If you made it past the news about the unusually high number of “Safety Dance” attendees who puked on themselves you may have noticed that the YDN printed a nice opinion piece today by sophomore Brian Tang.

No, not that Tang.
For those who don’t know, he’s the ambitious underclassman with the will to encourage bicycle use as legitimate transportation for New Haven residents. He’s also the creator of the other “BikeNewHaven” (via City of New Haven).
The City’s “BikeNewHaven” was designed by Tang to demonstrate the simple and safe ways to traverse New Haven by bicycle.
It includes a section titled “Bike Smart” which advises riders to uses hand signals whenever necessary. The message is already getting through to Yalies as I witnessed a young lady signal a left hand turn onto Wall St. from York in front of the Hall of Graduate Studies. She was going the wrong way down York St., however.

From the "other" BikeNewHaven
With the Bike New Haven website serving as a handy reference tool rather than the echoing reminder that is needed, Tang penned his latest essay for the YDN.
In the article, Tang once again delivers a simple yet effective message,
” … it is actually very difficult to get hit by a car on a bicycle so long as you ride with traffic, as traffic. Bicycling with traffic may sound scary, but, ultimately, it is the best way to stay safe. The key to safe bicycling is to ride in a manner that makes sense to the other users of the road.”
In addition, Tang brings to light some of the systematic problems that are decelerating the city’s efforts and arguably discouraging new riders.
” … adding bike lanes is not simply a matter of slapping some paint on the road. On many of New Haven’s streets, adding bike lanes would require the removal of on-street parking or the elimination of a travel lane. Because of the way improvements to transportation infrastructure are funded, they often require the approval of the state Department of Transportation. A little behind the times, Connecticut’s Department of Transportation tends to consider maintaining the flow of traffic to be its overriding responsibility. As a result, New Haven has so far not succeeded in convincing the department to let it slim down roads with extra travel lanes such as Whitney Avenue. State engineers have also dismissed shared lane markings — another type of pavement marking used by many cities to assist bicyclists in maintaining a safe position on the roadway — as experimental and unproven.“
Tang makes a good point. Too often the argument is stated that even if you do ride with traffic you’re taking your life in your hands, and that what we really need is better infrastructure.
I think ECC and past groups have done a good job at expressing infrastructure concerns to the city. The only thing that’s holding them back is money, and the administration has admitted this more than once. So, the only way to fix that would be to convince the state that in communities all across Connecticut, especially in cities, bicycling infrastructure is a necessary investment of transportation resources and simultaneously an effective solution to traffic and parking woes. It’s like killing two cars with one bike.
So, for all those New Haven citizens who claim that Yalies do nothing but use our city as a backdrop to their four years of study, Tang stands as an example of a student who has given back to the community more than most residents. Here’s to hoping that he has even more to offer. Thanks, Brian!
























