Activists stencil an outline of a fallen body to call attention to the death of Julia Thomson who was killed on the Bowery on Sunday.

Activists staged back-to-back street memorials Tuesday night to honor two of the latest victims in New York's traffic wars.

On the corner of Sixth Avenue and Houston Street, anti-car campaigners with the environmental group Times Up! placed bouquets of flowers and stenciled the outline of a fallen body to mark the spot where on September 25, a reportedly drug-impaired truck driver smashed into Hope Miller, a 28-year-old aspiring actress from North Dakota who had been living in Queens.

After a few angry speeches, about a dozen activists mounted their bikes and pedaled en masse to the corner of Bowery and East 4th Street, where 24-year-old Julia Thomson was cut down by a drunken hit-and-run driver just five days after Miller's death.

This time they were grimly silent as they spraypainted a stencil of Thomson's name and another outline of a fallen body on the dark asphalt, then tied a bouquet of flowers on a post in the traffic meridian, near where Thomson was struck when she got out of a cab on her way to her apartment across the street.

"I feel troubled that we are stacking up memorial activities one after another," said Peter Meitzler, one of the founders of the Street Memorial Project, which began stenciling bodies on the streets in the late 1990s to protest the carnage caused by cars. (The group has recently been relaunched with the help of volunteers from Visual Resistance, Transportation Alternatives, and Times Up!.)

"When we first started doing this, one person was getting killed a day by cars," Meitzler noted. "Now, if you can believe it, it's a bit less— like every other day."

Beyond driver recklessness, activists were quick to blame the Department of Transportation's ongoing redesign of Houston Street, which they've dubbed a "boulevard of death."

"They're turning it into an eight-lane superhighway, a Robert Moses wet dream that's more geared to cars than people," complained Times Up! volunteer Ellen Belcher. Concrete barrers, metal barricades, and piles of gravel and debris jut into the ripped up asphalt, creating a dusty obstacle course for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike.

Since the renovation began in 2005, three bicyclists have died in truck-related accidents while riding along Houston Street. The most recent occurred last summer, when the front wheel of a Brooklyn filmmaker's bike hit a steel plate covering a construction trench, causing him to fall beneath a truck.

At the corner of Sixth Avenue where Miller was killed, pedestrians must squeeze past fenced-off islands of construction, often forcing them into traffic. After the community complained, the NYPD agreed to provide traffic agents to monitor the intersection. But according to the district's councilmember, Alan Gerson, the traffic agent for that corner was apparently reassigned elsewhere on the morning of Miller's death.

"Enough is enough! Why are we redoing Houston Street to make it less safe, not more safe?" demanded Gerson, who filed a lawsuit in September to halt the Houston Street redesign, terming it a "present and future" threat to both bicyclists and pedestrians. At Tuesday night's memorial, Gerson cited a litany of problems, from the DOT's refusal to include a protected bike lane, to the narrowing of the traffic islands at the intersections of West Broadway and Mercer Streets in order to accommodate extra turning lanes for vehicles. "To do that without increasing the crossing time for pedestrians—that's outrageous," complained Gerson who held another press conference Wednesday to denounce the redesign.

In 2006, 166 pedestrians were killled in traffic accidents and more than 10,000 were hit, while there were at least 14 bicycle fatalities, according to the DOT and statistics compiled by Transportation Alternatives.

News of an apparent drop in fatalities was little comfort to Leo DePena, a 45-year-old bike messenger who pulled over to take in Thomson's memorial on his way home to the Bronx. 'I've been riding for over 25 years, and people don't care any more," DePena said. "These drivers are crazy now. They're murderous."

Since renovations to Houston Street began in 2005, three bicyclists have been killed along that small stretch of road.

A Parks department truck filled with bikes. Photo by: Lauren Philson:

By Harry Bruinius

In the decades since Robert Moses smashed an expressway through the Bronx (and nearly Soho) and made Manhattan’s island waterfronts a congested loop of tailpipes and blaring horns, New York has not been the easiest place to ride a bike.

And even as the Bloomberg administration offers its vision of a greener New York, encouraging bicycling during May’s Bike Month NYC, funding 42 more miles of bike-friendly “greenways,” and even painting a few bright green sidepaths on Brooklyn Heights streets, the ongoing dearth of bike lanes and convenient places to lock up has led to more clashes between cyclists and the city.

This week in Forest Hills, Queens, witnesses observed the Parks Enforcement Patrol cutting chains and hauling off bikes illegally locked to city trees near Continental Ave. and Austin St.

Throughout the past few months, police officers from Brooklyn’s 94th precinct clipped and seized dozens of bikes along Bedford Ave. near the L train stop in Williamsburg, where riders attach their bikes to anything stiff and straight. And in May, the NYPD used circular saws to cut through the chains of nearly 50 bikes locked up on 6th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues.

One of the witnesses, Lauren Philson, a photographer at Capella Arts in Forest Hills, snapped a photo of a Parks and Recreation truck after officers hacked through locks and threw dozens confiscated bikes on the truck’s back bed. One officer later told her and a friend that there was a city-wide campaign to remove bikes chained to city trees or to the metal fencing around them.

The Department of Parks and Recreation, however, said there was no such campaign, but that officers are always to remove any personal property left unattended, including bikes chained to city property. According to Abby Lootens, a spokesperson for the Department, Parks Patrol officers must then leave behind notes, explaining to bewildered owners what has happened and where they can claim their property.

Bicycles are usually taken first to the nearest Parks Enforcement Command Center, stored for about 3 days, and then moved to a storage center in Flushing Meadows. After a week here, all bikes are turned over to the NYPD, Lootens said.

“Most owners of seized bicycles may come back to an empty post without explanation as to why the bike was seized or how to retrieve it,” said Philson. The Parks officers only tacked up DPR business cards to the trees, she said. “There were no actual notes telling anyone where to go to retrieve their bikes, or what had happened.”

In Williamsburg, where the number of bicyclists has exploded over the last few years, the area near the L train stop on Bedford Avenue is often packed with bikes locked to sign posts, utility poles, and even the subway railings. But as the number of tire-less and handle-less frames locked to sidewalk posts began to increase, leaders from Community Board 1 asked the local precincts to establish an abandoned bike tagging and removal program. Cops would slap on a warning sticker, and remove the abandoned bikes a few days later. Instead, according to CB1 Transportation Chair Teresa Toro in a posting on Streetsblog, cops randomly and indiscriminately clip and confiscate bikes in mass sweeps.

Even so, for the first time ever in the city, says the NYC Department of Transportation, street parking spots at the Bedford stop have been converted into a bike hub, with nine new racks anchored into a 76-foot extension of the sidewalk. The new bike area opened yesterday, and can accommodate up to 30 bikes.

Seen yesterday on Lafayette, near East 4th Street: The photo shoot for an upcoming city campaign promoting bike safety. Note the bike lane extending up onto the hood of the red car—wow.

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky is taking to the steps of City Hall today to denounce Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, raising concerns about is implementation, economics, and effect on privacy. As for its implementation, Brodsky says though the mayor is touting the plan as a pilot program, the legislation gives the mayor discretion to continue the program beyond three years.

