If you're troubled by the crackdown on cyclists who disobey red lights in Central Park, tonight's your night to voice your concerns to the NYPD. Is $270 a reasonable fine for biking through a red light in the park, even if the intersection is empty? Can the park's lights be changed to flashing yellow when cars aren't using it? Will the NYPD enforce speeding laws in the park with the same diligence they've demonstrated with "Operation Safe Cycle"?
All that and more will be on the table at this month's Central Park Precinct’s Community Council meeting, which takes place tonight at 7 p.m. at 160 Central Park West (the Universalist Church at 76th Street). In a trenchant article on Streetsblog, Ken Coughlin takes a close look at the issue. Toward the end of the post, he makes an excellent point:
We would not be having this discussion if cars were not allowed in the park in the first place. Traffic lights were first installed there in 1932, not to regulate recreational users but to keep the cars that had invaded the park some three decades earlier from killing people. Today, cyclists — the sort of recreational user for whom the park was designed — are being forced to adhere to rules created for cars, which is making it difficult for them to use Central Park as a place of recreation. In other words, even when cars are not in the park, their iniquitous influence endures.
