[UPDATE BELOW]
Days after a New Jersey Assemblywoman floated (and then quickly walked back) a plan to require bicycle riders to register with the DMV and put license plates on their bikes, City Councilmember Eric Ulrich (R-Queens) is joining the fun. Ulrich is proposing that all adult cyclists in NYC be required to affix an ID tag to their bikes. "There seems to be a double standard when it comes to enforcing the traffic laws," Ulrich tells the Post, explaining that many of his constituents are senior citizens. "People on bicycles scare the hell out of them. Sometimes they can be an intimidating presence on the city streets." Which reminds us how truck and car drivers used to scare the hell out of people, but then they they got licensed and now they're totally harmless!
But Ulrich, who at 24 is the youngest serving member of the council, is also looking out for cyclists with his proposal, because he's concerned that many of them ride bikes without carrying ID, and what if they get hit by some maniac bike rider? Cyclists are riding around out there without identification because, Ulrich asserts, "They're in Spandex or whatnot."
Streetsblog is predictably derisive, and suggests that Ulrich "should take some time to learn about what’s actually harming the residents of his district. Less than a week ago, an 81-year-old woman was critically injured when she was struck by a tow truck driver as she was crossing the street. What is Eric Ulrich doing to prevent the next serious injury or fatality on the streets in his district, which include roads with terrible safety records, like Woodhaven Boulevard?"
If Ulrich's proposal is taken seriously by the City Council, you can expect Transportation Alternatives—which has worked closely with the NYC DOT to expand bicycling infrastructure—to fight tooth and nail. As Aja Hazelhoff at Transportation Alternatives told us, "Not only would this be fiscally and operationally impossible to implement, but the deterrent effect it would have on cycling would be enormous. We already have every law we need to make cycling safe in NYC, and what's needed is simply better, more targeted enforcement of these pre-existing laws." And if Ulrich really wants to make the streets safer, a good place to start would to call on the NYPD to actually do something about drivers blocking in bike lanes, and wanton speeding.
Update: In response to our questions, Ulrich issued this statement: "Being on the road is a privilege, not an absolute right. The city is constantly bending over backwards to accommodate cyclists with the installation of bike lanes and special traffic signals - yet drivers are the only ones who receive tickets for speeding, blowing red lights, and not yielding to pedestrian traffic. This is a common sense piece of legislation that will improve safety for everyone. The bottom line is that we all share the road and must follow the same rules."
