel Flanzig, Esq .

Flanzig and Flanzig LLP

323 Willis Avenue

PO Box 669

Mineola, New York 11501-0669

P-516-741-8222

F-516- 665-7812

www.Flanziglaw.com

www.nyelderabuse.com

Prospect Park to set speed limitations for Bikes

Dan Flanzig — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:04:00 GMT

Charles Astor, 4, amid the new traffic barrels set up in Prospect Park. Collisions have left two pedestrians badly injured.

By J. DAVID GOODMAN

On a stretch of Prospect Park's main drive, bright orange traffic barrels are the most visible symbols of an urgent and emotional debate over whose rights should have priority in Brooklyn's largest park: pedestrians' or cyclists'?

The barrels, which appeared suddenly last Monday, are part of an effort by park officials to slow down bicycle riders, by narrowing the roadway at the bottom of a hill on West Drive, near a main intersection.

They also serve as a grim reminder of the serious collisions between pedestrians and cyclists in the park in recent months.

The accidents, including two that left women with severe brain injuries, have revealed a simmering conflict among the runners, in-line skaters, cyclists and pedestrians who vie each day for a small piece of the increasingly crowded park.

"As the use has grown, we've noticed that there's more and more competition for space on the drive," said Emily Lloyd, the park's administrator.

That competition for space has grown more pitched in recent years as the park's popularity - roughly 10 million people visit each year - has run up against a cycling boom in Brooklyn. As a result, the kinds of fights that have long been seen in Central Park are occurring with increasing regularity in Prospect Park as well. "People are very protective of their space and how they use the park," Ms. Lloyd said.

After a severe accident involving a pedestrian and a cyclist in June, park officials convened a task force of city agencies and park users to look into proposals for increasing safety on the main drive, including stronger law enforcement, new traffic patterns, better signage and an educational campaign.

Then, in early November, a 55-year-old park volunteer, Linda Cohen, was struck by a cyclist near the same location, on the drive by the Vanderbilt playground, leaving her with injuries so severe that doctors put her in a medically induced coma. That episode led the Department of Transportation to put the orange traffic barrels in place. The police also said they would step up enforcement against cyclists who do not yield to pedestrians.

Those actions came days before a public hearing held by the task force, which drew more than 100 people on Wednesday. At the emotional and occasionally heated meeting, some likened the situation on the park drive to the Wild West, or a bare-knuckle cage fight, while others compared fast-riding cyclists to dogs.

"We have an off-leash time in the park; why don't we have a speed cyclist time?" asked Susan Fox, the founder of a Park Slope parents group.

Florence Weintraub, a 74-year-old Brooklyn native from Windsor Terrace, suggested clearing bicycle riders out of the park completely. "I waited years to get cars out of the park," she told the meeting, "and the bikes are much worse."

Bicycle riders also attended in large numbers, clapping vigorously when speakers suggested banning cars from the park completely. (The park is opened to vehicular traffic for several hours each weekday, during the morning and evening rush.)

Fresh from the acrimonious public battle over the Prospect Park West bicycle lane earlier this year, the cyclists appeared ready to defend their use of the park, but also chastised reckless riders. "They threaten my kids," said Henry Astor, 42, an amateur bicycle racer who said that irresponsible riders had made him feel unsafe riding in the park with his three young boys.

Forrest Cicogni, 36, whose wife was severely hurt in the June 11 accident that led to the formation of the task force, said that fast-riding cyclists turned crossing the drive into "a game of Frogger."

Mr. Cicogni and his wife, Dana Jacks, 37, intend to sue the city. They also filed a suit in September against the bicycle rider, David Sonenberg, who remained at the scene after the accident, according to witnesses.

Ms. Lloyd, the park administrator, said in an interview that she hoped the task force would balance the needs of all park users. "We're looking at a broad array," she said. "I don't think there's a silver bullet on this one." She said the task force would make its recommendations early next year.

The orange barrels represent one possible solution, she said, though for the moment they are only a temporary fix.

On Saturday afternoon, some cyclists navigated through them with ease, rarely braking as they rode down the hill and through the intersection. Others appeared confused, weaving into the pedestrian lane rather than continuing through the narrow funnel created by the barrels. One unsteady in-line skater crashed in front of the center row.

The brightly marked new traffic pattern did appear to be raising awareness of the intersection's dangerous history. Two cyclists could be heard discussing the barrels as they passed through together. "Someone got injured here last week," one explained.