The report, titled "Any Inquiry into Congestion Pricing as Proposed in PlaNYC 2030 and S.6068" also says the legislation needs stronger safeguards to ensure that the data collected by 1,000 new security cameras would be protected.

More importantly, Brodsky, a Westchester Democract, says congestion pricing would a classic regressive tax, a fee that would take more money from struggling households than from wealthy ones. "There is no real dispute that the people whose behavior will be modified, as well as the people from whom the bulk of the money will be extracted, are working families," the report said.

A full copy of the 26-page report can be found here.

Streetsblog.com fired back at Brodsky today, taking a look at $16,700 in campaign contributions that Brodsky's accepted from interests connected to the parking lot industry. No state legislator has accepted more from the parking industry than Brodsky, streetsblog.com said.

While congestion pricing is debated, a July 16 deadline to apply for federal aid to implement the plan is fast approaching. If the plan were approved, city officials hope to get as much as $500 in federal transporation funds.

Crazy on lower Broadway

Yesterday, the city gave the right-hand lane of lower Broadway over to buses, part its Bus Rapid Transit plan. The idea is to turn the pokey dogs of the MTA into speedy greyhounds by giving them room to run and better places to stop.

And yes, savvy cyclist, you might also find a little room in the new lane—it reaches from Houston to Vesey—but you risk getting a ticket from the NYPD. Vehicles other than buses are allowed into the lane only for making right turns. The Daily News reports that the cops wrote 172 citations on Monday.

A ride down Broadway this afternoon revealed little compliance from drivers and just about zero enforcement. It was, in a word, chaos. Photo evidence follows.

It's supposed to be bus only, not SUV only.

Not exactly trotting down the street.

One of the new stops.

Room for a cyclist?

A bus tries to squeeze back into its own lane.

Every so often, the traffic parted and the bus lane appeared—
if only that bus way back there were up here.

Parking a bike can be a crime.
'Voice ' slideshow

Around 9 p.m. last Wednesday, Robert Carnevale got an emergency call from his girlfriend. Police had showed up on his block of East 6th Street, between 1st and 2nd avenues. They were cutting the locks off bicycles chained to street signs, Caroline Dorn told him.

Carnevale, who owns three bikes himself, raced back to find what's become known as Operation Bike Raid in full swing. Sparks from the NYPD's circular saws arced through the night. Police, some in plainclothes, were piling cycles by the dozen in a heap on the sidewalk. Carnevale says he ran up and down the street, buzzing all the doors to alert his neighbors. People who live nearby were trying to claim their bikes.

At first Carnevale took still pictures, then he switched the digital camera into video mode. He approached the plainclothes lieutenant who seemed to be in charge and asked for his name. Carnevale says the officer gave his name, but got annoyed when asked to spell it. "You got my name," the officer says on the video. "I did you a favor. . . . Now I'm going to lock you up."

And he did, sending Carnavale to the pokey for 22 hours on a charge of disorderly conduct. The cop also rang up Carole Vale, a nurse who happened by and asked for an explanation. Vale spent 13 hours in a cell, on the same count.

In addition to the two arrests, the NYPD collared about 15 bikes. Officers, some in plainclothes, loaded bikes into unmarked black vans. "Why is domestic spying being used on non-polluting transportation?" asked Time's Up director Bill DiPaola at a press conference today.

City code does prohibit locking a bike to anything other than a city-approved rack, but there's some dispute over whether that applies solely to abandoned bikes. The rusted carcasses of old cruisers, often picked cleaned of valuable parts, litter street signs and bike racks around the five boroughs.

Transportation Alternative reports that the East Village police precinct, the 9th, started trying to identify and tag abandoned bikes in 2005. Cyclists generally see getting rid of useless junkers as a positive, since it leaves more room for bikes in daily use. Not surprisingly, they take less kindly to having their bikes cut loose and removed with no advance notice or information afterward about how to get them back.

Civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel, representing the East 6th Street riders at the press conference today, said the raid might have been prompted by a complaint from Community Board 3. He cited a court decision from September 2005, in which a judge ruled that the city had violated the due process rights of three cyclists by clipping their locks and hauling off the bikes with no warning. "The unlawful activity here is not by the cyclists, it's by the cops," Siegel said.

Biker seeks driver on 2nd Avenue

Despite being led by clowns, Thursday evening's Bike Liberation Ride was a rousing success. The group of a dozen or so riders nudged, cajoled, and teased drivers of trucks, taxis, limos, and private cars out of dedicated bike lanes downtown. The journey began in Washington Square park with instructions to keep the affair fun, safe, and clean, and ended with movie night at Time's Up!

In between, we handed out phony tickets to drivers blocking the bike lanes and cheered on a traffic enforcement agent as he handed out real citations on Second Avenue.

Full photo evidence here.

Given all the venom—not to mention all the tax dollars expended by the NYPD to suppress Critical Mass bike rides, it was something of a surprise to open the glossy new Bike Month NYC calendar and find a listing for this month's cycle showdown in Union Square.

The calendar was funded by the Department of Transportation (DOT), as part of the City's yearly effort to promote biking in the Big Apple.

Available at bike shops and cafes as well as online, the calendar includes everything from bike repair workshops and the Bicycle Film Festival to this Saturday's Ninth Annual Blessing of the Bicycles at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and Willyburg's own Bicycle Fetish Day.

But there's also a plug for the next Critical Mass gathering on May 25 in Union Square, featuring the standard CM line: “We are traffic: riding daily, celebrating monthly, in Manhattan and beyond. There are no leaders. Bicyclists, rollerbladers, skateboarders and all muscle-powered transportation is [sic] welcome."

There are posters for Bike Month on city buses and subways and a prominent link on the DOT's website directing you to the calendar, which includes some 35 events organized by Times Up—the group the City was suing for promoting Critical Mass bike rides.

There's even a plug for the Brooklyn Critical Mass this Friday.

So does this mean that at least a part of the City doesn’t mind these monthly demonstrations against “car culture”?

Not really. A spokesperson for the DOT was quick to point out that the calendar was compiled by the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, which allows any group to submit a bike-related event.

"The city subsidizes the printing of the calendar and other Bike Month promotional materials," explained DOT rep Chris Gilbride, who was unaware of the Critical Mass listing until the Voice pointed it out.

“There are more than 175 events during Bike Month and while they're not all DOT events, Bike Month offers New Yorkers a number of opportunities to discover the benefits of cycling in the city," Gilbride added, diplomatically.

Perhaps a better question to ask is, why are the Times Up folks even raising the issue? If the City is giving you free advertising for your "Bike Lane Liberation Clown Ride," why complain?

"It's a major contradiction," responds Times Up founder Bill DiPaolo. “In the city's lawsuit against Times Up, they said we could not advertise an event without a permit, and now the city is doing the same thing.”

In fact, says DiPaolo, “Most of the group rides in this calendar don’t have permits. It just shows the ridiculousness of it,” he says of the NYPD’s new parade rule, which requires a permit for any “human-powered” procession of 50 or more people.

Noah Budnick, deputy director of Transportation Alternatives, said his group initially sought to get a blanket permit from the NYPD to ensure that all the Bike Month events complied with the new rule. But the NYPD nixed that idea, so TA left it to the cycling groups to make arrangements for themselves.

