Copenhagenization Part 2

How well intentioned urban planning principles go awry in NYC (Click Here for Part 1)

I had just started a new job and was working on a socially conscious affordable housing project. It was the beginning of the summer, the birds were chirping and I woke early feeling rather idealistic so I went into work to make a model on Saturday morning. Biking through Harlem at 6:55 AM, I was planning the construction of the model in my mind. How could I cut the pieces together to fit together without glue? How many pieces of cardboard would I need? While I was in deep thought, I ran a red light at the rotary northwest corner of Central Park and passed a couple more red stoplights. Nothing out of the ordinary. I would normally have taken a train and scooter to work, but I was testing out biking from home.

All of a sudden a car swerved in front of me and cut me off. I nearly smashed into the trunk. Before I could say “what the fuck, asshole!” A guy gets out of the car and unfurls his badge and says “New York Police Department! Get on the sidewalk!” He might as well have said, “Stop! I’m an official douchebag.” I was processing the shock in my brain. Did an undercover cop just jump out of an unmarked police car and pull me over at 6:55 in the morning?

He asked for my ID. I searched my wallet and fucked around with him and gave him my old college library ID. He looked annoyed. “No, give me your real ID.” I reluctantly handed over my driver’s license. In a sarcastic voice I asked him what he needed it for... In an equally sarcastic tone, he replied “Sir, you know I could have fined you $1000 for running 3 red lights." “Really?” “Yes, I followed you from the rotary. I gave you the benefit of the doubt after you passed the first red light.. but then after you continued running 2 more red lights... I had to pull you over.” I've ran probably 1000 lights throughout my lifetime without issue. I thought these rules prohibiting bikers from running red lights were made to protect pedestrians from aggressive bikers but there are no pedestrians at 7 AM.  Everyone is sleeping, except for me and this police officer. The police man was taking an inordinate amount of time writing out my traffic violation. My luck in getting caught by a retarded cop. Shameless, I asked if he could just give me a warning, and let me off the hook. He said it wasn't personal, that he was just doing his job. "That's what they all say," I thought. Then I was hoping that after he saw my student library ID he would be more lenient with the fine... but he wasn't. I looked down at his printout and it called for a $300 fine.  At that point I saw a guy bicycling run a red off in the distance and pointed it out the unfairness of the system to the cop. I then told him, "In my neighborhood, I consistently witness dozens of Chinese delivery men on motorized bikes going 30 mph the wrong way.... I didn't even know running red lights was a ticket-able offense." It didn't help my case I look chinese. He told me to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to arrange a court date in front of a judge if I wanted to contest the ticket.

After I left the cop, I rode my bike very obediently to work... stopping at each light nervously looking around. Other bikers nonchalantly passed while I waited for reds to turn green like an obedient dog. The cop took the joy out of biking. I had good intentions of helping the poor and working on affordable housing when I woke up.. now I was pissed because I was $300 poorer. I was in no mood to make models anymore.. all I could think about was how appalling it was that the cops had nothing better to do than to issue bike tickets to people trying to seek alternate environmentally-conscious modes of commute. Harlem is a seedy part of town.. the cops have so many more serious crimes to address like murder, drug dealing etc... why are they wasting time on cyclists running reds in the early morning when no one is on the streets?  I would soon find out all my co-workers had received biking violations. James told me "your first ticket is $300... if you get caught during the year probation period, the second offense is $600, and the third offense is $1000. It's a scam. They're trying to issue tickets to generate revenue. I was on Central Park West riding north where no cars cut east west because of the park, and even I got a ticket for running a red. The cops are all assholes!"  All of my co-workers tried to appeal their fines in court. All of them were denied leniency by the judges. I'm a glass half full type of guy, living in a state of delusion.... so I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles and arranged a trial date. Before the trial, I told my sons, who were accustomed to running red lights with me while biking to the tennis courts that we shouldn't do that anymore. When they asked why, and I said, "I heard the police are cracking down on people who don't obey bike rules and plus it's safer." So we would sit on our saddles like obedient dopes while all other cyclists would pass us by. If I spoke the truth to them it would be something like this, "I got caught running a red, and I don't want to spend $600 for a second offense within my year long probationary period, nor do I want to shell out another $600 for your combined juvenile offenses. And imagine if were caught by the same douchebag cop. he would think I was such a bad role model."