Doored while riding a bike?

Dan Flanzig — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:51:00 GMT

Ever been doored? It is actually illegal

By Andreas on 15/11/2011 in Safe cycling in London

I was once witness to a car dooring. My friend was pedalling past stationary traffic less than a metre ahead of me, when suddenly a passenger opened their door, knocking my friend off his bike. Miraculously he didn't have a single scratch. His back wheel was completely buckled.

It turns out that the passenger had actually committed a criminal offence and would be liable of a fine up to £1000. The exact wording is: it's an offence to open " any door of a vehicle on a road so as to injure or endanger any person ".

What is particularly interesting is that there doesn't have to be a crash for the offence to have been committed. If you have to swerve to avoid the crash, then this would be classified as having been endangered by the driver.

For the many of us who've had to do this on more than one occasion it's interesting to read that technically we've had an offence committed against us and could have pursued legal action.

If you've suffered a similar fate to that of my friend then it is worth knowing that you could pursue a dooring as an offence. Even if the person who doored you or nearly doored you was a passenger.

The driver or passenger of course can defend themselves by claiming you were riding too close or that there was no danger to you.

Jorren Knibbe has more on what to do if this happens to you in the excellent blog post Laws of Car Doors.

Daniel Flanzig, Esq.

www.Flanziglaw.com

www.nyelderabuse.com

What to do after a bike accident

Dan Flanzig — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:49:00 GMT

Steps to keep in mind if you are ever involved in an accident

By Andreas on 21/09/2010 in Safe cycling in London

It's a horrible thought, but it is far better to be aware of the steps needed if you are in an accident or indeed if you witness an accident with a cyclist and need to help.

When we tweeted about this it got a lot more clicks than expected so understandably this is something people want to be aware of. Working with Dave Escandell from Access Legal who has a ton of experience in this area and written useful free online guides and also following the ever helpful guide on the LFGSS forum we've produced this useful list of steps you should take.

Step 1

Get yourself out of danger. This should largely go without saying. If you are unable to move then make yourself visible in any way you can.

Step 2

If injured seek medical attention or get someone to call an ambulance for you.

Step 3

If possible look for witnesses. Or if you are injured get someone to find witnesses for you. People may move on quickly so it is important to do this early on. It is really useful to have at least 2 independent witnesses who can vouch for what happened. Ideally get their business card and make a note of their details including where they work. This makes it easier to track them down. Witness statements are crucial in a court and for the police.

Step 4

Exchange details. You should make a note of vehicle registration plates, make, colour and model. You should also have full insurance details as well as names and addresses.

Step 5

Gather evidence. Look around for CCTV cameras and make a note of these passing them on to police (and always keep a note for yourself as the police have been known to lose them). Use your camera phone or ask someone to take pictures of the scene. This should be done before the vehicle and your bike is moved. Be as thorough as you can with your picture taking including the damage caused. Ideally also grab a picture of the driver to prove that he was the driver at the time.

Step 6

Keep copies of everything. You should ask for copies of police reports, ambulance reports and also tell the police to keep in contact with you regarding any progress of the case. You should also make notes of attending officers names and details.

Step 7

Compensation. Bicycles need replacing and medical care needs paying for. The best thing you can do is keep detailed receipts and the damaged items. If medical care is needed then get detailed notes from the doctors to be used as evidence. Ideally find yourself a good solicitor who has experience in bicycle accidents.

Tip: Don't ride the bicycle away from the scene. If you want the police to follow up the report and take it seriously then riding the bike away doesn't help.

Tip: Don't get angry! It is important not to lose your temper as it will act against you.

London Cyclist collaborates with Access Legal who also have a guide to what to do following a cycling accident .

Bike Rooms for two wheeled comuters

Dan Flanzig — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:40:00 GMT

A Room of Their Own for 2-Wheeled Commuters

Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Jordan Mokriski in the bike storage room of the Starrett-Lehigh Building, where he works. The room holds about 150 bicycles.

By TOM ACITELLI

Published: November 15, 2011

Creating a bicycle room for tenants at 345 Hudson Street turned out to be a good fit. The blocklong building in the quiet streets of northern TriBeCa has a low carbon footprint, and many employees of businesses there, like Penguin Putnam, Starbucks and CBS Radio, were already biking to work. And there was an unused storage space off Charlton Street, adjacent to a loading dock and with access to the lobby.

