Effectively Good For You

Our tradition loves giving out frivolous awards: Oscars, Grammys, Nobels…

[“We’re all sooo impressed, Einstein.”]

…however no accolade is as pointless as Individuals For Bikes’s “Greatest Metropolis” rankings, and apparently this 12 months America’s “Greatest Giant Metropolis for Biking” is…

Brooklyn?!?

Setting apart how a lot hassle America is in if Brooklyn represents the perfect bicycling we’ve got to supply, there’s additionally the much more troubling indisputable fact that BROOKLYN IS NOT A CITY. Sure, it’s true, it was as soon as its personal metropolis, again in 1898, and it’s even true that once you had been a child you in all probability had a crotchety uncle who nonetheless considered it that means, and who known as Manhattan “New York.” However now it’s 2025, it’s not a metropolis, even when it does have a basketball crew, and subsequently that is all a load of crap:

PeopleForBikes’ 2025 Metropolis Scores rank the bikeability of almost 3,000 cities throughout the U.S. and all over the world. For the primary time, this 12 months’s scores divide New York Metropolis into its 5 boroughs, recognizing the local-level work being accomplished to enhance bicycling. Three boroughs landed within the prime 10 finest massive U.S. cities for biking for 2025: Manhattan took the #10 spot with a rating of 51 (out of a attainable 100), Queens got here in at #4 with a rating of 63, and Brooklyn took this 12 months’s #1 spot with a rating of 73, narrowly surpassing final 12 months’s top-scoring massive metropolis, Minneapolis.

What he hell sort of gerrymandering is that this? You don’t get to carve a metropolis up into 5 separate cities simply since you really feel prefer it. Additionally, two of the “cities” (Staten Island and the Bronx) aren’t even talked about right here, presumably as a result of they’re not adequate. But the identical goddamn Division of Transportation is chargeable for all of those locations! Shouldn’t this mirror badly on them, and town as an entire, together with these hoity-toity Brooklynites? Let’s say my home is a cease on the native backyard tour. I’ve received 5 flower beds. One is sweet, two are sort of okay, and two are simply patches of dust and dried dogshit. Do I deserve a ribbon for being the perfect gardener on the town? In fact I don’t! That award ought to rightfully go to my neighbor who diligently cultivates his total backyard, the smug bastard.

But as a substitute we’re performing like watering solely considered one of your flower beds is an effective factor:

So how did Brooklyn turn out to be the perfect massive U.S. metropolis for biking? A powerful community of protected and related locations to trip. New York Metropolis as an entire is residence to 1,550 miles of motorbike lanes, bike paths, and neighborhood greenways, making it North America’s largest bicycle community. Brooklyn particularly has extra miles of motorbike lanes than every other borough.

Right here’s that lazy gardener, by the way in which, phoning it in on the 5 Boro Bike Tour:

To be honest, Brooklyn does have a couple of issues going for it that the opposite boroughs don’t. For instance, there’s that 25mph pace restrict:

Along with a formidable community of devoted bike infrastructure, Brooklyn’s borough-wide residential pace restrict of simply 25 mph additionally makes its streets low-stress and protected for bicyclists based on PeopleForBikes’ Bicycle Community Evaluation, the data-driven program behind Metropolis Scores.

Wait a minute. THAT’S THE SPEED LIMIT EVERYWHERE IN THE CITY, together with right here within the Bronx. But we’re not even a wildcard:

Hey, we’ve received bike lanes too! It’s simply that they’re largely used for laundry automobiles:

That won’t impress Individuals for Bikes, however I wager it could get the Worldwide Detailing Affiliation’s consideration:

I don’t know if they’ve “Greatest Detailing Metropolis” rankings, however we’re a shoo-in to win the picture contest:

All I’m saying is {that a} metropolis is sort of a bike lock, and it’s solely as robust as its weakest hyperlink. It’s not like a crew time trial within the Tour de France, the place you get to drop a couple of guys as a result of they base your ending time on the fifth rider to cross the road.

Perhaps the Harlem River Greenway undertaking will assist push us up within the rankings subsequent 12 months:

That’s gonna make a helluva automobile wash.