While a few of the larger rides have applied for permits, others say if their events draw more than 50 people, they'll simply split up into smaller groups of faster and slower cyclists.

“No one's really worried about it," says Budnick. "There's a strong consensus in the biking community that the police are only going to enforce the parade permit rule once a month, and that's the last Friday of the month at 7 pm in Union Square."

Video of the April 27 Critical Mass ride. H/T: bikeblog.blogspot.com

The cyclists of Critical Mass may have found a new move in their ongoing match of cat-and-mouse with the NYPD. On Friday, riders gathered for the monthly event in Union Square, as usual. But instead of taking off into the chomping teeth of the city's blues, they headed underground, took the subway to the financial district, and emerged to start their ride with nary a scooter cop in sight.

Bikeblog has the firsthand report:

This was truly amazing. We had one giant wheel unicycle, one tallbike and about 40 other riders. We had lost a few people along the way, some didn't go on the subway, some got off at the wrong stop and there was rumor that a group went to Brooklyn, thinking we meant the other Fulton St. For the most part, we were united as a group, taking up all the lanes of traffic and engaged in a fun critical mass. As we headed up Church St. towards Canal, it seemed that a lot more people knew who we were. There was a lot of friendly supportive honking from motor vehicles and crowd waving.

Pedicabbers rode over the Brooklyn Bridge Friday, April 20. The Council's new law bans them from bike paths on city bridges.

Photos by Sarah Ferguson

Monday's vote in the City Council to sharply rein in the burgeoning pedicab industry was both predictable and dispiriting, given Mayor Bloomberg’s pledge on Sunday to make New York "the first environmentally sustainable 21st-century city."

No matter that the mayor's 2030 plan specifically calls on the city to promote bicycling as one way to lower traffic congestion and emissions.

The Council voted 37-6, with 2 abstentions and 5 absences, to override Bloomberg's veto of the pedicab cap, reflecting the reluctance of some members to risk the wrath of Speaker Christine Quinn by coming out publicly against a bill she has so adamantly defended.

Among those switching sides were Brooklyn rep Letitia James, who stood with Quinn after previously opposing Intro 331-A, and Parks committee chair Helen Foster, who voted no even though she'd initially supported the bill. David Yassky of Brooklyn voted yes, but said the bill's citywide cap of 325 pedicabs was "unwise and too low" and asked that it be revised before the bill expires in two years.

In a press conference before the vote, Quinn, took exception to the notion that her efforts to restrict pedicab transit were anti-environment.

"The issue isn't whether pedicabs are or are not green," Quinn told reporters. "The fact that they are human powered certainly makes them a clean-air vehicle. But we have to balance the reality of wanting to have more green vehicles of all sorts . . . with the reality that you have to regulate industries that use the streets of New York to make money."

Quinn said capping the industry at 325 pedicabs was "reasonable"—even though drivers say it could put 40 percent of them out of business—and predicted the new restrictions, such as allowing the NYPD to ban pedicabs from any Midtown street for up to 14 days—would prove less "dire" than opponents think.

Just why Quinn has been so determined to smack down the still relatively puny pedicab industry has been the subject of much speculation.

She dismissed allegations that she was swung by a close friend who works for a firm that lobbies for the taxi industry, terming that "ridiculous."

Quinn said she was initially motivated to act on behalf of theater owners in her district, who are fed up with aggressive pedicab drivers congregating outside Broadway shows and ringing their bells to attract customers. (Quinn described a recent trip to see Jersey Boys on Broadway: "You couldn't pass on the street because there were pedicabs from one curb to the other, completely blocking the flow of traffic.")

But Quinn didn’t deny that the taxi-medallion owners had given her plenty of input. "There’s nothing wrong with the taxi industry making their position clear on this bill, and there’s nothing wrong with talking to the taxi industry," she insisted, adding, "There was no undue influence here at all."

In fact, representatives of the taxi industry showed up at every public hearing over Intro 331-A, and there were at least five taxi reps on hand for Monday's override, including a guy snapping pics of the Council members as they voted.

Surprisingly, the most outspoken opposition came from the outer boroughs. "This bill is not about regulation. This bill is designed to kill this industry," charged Tony Avella from Queens. "You are immediately, the day this bill goes into effect, putting people out of work. Shame on us if we do this."

His Queens colleague Hiram Monserrate questioned why the Council was requiring pedicab owners to take out $2 million insurance policies, when taxis are required to carry only $350,000 in coverage. "This is about eliminating, not regulating," said Monserrate, who made a last-ditch effort to avert the override by circulating an alternative bill with a bigger cap and fewer restrictions. Monserrate urged the Council to follow the lead of Mayor Bloomberg, who moved at the last minute to reconsider and then veto the bill, even after his Administration spent hours helping to craft it. “ We are going to take people’s jobs away. It’s unfair and it’s wrong."

And the ever-combative Charles Barron accused Quinn and her allies of caving to the taxi and limousine industry. "This is not us versus the mayor," he said. "This is us versus people in New York City who created a creative industry that tourists use and to raise income for their families."

On Saturday, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion argued that the cap of 325 pedicabs citywide would amount to a "de facto ban" on pedicab businesses outside of Manhattan.

"What signal does it send to those who are considering investing in a small business in our city — especially green businesses that should receive heightened protection?" Carrion said. "On the day after Earth Day, of all days, this is not a direction the Council should be going."

Last week, the Sierra Club, NYPIRG, Transportation Alternatives, and the New York League of Conservation Voters sent letters to all the council members, urging them "in the strongest way" to uphold the mayor's veto or risk losing their support. But those voices were outweighed by Quinn's allies on the Council like James Gennaro, chair of the Council’s environmental protection committee, who went so far as to argue that pedicabs cause pollution by creating more congestion.

His comments drew boos and hisses from the roughly three dozen pedicab drivers and supporters who packed the upper rafter of the Council chambers. After the vote, they gathered on the front steps of City Hall and threatened to sue.

"I think they made an absolute mockery of the mayor’s 2030 plan," said Jessie White, who rides a "big red trike" for Mr. Rickshaw. White predicted that the new law would result in a rash of arrests and ticketing of pedicabbies when it takes effect in five months. "It’s going to bog down the system and cost the city a lot of money. It’s gonna be chaos."

The Department of Consumer Affairs is setting up a lottery to award the new pedicab licenses. Many drivers are upset the DCA has not offered to give preference to existing pedicab owners, even though some have been operating in the city for 10 years. They fear the new licenses will get bought up by big players, leaving grassroots operations out in the cold.

"People with tons of money will turn it into a defacto medallion," says Gregg Zukowski, the founder of Revolution Rickshaws. "All of these people standing here could be out of business in five months."

Zukowski says he's already gotten calls from taxi medallion owners seeking "passive investments" in the pedicab biz. "They’re trying to find a way to profit off the new cap," says Peter Meitzler, head of NYC Pedicab Owners Association. "I don’t think they realize how shoestring this industry is."

Extreme commuter Nadette and dog Olive.

Before the Mass, scooter cops were spotted congregating on the East River.

Let's roll! Cyclists in Union Square.

Pedicab love in the street.

Friday night's Critical Mass bike ride was played as a First Amendment "showdown" over the NYPD's new parade rule, which requires groups of 50 or more to get a permit to be on the streets.

