Monday, June 9, 2008

A few pet peeves

Here's my equal-opportunity list of pet peeves:

Pedestrians:
  • Not looking before crossing the street
  • Walking and congregating in bike lanes (treating bike lanes as an extension of the sidewalk); the Prince St. bike lane is particularly bad in this respect as is the Hudson River Greenway, where runners and walkers persist in using bicycle/skater-only lanes in stretches where there is a beautiful adjacent pedestrian path
  • Crossing the street while plugged into an iPod or yacking on a cell phone and not paying attention to other pedestrians and street traffic
Mass transit riders:
  • Standing and/or sitting at the top or bottom of subway station stairs, thus impeding taffic flow
  • Playing music (or games) on a portable device without headphones or playing the music with headphones so loudly that it still can be heard by other passengers
  • Preventing the subway doors from closing
  • Littering in the station and in cars
  • Hustling other passengers for money

Cyclists:

  • Riding the wrong way up a one-way street, particularly in a narrow bike lane: this is a recipe for collision with a cyclist going in the correct direction
  • Blowing through red lights without checking the intersection first
  • Not being mindful of pedestrians

Drivers:

  • Driving, standing, stopping, or parking in a bike lane (a sadly rather frequent occurrence in New York). It forces cyclists to dart out into faster-moving traffic and makes conditions more chaotic and dangerous for everyone.
  • Not checking for cyclists before opening a car door (the biggest danger to cyclists in an urban environment)
  • Not checking for cyclists before executing a turn
  • Excessive speeding on city streets
  • Displaying general obliviousness to cyclists and pedestrians while driving

What are your pet peeves?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a great list.

Urbanis said...

Hi shishi,

It's great seeing you here on this blog. I always enjoy reading your comments on Streetsblog. Welcome!