"It's a few hundred square feet, and it's always packed," said Alfonse Amore, vice president for property management for the building's landlord, Trinity Real Estate. "We have 35, 40 bicycles there a day."

Trinity opened the bike room in August 2008 at a cost of about $30,000 for lighting, a paint job, a new front door and, of course, bike racks (10, at $2,500 each). That does not include the forfeited rent from leasing it as storage space. In Manhattan, such rent can run from the low teens a square foot annually to $30, depending on the neighborhood and the demand.

The city does not track the number of dedicated bike rooms in office buildings, according to the Department of Transportation, which since December 2009 has required those with freight elevators to provide bike storage if a tenant asks. (Exemptions are available, but a landlord would still have to provide alternative parking or demonstrate a serious safety concern related to using the elevator.) But the number of rooms as opposed to simply racks appears to be growing.

The bike room at 345 Hudson Street joins those at, among other places, 1330 Avenue of the Americas, 340 Madison Avenue, 520 Eighth Avenue and, perhaps the most ballyhooed, the Empire State Building. Some landlords say they are happy to add and maintain the spaces in a commercial real estate market that is increasingly favoring green construction and retrofitting, for financial and public relations reasons. And bike advocates see the rooms as the finest example of a shift in policy and in psychology.

"The law doesn't require bike rooms," said Noah Budnick, the deputy director of the nonprofit Transportation Alternatives. "The law just requires that the buildings let the people get their bikes from the street to their office. They're both good solutions." Transportation Alternatives, which worked with the city on the 2009 law, does not track the number of dedicated bike rooms, but estimates that they, along with other bike storage, are growing.

"We're hearing more and more that this is a selling point for the real estate industry," Mr. Budnick added. "You're seeing office spaces marketed with bike rooms, which is pretty awesome."

Still, landlords know they are sacrificing something - possible rent on ground-floor and subterranean spaces turned over free to the tenants paying rent upstairs - and some wonder if dedicated bike rooms will be sustainable if rents continue to rise from recessionary lows.

Bike rooms arrived in the biggest way with an announcement in April by Malkin Holdings that the landlord would open a bike room at the base of the Empire State Building. The announcement came during New York's debate over bike lanes and less than two years after Anthony E. Malkin, the president of Malkin Holdings, started a $550 million renovation of the Empire State Building to make it environmentally friendly.

The tower's bike room was carved out of 780 square feet of retail space for which the landlord could normally charge $500 a square foot annually, but, as Mr. Malkin said in an e-mail, it was "very deep space," tucked away from foot traffic and therefore likely to rent at a discount.

Such pragmatism seems to govern landlords on bike rooms. "And why not, right?" said Frank Pusinelli, the executive vice president for operations, property management and construction for RXR Realty. "It's better than having tenants bring their bikes up to the space."

RXR maintains bike rooms at three towers: 1330 Avenue of the Americas, which houses five to 10 bicycles each weekday in a 225-square-foot space, at a cost to build of just around $1,000; 340 Madison Avenue, which draws as many as 30 each day to a 425-square-foot area that opened in September in unused basement space, at a cost of $4,500; and the Starrett-Lehigh Building on West 26th Street, where an 1,800-square-foot space holds about 150 bicycles each day, from employees of tenants like Martha Stewart Living and Hugo Boss. The bike room was created by the previous landlord, Shorenstein Properties, which sold the building to RXR last spring.

But one thing may be preventing landlords from building even more bike rooms: showers.

In new office buildings, the U.S. Green Building Council, which certifies buildings as LEED-compliant, awards points only for bike rooms with showers and changing rooms. And in existing buildings, bike rooms also do not automatically earn LEED points because they are based on behavioral changes in tenants - for instance, if a tenant allows employees to telecommute or if a landlord puts in a bike room that gets heavy use. LEED certification, shorthand for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is important to landlords because it tells the public, and investors, that their buildings save energy.

The building council's requirement that new buildings have showers, which can be costly to install and take up more space, is a sticking point for some New York landlords. While a rinse may be necessary for riders pedaling 10 miles to a suburban office park, landlords say, Manhattan employees coming from, say, Park Slope in Brooklyn, usually won't work up much of a sweat.

"You have a lot of buildings here which would like to get LEED points," said Eric Gural, an executive managing director of Newmark Knight Frank who oversees the 1,000-square-foot bike room at 520 Eighth Avenue. "If we didn't have to put a shower in, I think you'd see a lot more bike rooms that would be provided by landlords." (The bike room at 520 Eighth, like all others in this article, lacks a shower.)