Predictably there were arrests—three to be exact—along with 46 summonses issued to the cyclists, who pedaled out of Union Square in a pack of about 100 and ran smack into a police blockade on Park Avenue a block away.

But for all of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's bluster about their being a new law in town, none of the Critical Mass riders were actually ticketed for parading without a permit.

Rather the cops hit people up for a host of minor traffic violations like failing to keep to the right, not having a headlight, or not riding in the bike lane—even though there is no bike lane on Park Avenue.

Things did get a bit nastier uptown. One 21-year old woman was charged with felony assault for "kicking, punching, and biting several officers" after they wrestled her to the ground in Times Square. She was also charged with criminal possession of a folding knife and resisting arrest. According to activists who videotaped the incident, the woman was on the sidewalk taking close-ups of police and their badges when she was "violently knocked to the ground" by half a dozen police officers. Police declined to comment on that allegation, saying only, "she was arrested for assaulting an officer."

Two other young men were charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration.

But evidently the cops decided not to test the new parade statute by actually charging anyone for violating it—even though some bikers made it easy by wearing white T-shirts numbered 1 through 50 to demonstrate their willingness to defy the law.

"I think they're afraid it won't stand up to a court challenge," said Bill DiPaolo of the environmental group Times Up!, noting how the city's lawsuit seeking to ban his group from promoting Critical Mass didn't hold up in court very well either.

DiPaolo was jubilant about all the media that turned out to cover the ride, brought on in part by Mayor Bloomberg's fortuitous veto Friday morning of the City Council bill that would sharply restrict pedicabs in the city.

"The mayor actually heard our message," said Kate Freitag, a trike mechanic from Staten Island who was one of a half-dozen pedicab drivers who rode with Critical Mass to celebrate. Freitag says the Council bill would put the company he works for out of business.

Also reveling in all the press attention was City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, who was greeted with cheers of "Ride, Rosie, Ride!" for her decision to join the mass in a pedicab.

Mendez called the NYPD's latest "50 or more" rule "arbitrary and unconstitutional," then hoarsely led the crowd in chants of "Whose streets? Our streets!"

Perhaps not looking to hand her any more hype, the cops let Mendez and the other pedicab drivers slip by their dragnet on Park Avenue.

Though the cops say Critical Mass inconveniences drivers and is a danger to public safety, there was something Orwellian about the swarms of police vans, SUVs, and scooters that descended on the bicyclists, stopping up two lanes on the northbound side of Park Avenue for at least 30 minutes. "Heads up for traffic, please!" screamed one captain at the horde of TV cameras rushing into the street to film a woman getting corralled by a group of cops on the traffic median.

"I can't figure out the rationale for any of this," said Daniel Gillmor a 30-year-old technology advisor from Brooklyn, who found himself surrounded by five journalists wanting to know all about the traffic citation he got for supposedly failing to keep to the right. "I was stopped because the police had blocked the intersection. They came over and grabbed my bike and took my license," Gillmor explained, looking bewildered.

While many riders gave up after the fiasco on Park Avenue, at least 30 regrouped and toured through midtown, including Mendez, who made it all the way to Columbus Circle and Times Square.

"It was great being out there, but I saw some disturbing arrests," said Mendez when we caught up at Life Café in the East Village, where she and her pedicab driver from Revolution Rickshaws were celebrating over a beer.

Though the riders who made it through felt victorious, the fact that about half the cyclists got nailed for something is not much to crow about.

"The police have really ruined Critical Mass," notes Gideon Oliver, a lawyer who has represented hundreds of Critical Mass riders over the last three years.

"They've gotten really good at shrinking the ride through intimidation and splintering it up. I don't know why they need these new parade rules to ruin it further.

"The fact that the police didn't use the parade rules to ticket anyone last night sort of begs the question, why do they need it?"

Bike activists are boasting of back-to-back court victories this week. On Monday, a New York City judge dismissed charges of parading without a permit for four cyclists arrested during a January 27 Critical Mass ride, reaffirming a previous court ruling that found the parade law unconstitutional.

New York Supreme Court justice Ellen Gesmer argued that the city's parade permit scheme was too vague and overbroad and appeared to be selectively enforced. She noted that in this case, two of the defendents were charged with unlawfully "parading" even though they were riding in a group of four—far below the "20 or more" threshhold that the NYPD has been using to define events requiring a permit.

Judge Gesmer also dismissed charges of disorderly conduct brought against three of the defendants, ruling that riding side by side on bikes was not a criminal form of disruption, even if some cars are forced to slow down or change lanes because of it.

Judge Gesmer did however uphold the disorderly conduct charge against one woman accused of running a red light with 50 other cyclists during the ride.

Reached late Wednesday, a lawyer for city insisted the parade law was constitutional, but said the city was working on amending the provision in order to "eliminate any possible ambiguity as to the type of activity that constitutes a parade and is thus required to obtain a permit."

In another win for the Critical Mass crowd, a New York City traffic court judge dismissed charges against a volunteer legal observer who was yanked off her bike and dumped on the ground by Assistant Police Chief Bruce Smolka during last February's mass ride.

Adrienne Wheeler was ticketed for riding the wrong way up Seventh Avenue in Times Square. But the judge tossed the ticket when the officer who wrote it admitted in court that he did not personally observe Wheeler doing that.

"Falsely swearing in a complaint—even a traffic ticket—is an actual crime punishable by up to a year in jail," noted Wheeler's lawyer Simone Levine.

At the hearing, Lieutenant Joseph Caneco, head of operations for the NYPD's Patrol Borough Manhattan South, demanded he be allowed to testify against Wheeler, saying he had witnessed the incident. But the judge refused because Caneco did not write her ticket.

More than just a technicality, Gideon Oliver, a lawyer who has represented the bulk of the more than 650 people arrested during Critical Mass rides over the last two years, said the dismissal of Wheeler's ticket underscored the "widespread" problem of police officers being asked to arrest and testify against demonstrators for things they did not actually see.

"This is the same thing the NYPD was criticized for during the mass arrests that took place during the RNC," Oliver said, speaking of the 2004 Republican National Convention, when many legal observers, bystanders, and protesters were rounded up, whether they were doing anything illegal or not.

Most of the more than 1800 RNC cases have been dropped.

The Civilian Complaint Review Board is still investigating a complaint of excessive force filed against Smolka by Wheeler.

In other good news for city cyclists, the Department of Transportation announced plans to add 200 miles of bike lanes on city streets over the next three years.

The move comes after a citywide study showed 225 cyclists have died in traffic accidents over the last 10 years (including three on Manhattan's Houston Street over the last 13 months).

The city is also pledging new streets signs and a public outreach campaign to encourage bikers and motorists to "share" the road.

Burnishing his anti-union credentials, Governor George Pataki has taken to blaming Transit Workers Union leader Roger Toussaint for the plight of city firefighter Matthew Long. The firefighter was critically injured when he was struck by a privately chartered bus while riding his bike during the December transit strike.

Now he "cannot walk because of a horrible accident that occurred while this strike, this illegal strike, was on," Pataki said Monday, as reported in the Daily News.