At my trial 3 months later, I saw 6 other defendants take the stand in front of a judge. In each case, their accusing officers were there to provide eye witness testimonies. One person was charged with texting while driving, another for driving without a license, another for making a U-turn that was not allowed etc... A fine in my case was annoying. I thought for these guys barely scraping by to make ends meet, in a poor neighborhood.. a fine would be life changing. When I took the stand, I expected the worst. The judge summoned me up and asked I knew what charges were being brought up against me. I said "uh huh." He said, "it's either yes or no." I said "Yes sir (douchebag)!" Then the accusing cop started reading his account of what happened. I thought I was definitely going to have to pay my fine... The thing with trials is that people lie all the time. The premise of our judicial system is that the accused have to solemnly swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but they then proceed to lie and make excuses to get leniency. I was plotting out all my lies.. like in other states people can make right turns on red lights, so I didn't know I had to stop at that red because I don't drive.. or that the cop almost hit me when he swerved and he should be ashamed of himself.. or i'm really a decent human being just trying to design affordable housing.... but the judge interrupted my exculpatory thoughts. there was something in the cop's testimony which the judge picked up on.... something in the way the officer procured my ID that was not allowed by law. he told the cop to repeat his testimony... then told the cop to stop. I don't know what happened but the judge looked at me and told me "it's you're lucky day, you are dismissed. you will not have to pay a fine." Perhaps I had confused the cop with my library ID... I wasn't about to ask what happened for fear the judge might find me ungrateful and reinstate the fine.

Although, I felt like a weight of the fine and year of probation was lifted from my shoulders, I found no reason to bike anymore to work if i couldn’t run red lights. Biking while obeying traffic rules becomes slower than riding trains. That’s why I scooter to work instead. I've scoured all the traffic laws and regulations in new york. Scootering on sidewalks is not illegal like skateboarding or biking. On scooter, you can go on the street the wrong way and run red lights, and it’s fast. I found scootering is such an obscure mode of commuting that there are loopholes to their usage on NYC streets. Perhaps if there more people scootering, there would be regulations. But kick scootering is just not done by adults. Probably because scooters are associated with kids' toys and it looks strange for adults to ride around like kids? I remember the first time I scootered was at ken's wedding in california.  we were running errands, he was on bike, he told me to kick scooter. after a couple blocks he gave me the bike and he kick scootered. I wasn't coordinated enough to balance on it naturally. a kick scooter is like a skateboard with a stick to control steering. while a skateboarder looks cool and punk, a kick scooterer looks stupid and dorky because of the steering control.... it's like riding around a bike with training wheels. A few years later, we got ben a razor scooter...but a 2 wheel scooter is hard to master for a 3 year old. it gathered dust in the basement. A couple years later, we got ben a micro 3 wheel scooter. they were a fad in nyc, every kid had one at the time. The commute to his nursery school at that time sucked. The school was remote and inaccessible by train. you could take a bus, but waiting for the bus could take longer than walking to the school. so we walked.. or rather, I walked and pushed him in a stroller for a mile. then I continued my walk uphill to work another mile. it was an hour and a half of walking everyday to drop him off and pick him up from school. In his final year, after he learned to scooter on the micro, I got the brilliant idea to scooter on his 2 wheeled kid's scooter by his side. it was ridiculous, the handle bar barely reached the height of my waist. but we cut our commute time in half. he on 3 wheels, and me on 2 wheels, we were faster than the buses and it was more fun. I remember the time I hit a small crack in the sidewalk and went hurtling through the air and had sore ribs for a week. a kid's scooter has small wheels, so sidewalk cracks are very dangerous. but I was addicted to the speed and continued despite my injuries... I scanned the sidewalks like a hawk, navigating all the cracks. It was a sad day when the polyurethane tires shredded... probably because the scooter was designed for 40 pound kids, not 150 pound adults. At that point, I bought my first adult sized scooter.

