Plan to bring more deadly e-bikes to Central Park – Latest News
Earth to the Central Park Conservatory: Encouraging more e-bikes to race by way of the park shouldn’t be solely unsuitable, it’s a betrayal of the park’s very function.
Along with the Parks Department and the Department of Transportation, the Conservatory is trying not simply to give e-bikes a everlasting OK to barrel round Central Park, but in addition to reserve a full lane within the Park Drive for “micromobility” automobiles like e-bikes and e-scooters (whereas eradicating some visitors alerts that the ebikers routinely ignore anyway).
This is loopy: It’s solely been six years since vehicles acquired banned 24/7 from Park Drive; why privilege a new class of machines?
Plus: E-bikes are a confirmed hazard to pedestrians, the very people the park is most for.
In October, an e-bike killed a 60-year-old lady the Brooklyn Navy Yard; one other fatally hit a 49-year-old man crossing a Greenpoint avenue; days after that, a third e-bike plowed into a 3-year-old woman in Williamsburg, sending her to the hospital.
E-bikes are heavier and quicker than common bikes, with some fashions ready to hit speeds of 30 mph — and no one wants any license, a lot much less any security coaching, to operate them.
More From Post Editorial Board
Mayor Adams set a 15-mph restrict for these velocity demons in October, however the bikers are infamous for ignoring visitors legal guidelines; tales of e-bike hit-and-runs are all too common.
The Conservancy’s mission is “to preserve and celebrate Central Park as a sanctuary from the pace and pressures of city life”; how does inviting e-bikes to run wild serve that function?
If the park ought to let anybody go loopy, it’s youngsters — however as an alternative this transfer endangers them.
The logical factor to do is to ban e-bikes, not cater to them.
Get opinions and commentary from our columnists
Subscribe to our each day Post Opinion publication!
Thanks for signing up!
We suspect some fool ideologues think about e-bikes are environment-friendly different transportation, and so value encouraging to “save the planet.”
That possible appealed to Conservancy executives as a trigger they might take up to justify their obscene salaries.
Conservancy CEO Elizabeth “Betsy” Smith, who attracts a cool $933,000 a 12 months, has been on a roll of late — posturing towards the managers of Wollman Rink, dumping on the standard and beloved park carriages and bungling a redesign of visitors patterns on key elements of the Drive.
Maybe this transfer wasn’t Smith’s concept, however the product of one of her $300,000-a-year minions.
Either method, it’s past apparent that these “professionals” are serving the unsuitable pursuits — attempting to impress the “right people” by signing on to silly causes.
It’s previous time for the Conservancy’s board to clean home, and rent managers who really care about Central Park.