The firefighter's mom also took a swipe at Toussaint, calling the union leader's 10-day jail term, which began Monday night, "a pittance" compared to the 120 days her son has spent in the hospital enduring multiple surgeries to mend his shattered bones and serious internal injuries. (Long's father is state Conservative Party leader Michael Long--no union lover there.)

True, Long, a triathlete and 12-year FDNY veteran, would not have been pedaling to work on that freezing morning if the trains and buses had been running.

But what about the role of the bus driver who allegedly made an illegal turn and plowed into Long on Third Avenue at 52nd Street, dragging Long and his bike under the bus? Police reportedly issued a summons to the driver for "making an improper right turn from a lane other than the right lane." So why isn’t Pataki going after him?

Or what about the bus company, Allen A.M.E. Transportation Corporation, a subsidiary of Reverend Floyd Flake's Greater Allen A.M.E. church in Jamaica, Queens? Last December, the bus company's lawyer had the gall to blame Long for the crash, claiming the firefighter had ridden into the bus. ("The bus didn't strike the bicyclist," the lawyer said. "The bicyclist struck the side of the bus.")

At least Long's family is spreading the blame around. In addition to gunning for jail time for Toussaint, they're suing the driver, the bus company, Bear Stearns--which chartered the bus to ferry its employees to work during the strike--and the Transit Workers Union.

But this willingness to dump a tragic accident, caused by what appears to be reckless driving, on the transit strike ignores just how frequently cyclists get hit in the city under normal circumstances. Last year some 3,200 cyclists were struck by motor vehicles, according to the NYPD. That's not even getting into the rash of pedestrians getting hit.

The vast majority of drivers in those accidents received no punishment at all.

Yes, there were more folks riding bikes during the strike. But Long was hit at 5:48 a.m. in Midtown, at a time when City Hall's heavy-handed traffic restrictions were keeping many drivers out of Manhattan. That should just as easily have made the streets more safe for riding, not less.

Just as the NYPD appears to be scaling back its iron-fisted crackdown on Critical Mass, the New York Daily News is pushing to crank up enforcement again.

"Cuff 'em when they don't ride on the right, stop at the light or respect the niceties of one-way signs," wrote the News in its lead editorial Saturday--never mind that it is not illegal in New York City to ride on the left-hand side, or to ride more than two abreast, for that matter.

The News goes on to blame an "an anarchic CMer" for January's scooter crash, when two police officers collided while trying to head off the ride and were briefly hospitalized.

Everyone agrees that these monthly road rallies have gotten scary. But firsthand reports from cyclists paint a very different picture of who's responsible for that nasty crash.

"A scooter officer came up behind a female cyclist as she was riding and grabbed her arm," recounts Chris Morgan, a 24-year-old photography assistant from Brooklyn who says he was riding directly behind the woman during the January 27 ride. "She swerved a bit and he did too, and he put his right hand back on the handlebar to regain control, but he hit the gas or something because his scooter shot right out and he ran into the scooter in front, which was still turning to head off the ride.

"I couldn’t believe he took his hand off the wheel like that," adds Morgan, who wrote in to PowerPlays to let us know his side of the story. "I ride a motorcycle, so when you see a trained police officer do something like this, it baffles the mind."

Police officials have declined to comment on the January crash, other than to say it was "provoked" by bicyclists "breaking the law." But rather than put the blame on the cyclists, NYPD brass might question officers' use of scooters to apprehend moving bikers. Another pair of scooter cops collided, albeit less seriously, during the Critical Mass ride in December, and cyclists on previous rides have reported that police on scooters drove into them in order to make arrests.

That the cops are so intent on chasing people down makes you wonder why anyone would want to take part in what one rider described as a monthly "pigeon shoot."

True, the cops wouldn't be out there if the Critical Mass folks weren't pushing the envelope, but the News' apparent ignorance of cycling rights illustrates one reason why riders keep on riding.

Thursday morning: NYPD headquarters just got back to us. Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the NYPD's top spokesperson, weighed in on the allegation of reckless scooter driving. "There's a surfeit of self-serving statements by critics intent on rationalizing unlawful conduct," he wrote in an e-mail. "This appears to be yet another."

Busted again: Rob Barrett, pictured here after his arrest at last month's Critical Mass ride, with vouchers for his confiscated bike. (photo: Sarah Ferguson)

The NYPD switched up its game at Friday's Critical Mass ride. Instead of making mass arrests for protest charges like disorderly conduct and parading without a permit, cops cited cyclists with traffic violations, then let them go on their way.

This apparent backpedaling of its hardline stance comes after yet another judge refused to outlaw the monthly bike rides, chiding the city for not finding a better way to work with the cyclists.

And it follows reports in both the Voice and The New York Times of police engaging in high-speed chases and reportedly reckless arrest tactics.

On Friday's ride, police issued 23 tickets for violations such as running red lights or going the wrong way down a one-way street. Three other cyclists were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for "corking"—blocking traffic at intersections so the mass can pass as a group.

But the arrestees were released after just an hour and a half instead of the usual six or seven-hour ordeal.

Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne insists there's been "no change" in police policy. "Tactics vary depending on what police encounter," Browne responded in an e-mail to the Voice. But bike activists, who have long argued that bikers on the mass ride should be treated as traffic, were generally pleased.

"We feel it's a big victory," said Bill DiPaola of Time's Up!, the grassroots environmental group targeted by the city for promoting Critical Mass. "They're doing what we've been asking them to do—just give out tickets, but don't arrest people." DiPaola said he and other Time's Up! members were hoping to meet with police to work out ways to further "deescalate" tensions on the street.

"This is the kind of sign we've been looking for from the police," DiPaola said.

Even so, it wasn't exactly liberating to be riding with a constant tail of police in vans, cars, and scooters just waiting to pounce on you for every minor infraction—as a police chopper hovered overhead. There was a text-message report of a cyclist getting nailed for riding without a bike light, and some bikers said they still found the police menacing.

"Cops in three Explorers and two police vans rode right up into the middle of the ride and cut people off," said Luke Son, who was pulled over with two other cyclists for allegedly running red lights on Eighth Avenue between 26th and 29th Streets—an easy thing to do since there is no crosstown traffic there because of the housing projects on the west side of Eighth Avenue. "I know I didn't run any lights because I kept stopping to look for my girlfriend," insists Son, a Columbia student and licensed EMT who came to the aid of the injured scooter police at last month's ride.

"I'm riding a one-speed folding bike with 14-inch wheels. If I'd stopped, they would have run me over," complained Jessica Rechtschaffer, a department administrator at Columbia University who also received a summons.

Assistant Chief Bruce Smolka, who's been leading the crack down on Critical Mass as commander of Manhattan South, was clearly in a zero-tolerance mood when he ticketed a guy for doing a bike lift in Times Square then busted a couple of legal observers.

Video footage shot by activists shows Smolka, dressed in plain clothes, casually walking into the intersection at 43rd Street with a coffee cup in one hand as the legal observers, clearly identified by their bright green neon caps, coast by. With his free hand, Smolka grabs a female observer by the bike chain locked around her waist and dumps her off her bike, as two other plain-clothes officers corral her companion.

"It was a real shock, I didn't know who he was," said Adrienne Wheeler, 27, of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. She and the other legal observer were charged for riding north on Broadway, just before they turned into the intersection.