So the installation of dedicated bike rooms in Manhattan's commercial buildings appears linked to landlords' willingness to take a hit on underused or empty space. Changes in the LEED points system might spur growth, but the pull of more lucrative uses might arrest it.

"A Park Avenue landlord with a couple of hundred dollars a square foot," Mr. Amore of Trinity said, "is going to have a hard time making that decision."

Daniel Flanzig, Esq.

www.Flanziglaw.com

Consequences Arising From State Medical Indemnity Fund

Dan Flanzig — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:19:00 GMT

Diverse Consequences Arising From State Medical Indemnity Fund

Lawrence Knipel

New York Law Journal

November 15, 2011

In recent years, states across our nation have increasingly focused on legislation in an effort to contain medical malpractice insurance premiums. Although only a few percent of overall medical costs,¹ medical malpractice expenses have been blamed for ruining medical practices and forcing hospital closures. Birth-related neurological injuries constitute a disproportionately large share of overall malpractice costs and have become a principal target of cost containment efforts. Newly effective Public Health Law Section 2999 represents New York's latest cost containment effort. Pursuant to this legislation, a Medical Indemnity Fund is created for future care associated with birth-related neurological injuries expressly "to reduce premium costs for medical malpractice insurance coverage." ²

Birth related neurological injury is defined as "...injury to the brain or spinal cord of a live infant caused by the deprivation of oxygen or mechanical injury..." ³ Henceforward the cost of care will be paid for the injured plaintiff only through disbursements from the fund and not via jury award or settlement proceeds. ⁴ Participation in the fund is mandatory, not discretionary. ⁵ To appreciate the likely impact of the new legislation, the contextual nexus between birth-related neurological injuries and medical malpractice needs to be explored.

Birth-related neurological injury undoubtedly generates some of the largest monetary awards in medical malpractice litigation. In Desiderio v Ochs, 100 NY2d 159 (2003), an award of $40 million for future nursing care was sustained. In Flaherty v. Fromberg, 46 AD3d 743 (2d Dept. 2007), an award of future nursing and personal care expenses of $25 million was sustained. Typically, anticipated future care related expenses constitute the single largest category of monetary damages contained in the award. It has been estimated that as much as half of all medical malpractice expenses relate to cases involving neurologically impaired infants. ⁶

Advocates contend that the establishment of the fund will generate huge medical malpractice savings because of inaccurate and exaggerated estimates of future health care needs under the current malpractice award system and optimistically project that the fund will lower providers' malpractice insurance premiums by as much as 25 percent and reduce hospital malpractice costs by as much as $320 million per year statewide.⁷ Jason Helgerson, the Governor's Chief Medical Reform Advisor, estimates that between 150 and 200 babies will qualify annually for participation in the fund. ⁸

In addition to the cost of administering the fund, which could be considerable, at 200 infants entering per year, the fund would need to save $1.6 million for each newly enrolled infant to achieve this projected level of savings. Writers have already expressed concern relating to possible pressure on those responsible for administering the fund to overly restrict expenditures to participants to achieve the ambitious levels of savings projected.⁹ In early conferencing of fund cases, two additional issues have arisen which although not widely discussed in the literature, may substantially, even dramatically, impact on efforts to prevent medical malpractice and the pool of participants in the Medical Indemnity Fund.

Reallocation of Risk

It has rapidly become the convention in New York courts when conferencing fund-eligible cases, to allocate 50 percent of the settlement award to the fund. This reflects common trial experience that when these cases go to the jury, about half to two-thirds of the total verdict awarded are usually in fund-eligible categories. It is important to understand that when dealing with fund-eligible cases, the amount of the settlement or verdict allocated to the fund is essentially meaningless to the plaintiff. The only concern to the plaintiff is whether he or she is included in the fund. It makes no difference to the plaintiff whether only one dollar or $100 million is allocated to fund-related expenses.

If any amount at all is allocatable to the fund, then the infant plaintiff qualifies for all fund-related expenses for the rest of his or her life. Equally significant, no party obtains or pays the amount of the award allocated to the fund. By this I mean that the plaintiff does not obtain any sum allocated to the fund; instead he or she obtains fund benefits. Likewise, neither the defendant nor his insurance carrier is liable for payment of that part of the award allocated to the fund.