By the time jerry was born, my scootering skills had advanced such that I could scooter with one hand. this allowed me to push a jogging stroller while scootering. we would fly down the sidewalks at crazy speeds. it was a strange sight. first no adults scooter. second, no adults push strollers while scootering. a commute that would take a normal human being 20 minutes, now took me 5 minutes. we were shattering speed records and social norms in our mode of transportation. when he was 4, we became more conventional when jerry scootered by my side to school. my scootering is always associated with memories of my kids. everyday, when jerry is inevitably late to school, we hop of my scooter, he in front, me in back. his school is 3 blocks north. it's usually a frantic 2 minute ride to get to school by 8:20 AM. There's a memorial chapel on the road between our house and school. Sometimes there’s a hearse double parked in the road. when we see that golden opportunity, we say 'dead man blocking' and ride in the road full speed to avoid riding on the congested sidewalks of parents walking with their kids. last week I joked to jerry, this ride reminds me of the my times racing in the Iditarod. with every propulsionary stride, I lean down where my head is almost at jerry's level and give a  strong kick sending us surging through the street. I let out funny sounds like "heeyah" when my chin is close to his ear. I told jerry, "this is the sound we made mushing dogs through the snow in the Iditarod". jerry laughed and called my bluff, "you didn't race the Iditarod" "yes I did" "if you did, tell me where does it end?" "anchorage...(I try to say this with some dad authority. this is the only Alaskan city I know)" "no, daddy, it's nome" "fine. I lied. where do you learn all this useless information from" "books from school" I drop him off and he disappears into the school.

All week, the main story in the newspapers was how an 18 year old freshman college student at columbia was stabbed to death in morningside park, Harlem at 5:30 PM by a trio of 13 and 14 year olds. When i rowed, my crew team used to run up and down the stairs there for practice in the morning. used needles could be seen strewn along the stairs, but the city has changed and gotten a lot better till recently. when I read this news, my first thought was those undercover cops in Harlem pulling over bikers when they should be going after real criminals. copenhagenization in nyc is so perverted. in denmark, the lanes are filled with commuters. here, they are more or less empty... a source of revenue for the cops to find people crossing red lights, distracting them from their job. the cops take the joy out of biking.

Given the recent spate of murder news in the headlines, I decided to bring Ben to his Model UN conference at his high school, Bronx Science. Bronx Science is a great school located 8 miles north of our house, with 8 former graduates who went on to win Nobel prizes (7 of which were in physics). Given his malabsorption of geometry and basic biology, i'm just hoping at this point that  Ben can avoid failing physics during his tenure there. The model UN students were supposed to meet at the school in dress clothes (suits, pants, tie, and shoes) at 7:30 AM which meant we would have to leave at 6:30 in the dark. He's 14 now, old enough to be socially conscious and embarrassed by me but young enough for me to worry about him getting knifed. "dad, i'm ok. i'm safe riding the subway" "didn't you hear the latest news?" "yeah, but i'm not going to morningside" "but where does the subway pass through? morningside." he suspected I was being cheap as usual, not wanting to pay for a $40 taxi and forcing him to take the subway with me. I must admit, all my actions up to that point corroborated his assumptions. At 6:10 i was watching youtube videos on how to tie my tie for him. (I rarely wear ties because they look formal. The last tie I had tied by a friend and kept in a loop for decades but lost it.) At 6:25 we were cutting insoles to insert in my dress shoes for him to wear my oversized dress shoes. Fitted with my oversized clothes on his frame, I kept rationalizing that he's grown so much this past year, that buying him any new clothes, shoes, or ties to fit will be soon outgrown and a waste of money. We hopped on my scooter to the train station. he was pretty pissed, giving me disgruntled side glances and eyerolls the whole trip up as if to say "I can't believe this guy is my father." The whole subway ride was pretty tame. the only menacing guy was a drunk shirtless Mexican walking down the stairs of the transfer station at 145th street.

When we got off the train, he refused to ride on my scooter. he saw all the other students walking to the school and he was embarrassed to ride with me. It was sad because I could remember 6 years ago, I was taking the 8 year old version of ben to Bronx Science for a chess tournament. The rain was torrential, he stood on the prow of my scooter as we speared and splashed through puddles and driving rain. When we finally got there late, i remember successfully pleading to organizers to get him to play in the tournament as usual. he was completely socially unaware how awkward and fun that was. Now he's a teen. I was walking beside him. he was pissed that we forced him to join the model UN team. to add insult to injury, he was wearing my uncool looking oversized tie and shoes. The previous night, while we were watching Unbroken, he was researching and developing positions for Chad on renewable energy. I tried to joke around with him like "the white man is always trying to take advantage of chad so prepare for that." At the intersection right before the school he told me he wanted to walk alone now. "no kids walk with their parents to these events." "fine" I gave him my umbrella since the forecast called for rain, i took a picture of my baby wearing my clothes and left to return home.