The NYPD's new enforcement strategy would seem to answer the charge that the city was pursuing a double standard by arresting cyclists for riding in traffic—a right they insist they already have.

While the city claims the non-permitted rides are unsafe, lawyers for the cyclists have long questioned why the NYPD would not simply ticket bikers who violate traffic rules, as they do for any other driver.

And ticketing could wind up being a far more effective deterrent. The penalty for running a red light is $150 and it quickly escalates to $300 and $750 for second and third-time offenses.

Most riders said they were happy to stop at lights as long as cops don't use the opportunity to bust them. But they also hoped police might slack up once they realize how more longer it takes for the mass ride to roam through Manhattan if people have to brake at every light.

Rob Barrett was arrested for the second month in a row after he placed his bike in front of a driver that tried to plow into the ride on Broadway. But even after getting a second bike confiscated by police, Barrett says he has no regrets. "If I didn't do that, somebody would have gotten hurt," says the 21-year-old sophomore at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

"We're nothing to the cars, the cars don't give a shit, especially the cabs," says Barrett, who still bears the scars from a run-in with a taxi last year that shattered his kneecap. "But today they have no choice to give a shit. Today they have to pay attention."

A judge today threw another monkey wrench in New York City's effort to stop the Critical Mass bike rides.

In a 24-page ruling issued late Wednesday morning, New York Supreme Court Justice Michael D. Stallman rejected the city's motion for a preliminary injunction to bar people from going on the monthly rides and gathering in Union Square without permits.

He also rejected the city's effort to prevent groups like Times Up! from promoting Critical Mass, unless there's a permit for the event.

Although Stallman didn't dismiss the city's lawsuit, he said the arguments the city has presented thus far were unlikely to prevail.

The city's law department immediately announced it would appeal the decision.

"We intend to appeal this ruling, because we do not believe that public safety, the law, or common sense have been well served by the Court's denial of our request for a preliminary injunction," said city attorney Gabriel Taussig in a press statement.

But lawyers for the cyclists, who previously battled back the city's efforts to obtain an injunction against the rides in federal court, were roundly pleased.

"Hopefully this ruling will bring a dose of reality to the city, that they can't continue to demand a permit for the ride," said civil libertarian Norman Siegel, who's part of the legal team defending Critical Mass.

Last month, a lower court refused to convict cyclists on charges of parading without a permit, terming the whole permitting scheme unconstitutional. The city is now appealing that ruling, too.

In his decision Wednesday, Judge Stallman argued that the city's laws governing parades and processions are both vaguely defined and perhaps incompatible with an open and ad hoc event like Critical Mass, which has no leaders and no set route or destination.

"New Yorkers commuting over the Brooklyn Bridge during the transit strike could be considered `bicycling en masse' and affecting vehicular traffic," he noted.

At the same time, Judge Stallman took a dig at cyclists' claims that Critical Mass rides should be treated as "ordinary traffic," calling that argument "at best curious and at worst, disingenuous."

Yet an injunction, he noted, wouldn't necessarily stop the rides and could instead flood the court with people facing contempt of court -- a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to a year in jail. (By contrast, the "parading without a permit" charge is a low-level violation punishable by 10 days max.)

Rather than criminalize the ride, Stallman urged both sides to just find a way to work it out. "Mutual de-escalation of rhetoric and conduct, and a conciliatory attitude, may help the parties and the Critical Mass riders resolve the litigation and arrive at a workable modus vivendi," he wrote.

The big question, of course, is how the NYPD will interpret this decision when it comes to policing the next big Critical Mass, on Friday, February 24. Stallman's ruling doesn't do anything to stop the cops from making arrests, though lawyers for the cyclists said it would be "bad faith" for the city to continue charging people for "parading without a permit."

"They can do whatever they want. Whether it's legal or even reasonable is even more up for grabs," said defense attorney Gideon Oliver, who is now demanding that the District Attorney's office drop all permit charges pending against cyclists.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne weighed in with this statement:

"Nothing in the decision prevents the police from arresting individuals who block intersections or otherwise break the law. Also, the Police Department offered long ago to work with the organizers to ensure a safe ride in which police would stop vehicular traffic at intersections so bicyclists could proceed without stopping along the route, while, conversely, holding bicyclists at intersections to allow ambulances and other emergencies vehicles to proceed or to alleviate bottlenecks. It was rejected but the offer stands."

Yes, New York's third annual Idiotarod—a mad-cap parody of Alaska's Iditarod race using shopping carts instead of dog sleds—took place Saturday, despite threats and intimidation from the party-pooping NYPD.

(See "How a Few Idiots Outfoxed the NYPD," a Voice Slide Show.)

Some speculated the cops might put a crimp in the fun because of last week's No Pants incident, when police arrested six pranksters for dropping trou in the subway.

Sure enough, the night before the race, cops showed up at Monster Island, an independent art and performance space in Williamsburg where the Idiotarod was scheduled to start, and shut down a completely unrelated party for a comic-book show.

Cops nailed the Monster Island folks with some tickets and warned them not to let the race happen there.

"They said they'd show up with 250 cops with paddy wagons and arrest everyone," says Idiotarod organizer Mo Flaherty.

So the Idiots switched the start to Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, and, tipped off that police were monitoring the website, set up a phone tree to spread the word to racers, most of whom got the message in time. "There were a lot of cabs with shopping carts going from Williamsburg to Fort Greene," says co-organizer Jeff Stark, who runs the Nonsense NYC listserv.

Park officials didn't take kindly to the hordes of costumed racers pulling carts across the grass. Officials closed down the registration table, which everyone took as a cue to start the race.

More than 700 racers and fans charged down sidewalks, spilling onto the street, pursued by a mounting detail of chirping squad cars, police vans, and black sedans.

Cops shut down the first checkpoint—a parking lot in DUMBO—then tried to block racers from accessing the Manhattan Bridge.

"They had a line of about 8 to 10 cops standing across the bike pathway entrance" reports Oscar, a 31-year-old music producer from Brooklyn who ran with a crew dressed up like the bad guys from G.I. Joe and pulled a cart that featured an actual fire-spitting snake sculpted from Bondo.

But faced with a crowd of rowdy, beer-addled racers bottlenecked at the base of the bridge, police relented and waved them through. "By then, everyone was piling up on the grassy hill leading up to the bridge, so I think they decided in order to keep the throngs from spilling into the street, they'd better let us through," Oscar says.

Police on the Manhattan side were far more accommodating and opened up a lane of traffic for racers as they rumbled toward the second checkpoint, The Delancey bar off Clinton Street, then on to the finish line in the East River Park.

But some of the boozing contestants were ticketed for drinking en route, including the Barback Mountain team, whose keg was seized at the base of the bridge.

"The sad part is, we dragged this keg all the way into Manhattan," complained one of the drunken cowboys. "We would have gone a lot faster if they'd taken it off us in Brooklyn."

Also ticketed under the city's open container law were the Screaming Mimes. "I'm doing a cop and I still got a summons," groused Mary Riley of Chelsea, who said her boyfriend is a police officer.

Most racers were far more concerned with fending off sabotage efforts from competing crews, such as dropping banana peels and marbles, or setting up a fake checkpoint in Dumbo that foiled even some of the race organizers.