The fund is financed through an assessment upon all New York health insurers (other than Medicare and Medicaid).¹⁰ In other words, the costs of the fund are shared by all health insurers. For example, if a case settles for $20 million, 50 percent of which is allocable to the fund, the plaintiff obtains $10 million from defendant (from which is deducted expenses and attorney fees) and is enrolled as a fund participant. Aside from defense payment of plaintiff attorney's counsel fees on that portion of the award allocable to the fund, no other money changes hands. The negligent tortfeasor, in this example, realizes a near $10 million windfall savings over the results that would otherwise obtain had the prior law applied. The cost of plaintiff's participation in the fund is borne by all New York hospital health insurers.

Although superficially similar to reallocation of risk common to policies of insurance, the structure of funding herein is fundamentally dissimilar to most insurance in that risk under this statutory scheme is allocated entirely without regard to fault. Those who purchase typical policies of automobile or premises liability insurance are given an incentive to maintain vigilance because they know that policy premiums will rise as claims accumulate for covered risks. There is no such incentive for care here. The assessment to finance the fund remains fixed and unchanging no matter the conduct of the party (see footnote 10).

To visualize this problem in concrete terms, one need only consider the ongoing comprehensive obstetrics safety program at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell. Amos Grunebaum, leader of the obstetrics team, is quoted as claiming that instituting the program was well worth its expense because related medical malpractice payouts dropped from an average of $28 million before the program was instituted, to only $2.6 million a year afterward.¹¹

Much of this savings may now be forfeited because annual Fund contributions remain unchanged no matter the success or failure of the hospital's obstetrics safety program. Beyond peradventure, the burden of paying for the cost of malpractice shifts from hospitals, which are the source of the malpractice, to those that are not. In practical terms this may well result in the shifting of the economic burden away from less well-funded, non-teaching institutions, which are a disproportionately greater source of malpractice claims, to those larger well-funded teaching hospitals from which relatively fewer claims emanate.

Number of Plan Participants

Another area of concern relates to the projected number of plan participants. Only 150 to 200 participants are projected to join the Fund each year (see footnote 8). To the extent the actual number of participants varies from this projection, money available for pro rata distribution to participants will likewise wax or wane because the total sum added yearly will be fixed pursuant to the aforementioned formula, and not vary based on the total number of Fund participants (see footnote 10). If the number of new participants significantly exceeds the amount projected, the Fund's resources could rapidly diminish.

It is important to recognize that the number of neurologically impaired infants born each year, independent of attribution of fault or causation, vastly exceeds the projected number of plan participants. For example, autism and cerebral palsy are both recognized as neurological developmental disorders which affect a substantial number of infants born each year.

A wide spectrum of neurological developmental disorders are classified as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). It is generally, although not universally, accepted that the connection between an insult during birth and ASD is weak, at best. The National Institutes of Health has stated,

Scientists aren't certain about what causes ASD, but it is likely that both genetics and environment play a role...abnormalities suggest ASD could result from disruption of normal brain development early in fetal development caused by defects in genes that control brain growth and that regulate how brain cells communicate with each other, possibly due to the influence of environmental factors on gene function.¹²

The number of individuals diagnosed with ASD has increased dramatically in recent years.¹³ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that approximately 1 percent of children born in the United States are now diagnosed with ASD. ¹⁴

Because of the difficulty establishing a connection between ASD and errors during delivery, few lawsuits are brought for ASD, and of those not dismissed, most will settle for a relatively insignificant sum of money.

Actions brought on behalf of significantly injured plaintiffs founded upon dubious claims of liability are commonly settled for minor sums by defendants seeking to avoid a variety of risks including the cost of continued litigation, the vagaries of litigation, and the possibility of establishing unfavorable precedent. Both parties benefit from the expeditious resolution and move on to litigate matters of greater substance.

However, when this sort of action is resolved in connection with a claim that would be encompassed under Public Health Law §2999, the result is anything but inconsequential. Even a minor settlement of a properly framed claim brought in whole or part for an autism-related birth injury can trigger Fund eligibility and lifetime benefits. For a severely impaired infant, lifetime benefits could easily be worth millions of dollars. Moreover, the settling defendant does not have much incentive to resist this resolution. As discussed previously, the settling defendant does not have to pay the cost for plaintiff's inclusion in the Fund, and its annual premium to finance the Fund, if any, remains unaffected. One can well imagine that which is now a trickle of autism-related litigation turning into a torrent.