It looked like every Williamsburg hipster and then some was partying at the finish line at the East River Amphitheater. Members of the Rude Mechanical Orchestra pomped and romped on the bandshell stage, as the ketchup-wielding "Killah Condimentzz" had a food fight.

Below them, a father and son crew from Northport, Long Island was pelting the crowd with (fake) shit-stained underwear flung from a giant slingshot strapped to their cart.

"Shaving cream, lesbians, slingshots of poop, what's not to like?" shrugged Dan Sheehan, a 50-something physicist, sporting a pair of briefs on his head, as he and his teenage sons loaded another wad of underwear into the contraption. "This is a family tradition now. The bar has been lowered."

In the bleachers, a group of undercovers snickered.

The monthly Critical Mass ride in Manhattan took a turn for the worse tonight when two scooter cops slammed into each other as they were trying to head off the flow of cyclists.

Less than 10 minutes after leaving Union Square, a pack of about 100 bikers was moving south on Third Avenue when a line of 14 scooter cops patrolling alongside abruptly veered left to cut off the ride.

One scooter cop slammed into another scooter, throwing the cop several feet from his scooter. He landed hard on the pavement, hitting his shoulder and head, as the scooter cop in back toppled over. A cyclist who identified himself an EMT stopped to assist the scooter cops, who were sprawled out on the street, before ambulances came to take them away on stretchers. (Photos from fredaskew.com.)

The two cops were treated for back and neck complaints at Bellevue Hospital, but a police spokesperson said the injuries were not believed to be serious.

"He was thrashing about in pain. His entire upper left torso was numb, which is a sign of deep impact," said Luke Son of the first cop who flew off his scooter. A Columbia student and licensed EMT, Son volunteers as a bike mechanic for Times Up, an environmental group which promotes the mass ride as a demonstration against "car-culture."

Cops on the scene were clearly pissed. "He landed straight on his head," said one scooter cop who asked not to be identified. "It's not fun and games any more."

Four bikers were arrested at the scene and their bikes carted away in a police truck, along with three police scooters that were disabled in the collision.

"We made a move to head off the bicyclists and the group bolted through the line of scooters, causing the accident. That's the bottom line," the scooter cop explained. "The bikes were caught in the middle of it. Some got knocked over, and the rest are being chased down as we speak."

But several cyclists who rushed onto the sidewalk to avoid arrest said the cops had simply run into each other and said no riders were struck.

The bicyclists said it was the cops who behaved recklessly. "They veered into the uptown traffic lane and then accelerated to cut in front of the group," said Son, who was riding in front of the pack when the accident occurred.

Eight more cyclists were arrested minutes later at 13th Street and Broadway. While some bikers were disturbed by the collision and gave up on the ride, others scattered, tracked by a police copter hovering overhead. Using cell phones, about 40 regrouped on 23rd Street and headed toward Midtown.

That's where cyclists said things got ugly. Riders reported being chased at high speeds down narrow streets, or cornered by cops in SUVs who would stop suddenly and throw open their car doors to try and blockade the cyclists.

Aaron Grogan, a 22-year-old computer science student at Fordham University, reported being chased by police in a black SUV on 43rd Street off Fifth Avenue: "All of a sudden, the SUV started gunning its engine and forcing its way through the mass of bikers. It was very dangerous. If we hadn’t pulled off to the side, it would have rammed us."

When they reached Broadway, Grogan said, he and the remaining 10 or so riders decided to quit the Mass and head back downtown. According to Grogan, they were riding south in the bike lane when a squad car swerved into the lane and the cop on the passenger side threw open his door, dooring one cyclist as he yanked another rider off his bike.

"It was completely unsafe, it was unbelievably reckless," said Bridget Kennedy, a 27-year-old Columbia University law student who was among some 15 volunteer legal observers posted to observe arrests.

A few blocks up at 45th Street in Times Square, another four riders who had peeled off from the ride were swept up, including one couple who was riding a welded side-by-side.

All told, 14 cyclists were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for blocking traffic and parading without a permit. One rider was also charged with assault when, witnesses say, he was yanked off his bike while it was still moving and his bicycle struck another officer.

Police officials were not available to comment on their enforcement of the ride.

But cyclists and supporters on hand to witness the event were both upset by the police injuries and shocked by the cops' aggressive tactics, which they insist are unnecessary. "Every trial we've done, the scooter cops testify that they do this maneuver where they cut people off, and it's dangerous," said Gideon Oliver, a defense lawyer who has represented many of the roughly 700 cyclists who have been arrested since the police began cracking down on Critical Mass in 2004. "We've been saying somebody is going to get hurt. I'm really upset. There's no reason these officers should have been doing what they were doing."

Joe Pinto, a cab driver who was parked on the side of the road at the time of the scooter incident, had a different perspective: "The bikes were moving pretty aggressively when the cops moved to cut them off, and the cops weren't stopping either. It was just a cluster fuck.

"I've been caught in traffic jams and lost money because of these bike guys," Pinto added. "I feed my family from this, so I don't have a lot of sympathy for them. My brother's a cop."

--

Editor's Note: It was 14, not 17, cyclists that were arrested.

The city's Department of Transportation just released data showing far more New Yorkers than usual walked over the four East River bridges during last month's transit strike, yet fewer biked than during the 1980 transit strike. According to figures revealed by Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall in an interview with the New York Times (reg. req'd.), a whopping 34,000 pedestrians a day walked over any given East River bridge while the subways and buses were shut down, compared to a normal average of about 2,000. The total pedestrian "volume" was 14 percent higher than during the 1980 strike.

Yet, Weinshall continued, there were 44 percent fewer cyclists this time around than in 1980. What changed? Probably the weather. The first transit shutdown occurred during a relatively mild April, while the more recent one happened in frigid December.

While some news accounts played these latest strike figures as a decline in cycling, according to an informal survey by the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, there were five times as many people commuting by bike during the strike than on a normal day--a significant jump considering that temperatures were below freezing. And many New Yorkers have apparently kept pedaling. Cycling in the city is up 21 percent since the strike ended, according to Transportation Alternatives, which surveyed rush-hour commuters last week at the three Brooklyn crossings.

In general, daily biking in Manhattan has increased 250 percent since 1980, according to the DOT's own figures.

Call them the bike-lane liberation front. On Saturday afternoon in Manhattan, about 30 cyclists donned rubber noses and clown gear and set off from Washington Square Park in search of vehicles parked in bike lanes.

"Nothing can shame a driver into moving out of the bike lane more than a pack of cheerful clowns on bikes," read the flyer distributed to puzzled bystanders as the parade of masked and bewigged bikers made their way up Sixth Avenue, accompanied by a sound truck blasting James Brown and Beastie Boys tunes. Most drivers did scoot when they saw the clowns coming. Those who didn't, including the driver of an idling Brinks truck, received mock tickets for violating Section 4-08(e) of the city's traffic rules, which explicitly prohibits stopping, standing, or parking within a bike lane, and which carries a fine of up to $115.

The clown ride is a monthly event organized by the bicycle advocacy group Times Up! "Most people don't even know it's illegal to park in a bike lane," notes bike clown Ben Shepard, in large part because the NYPD rarely tickets for the offense. "We want to inform people that it's really dangerous for bikers who are forced into heavy traffic. But our philosophy is to keep it playful and humorous, with the idea that you catch more flies with sugar than with salt."