Cerebral palsy presents a similar, although more nuanced predicament. Like autism, those afflicted with cerebral palsy may require a lifetime of care. Approximately one in 300 8-year-olds¹⁵ and up to 800,000 people in the United States have been diagnosed with this disease. ¹⁶ Medical understanding about the causes of cerebral palsy have been evolving. The CDC, a highly respected operating component of the Department of Health and Human Services, summarizes current medical understanding as follows:

The majority of children with cerebral palsy are born with it...This is called congenital cerebral palsy. In the past, if doctors couldn't identify another cause, they attributed most cases of congenital cerebral palsy to problems or complications during labor that caused asphyxia (a lack of oxygen) during birth. However extensive research by NINDS scientists and others have shown that few babies who experience asphyxia during birth grow up to have cerebral palsy or any other neurological disorder. Birth complications, including asphyxia, are now estimated to account for only 5-10% of the babies born with congenital cerebral palsy.¹⁷

As the connection cannot peremptorily be ruled out, perhaps a Frye hearing ¹⁸ is the appropriate vehicle for the court to explore the causal relationship between asphyxia and cerebral palsy in a particular case. In any event, one can envision an increasing number of cerebral palsy cases commenced whose principal goal might be Fund inclusion.

Accordingly, while the cost containment concept behind the formation of the Fund may be sound, the deterrent effect on medical malpractice is less than convincing and the actual number of Fund participants may have been grossly underestimated.

Lawrence Knipel i s a Justice for the New York State Supreme Court in Kings County.

Daniel Flanzig, Esq.

Flanzig and Flanzig LLP

323 Willis Avenue

PO Box 669

Mineola, New York 11501-0669

P-516-741-8222

F-516- 665-7812

www.Flanziglaw.com

www.nyelderabuse.com

Salvaging Abandoned Bikes

Dan Flanzig — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:37:00 GMT

Salvaging Abandoned Bikes, Making Room for Others

CRAMPED AREAS Bicycle rooms have become a lure for many apartment hunters in the city, but many bikes are left behind in them, often for years.

By J. DAVID GOODMAN

Published: November 4, 2011

THEIR frames molder and peel in the city's musty depths. Hundreds - perhaps thousands - rest in haphazard jumbles, their surfaces pocked with rust, their tubes airless and stiffened by time.

Yvenet Alcius is with the group Recycle-a-Bicycle, which refurbishes rescued bicycles in a warehouse in Long Island City, Queens.

No firm numbers exist for how many bicycles sit abandoned in storage rooms around New York City. They decay uncounted in dim basements, mixing awkwardly with sleek new city cruisers and carbon-fiber racers, threatening to turn an increasingly marketable real estate amenity, the bicycle storage room, into something like a bone-filled catacomb.

"You have no idea this world of bicycles that's awaiting you," said Pasqualina Azzarello, the director of Recycle-a-Bicycle, a nonprofit group that says it rescues 1,200 bikes each year in the city, most of them from basements. "It's something that we deal with quite often."

In the group's warehouse in Long Island City, Queens, scores of handlebars hang from a rafter, and rows of forks and frames line the wall of a large workshop.

"Pretty much all of the bikes we work on have to be completely taken apart, cleaned and rebuilt," said Rommel Bishop, 30, who runs the group's education program. Refurbished bicycles are donated to schoolchildren or sold in two storefront shops, in the East Village and in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

Mr. Bishop, who owns eight bikes of his own, looked over a collection of wheels: "dry-rotted," he said of one; "completely rusted," of another. "It gives you an idea of what the bike was like that they came from," he said. Roughly 300 aging bikes await disassembly in a crowded room nearby.

With the surge in ridership in recent years, bicycle rooms have become an attractive lure for many apartment hunters, and the Bloomberg administration has sought to increase bike commuting by requiring new buildings to include bicycle parking.

But the arrival of more riders has set off a battle for space in these often cramped areas. And long-term storage, especially when cold and snowy weather makes an early appearance, can be hard to differentiate from abandonment.

Nathaniel E. Baker, 38, an avid cyclist, said of one particularly dusty specimen in the bike room of his small Upper East Side walk-up: "I don't think it's been taken out in years. Just the last few weeks someone put a tarp over it like it was a dead body."

He is not alone in his frustration. Liz Patek, a professional dancer, said most of the bikes stored in her large rental building on the Upper West Side sat idle through much of the year.

"Of the 80 or so bikes I count between the two rooms," she said in an e-mail, "at least 75 percent go unused all year round. There are four commuters (including myself) that make use of the rooms and who commute daily."

New and recently renovated buildings may have brighter spaces, wall-mounted hooks and vertical racks, but that does not mean there are no tensions.

"Everybody who is an owner feels entitled to a space, whether they use the bike or not," said Chris Benfante, 50, a cyclist whose condo building in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, has two bicycle rooms on the eighth floor. "We get complaints - usually from the people who use their bikes the most."

As a real estate agent who sells units in his building, the Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower, now called 1 Hanson Place, Mr. Benfante recognizes the rooms' broad popularity.

"I tell people as they're moving in, I show them the bike storage room," he said, "and they inevitably ask if they're guaranteed a space. I have to tell them no."

Last month, the building posted signs asking residents who had stopped using their bikes to voluntarily clear them out; it also installed new racks. Both measures, Mr. Benfante said, helped with the crowding that had often forced him and his regularly riding neighbors to haul their bicycles into their apartments. "It was kind of frustrating," he said.

Doug Gordon, a 37-year-old television producer who commutes by bike to SoHo, said he had the same problem in his Gowanus, Brooklyn, rental.

"If I happened to have a night where I stay at work late," he said, "there will definitely be times where it will be easier for me to bring it up to the apartment."

Many building managers and co-op boards try periodically to cull storage areas by asking active users to tag their property. Bikes without tags, the theory goes, can safely be assumed to be abandoned.

That's how Recycle-a-Bicycle ends up with huge caches of old bikes. "We average between 20 and 25 per building," Ms. Azzarello said, with some pickups netting more than 50 bikes. A recent large haul came from the basement storage of an 11-building rental complex in Far Rockaway, Queens, she said.

This appears to work better in some places than in others. "Every other year, the management company posts a notice that all bikes need to be tagged with the owner's apartment number or they will be removed," Ms. Patek, the Upper West Side dancer, said. "To be honest, the last time they did this, no bicycles were removed."

Other buildings have limited access to storage rooms, requiring application forms and monthly fees. "It's a small revenue generator," Stephen Corsello said of the $50 yearly fee charged by his 46-unit Washington Heights co-op for use of a new basement bike room. "As far as bikes languishing, we haven't had any bikes for more than a year so we haven't run into that yet."

And at Recycle-a-Bicycle, not all of the bikes that are abandoned and later decay can be resuscitated: the group also recycles roughly six tons of metal every year.

www.Flanziglaw.com

Pedestrian and Bikes- Pedestrian loses the right of way

Dan Flanzig — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:07:00 GMT

The Pedestrian Loses the Way

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Published: November 10, 2011

IN the future, perhaps our time will be known as the first decade of the Bicycle Wars, with righteous armies fighting over traffic lanes, bike paths and sidewalks, indeed over the very purpose of the streets themselves. Like many wars, it's a question of territory, and the pedestrian has been losing for years.

Enlarge This Image

Library of Congress

Columbus Circle, 1921. The streetcar and the automobile only slowly pushed pedestrians out of the roadbed.

More Streetscapes Columns

For centuries, pedestrians had undifferentiated dominion over both the sidewalks and the roadbed - sidewalks were not pedestrian cattle pens, but off-limits zones for vehicles. "The street" meant the entire open area, from building line to building line.

This changed in the 1880s with the advent of electric and cable streetcars, with their much greater weights and speeds than horse-drawn vehicles, not to mention their guillotine-like wheels. It is a comment on how we viewed our streets that, by design, passengers were meant to board streetcars in the middle of the roadway.

But the installation of trolley tracks also created a kill zone. In 1894 The New York Times reported that a speeding streetcar on Prospect Avenue in Brooklyn had killed 10-year-old Theodore Cox, "a bright little boy" who was "ground under the wheels." The police helped the motorman escape the crowd, which was crying "Lynch him!" This was not to be a bloodless war.

The pedestrian's domain was further challenged by the decade-long bicycle fad of the 1890s. In 1893, when The Times described upper Broadway as "a regular race track" for speeding cyclists, one of them, operating without bell or whistle, killed 7-year-old Katie McGlynn just as she was exiting a streetcar at Broadway and 67th. "They make no noise and go by you with a rush," said Police Capt. Elbert Smith. "You shout at them to slow down, but they are off before you know it." But the fashion for bicycles soon waned.

When cars entered the fray, the fact that their owners were usually rich added an element of class war. After Charles Gates, a broker, was caught in 1906 driving 25 miles per hour in an 8-mile-an-hour zone in the Bronx, The Times carefully noted that he appeared in court wearing "a blue serge suit and light-colored spats." He expected to get off, but Magistrate Leroy Crane told him, "You are a Wall Street man with millions, and you think that you can do what you please."

It took a while for cars to catch on. Dr. Albert Lamb, whom I interviewed years ago, said that around 1920, when a neighbor fell ill in front of his house on East 70th Street, "my father, also a doctor, just had him lie down in the street."

But there was no room for roadway medicine once automobiles increased in weight, speed and numbers.

Over time, without express agreement or even acknowledgment, the streets gradually became off-limits to the unwheeled. The pecking order was further clarified in 1950, when permanent street parking, which had long been forbidden, was allowed - you couldn't walk in the street, but car storage was fine. Again the map was redrawn.

The increase in the numbers of bikes in recent years has put new pressures on the real estate of the street/sidewalk. The cyclist's natural vulnerability in auto traffic has changed the stakes; you can say "share the road" all you want, but the mix is irrevocably divergent.

It is difficult to walk 20 blocks in Manhattan without encountering one or two cyclists who prefer dodging pedestrians to dodging trucks - often doing so, in my experience, with a serious attitude of entitlement. The sidewalk, the last redoubt of pedestrian safety, has been breached.

So what does this have to do with the New York streetscape? The retreat to what is left of the sidewalks changes the very essence of the common public realm, just as certainly as if, say, tourists had to stay within the arcades surrounding St. Mark's Square in Venice, or look out on Red Square from the porch on St. Basil's. New York's gridiron allows precious few vistas or plazas, but a citizen could at one time have viewed each block as an entirety, with walls and a floor. Now everyone must hug the baseboards.

There are only a few places where one can recapture the old relationship of the buildings to the full width of the street. One is the annoying street fair. If you can survive the kielbasa smoke, you get the old, wider idea of the street, as easy and relaxed as the Piazza Navona in Rome. Streets closed for school recess do the same thing, as does the occasional oil truck blocking traffic - at those times, in those places, New York is a different city. And there are some streets entirely closed to vehicles, like several blocks of Broadway above 42nd Street, a change that has infuriated cabdrivers.

It is difficult to weigh the competing claims of the combatants in the current conflict - cars and trucks fully dominate the character of the city; bicyclists have the roadway and an increasing number of bike lanes; and pedestrians dodge traffic and hedge red lights with astonishing sang froid.

But as the domain of the pedestrian - the everyman of the city - is gradually curtailed, so too is the sense of the city as a democracy of public space, open to all.

E-mail: streetscapes@nytimes.com

Read All Comments (124) »

Recent Blog Posts

Doored while cycling in NY Daniel Flanzig's Article in the NY law Journal appeared on May 11, 2012

'Doored' While Cycling in New York: Not as Simple as Riding a Bike

Vehicle and Traffic Law §1214

Vicarious Liability

Coverage

Statutes—Which Apply?

Conclusion

Mold Exposure Suits Are Not Automatically Barred, Panel Says

C.D.C. May Lower Threshold for Lead Poisoning

Number of Bicyclists Keeps Climbing, City Says

Nassau County Judge Denies video to lawsuit plaintiff

Agency Found Exempt From Turning Over Traffic-Camera Footage

Brooklyn woman suing City after serious collision with cyclist

countersued for his own injuries, alleging that the woman improperly crossed into the bike lane

Traffic Warnings, NY's new fun signs

Electric Bikes caught in Limbo

Prospect Park to set speed limitations for Bikes

By J. DAVID GOODMAN

The barrels, which appeared suddenly last Monday, are part of an effort by park officials to slow down bicycle riders, by narrowing the roadway at the bottom of a hill on West Drive, near a main intersection.

Doored while riding a bike?

Ever been doored? It is actually illegal

What to do after a bike accident

Steps to keep in mind if you are ever involved in an accident

Bike Rooms for two wheeled comuters

A Room of Their Own for 2-Wheeled Commuters

By TOM ACITELLI

Published: November 15, 2011

Consequences Arising From State Medical Indemnity Fund

Salvaging Abandoned Bikes

Salvaging Abandoned Bikes, Making Room for Others

By J. DAVID GOODMAN

Published: November 4, 2011

Pedestrian and Bikes- Pedestrian loses the right of way

The Pedestrian Loses the Way

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Published: November 10, 2011

Library of Congress

More Streetscapes Columns