But some drivers didn't find the antics funny at all. A guy double-parked in the bike lane outside Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue refused to budge, then blared his horn at the riders when they gave up and pedaled past him. "I'm just giving you a taste of your own medicine!" he shouted, following close behind. A few blocks later, another driver double-parked outside a ritzy residence insisted he had the right to be in the bike lane because he was picking someone up. "Talk to the horn, baby!" an angry clown shouted, honking his toy horn in the driver's face. The driver snatched the horn and broke it, and the angry clown struck him in the face.

The other clowns were horrified. "We're supposed to be peaceful gnome clowns and keep our sense of humor," moaned Monica Hunken, a 24-year-old special needs educator from Brooklyn, sporting full face paint and a mini traffic cone on her head. "That's totally antithetical to what this ride is all about. Next time we're definitely going to have rules for bike clowns and maybe broadcast them from our sound truck before we leave."

Even for bike clowns, it seems, New York City traffic is no laughing matter.

Seven bikers arrested during a Critical Mass ride last February finally got their day in court today. Retired Judge Herbert Adlerberg convicted them of blocking traffic and parading without a permit. They were fined $100 each and given time served in lieu of community service--in recognition of the fact that they were held for more than five hours, had their bicycles confiscated for three weeks, and had to show up in court 10 times just to get their cases heard.

"The process is the punishment," said Blue Miner Young, a 31-year-old high school science teacher from Queens who gave up 10 sick days to contest his arrest.

At least these riders got some resolution. Three other bikers arrested in February were sent home yesterday because prosecutors weren't ready to try their cases, a not uncommon occurrence that leaves folks coming back to court month after month if they choose to fight the charges. "I'm going to India," complained Madeleine Nelson, 50, a former communications director for Barnes and Noble, when told that her trial had been postponed to next month because her arresting officer is now in Iraq. Nelson maintains she was riding in a bike lane, single file, when she was arrested. "This trip has been planned for six months. I can't cancel it. What am I supposed to do, come back into the country with a warrant for my arrest?"

Three other riders arrested in February gave up months earlier and took ACD's (Adjournment Contemplating Dismissal)--a kind of legal truce where your charges are dismissed as long as you don't get arrested again for six months. Among them was a Canadian woman who hitchhiked to New York twice to make her court appearances, and a bicycle safety instructor from Portland who said she couldn't afford to keep flying back and forth.

All of which raises a question about this unending conflict between the city and its cycling activists: Is it worth it? Is it worth it for riders to risk arrest to attend the monthly Critical Mass rides, believing that it is their right as cyclists to be in traffic and to demonstrate for a less car-clogged city? And is it worth it for the city to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to arrest and prosecute those who take part in these rides for violations that aren't even classified as misdemeanors?

A spokesperson for the police department couldn't be reached. Spokespersons from both the court and Manhattan district attorney's office ducked the larger policy question underlying the city's recent crackdown on Critical Mass, saying only that it is their "obligation" to try people charged with violating the law.

Yet prior to the 2004 Republican National Convention, the NYPD didn't see the need for arrests. Instead, cops helped facilitate the ride by escorting the group and blocking intersections so the ride could pass through traffic faster and more safely.

But when the number of cyclists swelled to thousands on a convention-eve ride, police claimed that "extremists" intent on mayhem had hijacked Critical Mass and turned it into a public menace. Fearing hordes of bicyclists protesting the arrival of George Bush would jam the city, police swept up some 350 bikers during the RNC.

Since then, the NYPD has arrested 317 more Critical Mass riders. What began as a celebration of bike culture and way to encourage more people to bike the city has turned into a monthly game of cat and mouse, with cops deploying helicopters with high-powered search lights and an armada of scooters, vans, squad cars, and SUVs to head off the ride, just as the cyclists engage in their own evasive maneuvers, sending out scouts to warn of police traps, then scattering when the cops succeed in nabbing some.

There were a dozen arrests at each of the last two rides, all for low-level violations that typically warrant no more than a desk-appearance ticket.

Last week a judge threw out one of the city's main tools for busting the ride when he ruled that the city statute of "parading without a permit" was unconstitutional. But two other judges have upheld the statute, and because it was a lower court ruling, Judge Gerald Harris's decision does not set a precedent for the scores of cases still pending before the courts.

At Thursday's trial, retired Judge Adlerberg praised Judge Harris, saying, "He probably knows more about criminal law than the other judges."

But Adlerberg said he did not feel comfortable "telling the legislature they passed an unconstitutional law" because he is no longer a full judge but a judicial hearing officer. As a result, he decided to uphold the charges of parading without a permit for the riders arrested in February.

Though disappointed, the cyclists said they would continue to fight. "The decision is wrong and we're going to appeal it," insists Rebecca Heinegg, a 23-year-old law student from Brooklyn who has turned her Critical Mass arrest into a class project. "By stopping the ride, the city is trying to silence free speech. It's a fundamental right, and it's worth standing up for.

"Taking an ACD is just a passive way of saying you're guilty, and we don't believe that," she added, when asked how it could be worth coming back month after month when she could have settled her case a year ago.

Far from deterring them, getting arrested has only made these riders more adamant. Many like Heinegg continue to ride in Critical Mass every month. Others like Blue Young have devoted themselves to providing legal support to other cyclists through the volunteer group Free Wheels.

"I ride to work every day, and every day some asshole tries to kill me," says Young, when asked what motivates him to risk arrest just to ride in Critical Mass. "It's the one time you can ride in Manhattan and not feel in danger--except from a cop, who might ram you," he added, speaking of the scooter cop who, he claims, ran into him when he was stopped at a red light last February, then busted him.

But by the end of the day, at least one court officer was fed up watching bike cases slog through the courts. "It's a total waste of your and my tax dollars. I blame both sides."

A judge late on Monday took a bite out of the city's efforts to rein in the monthly Critical Mass rides when he ruled that the New York City law barring people from "parading without a permit" is unconstitutional.

Police have been using the statute to make mass arrests during Critical Mass rides--and during the Republican Convention, they used it to round up all sorts of protestors. Yet on Monday, New York City Criminal Court Judge Gerald Harris ruled that the parade permit law is "hopelessly overbroad" and "constitutes a burden on free expression that is more than the First Amendment can bear."

Harris's ruling stems from a case involving eight cyclists who were arrested at a Critical Mass ride on January 28, 2005. They were charged with parading without a permit, blocking traffic, and failing to disperse.

Judge Harris upheld the charge of blocking traffic but threw out the other two charges, ruling that an order to disperse was never given and that the city’s parade permit law was "constitutionally invalid" because it fails to adequately define what a parade is, or to say what minimum number of people would be required to get a permit.

"Improbable though it may be, under the City's permit scheme as written, a person promenading, or two persons racing are conceivably required to obtain a permit from the City of New York," Harris wrote in his 17-page decision. "Similarly, a funeral procession, two or three cars displaying political posters traveling one behind the other, caravan style, or a small group of friends biking together could run afoul of the law."

Harris also faulted the parade law for failing to define intent. "Any person who unknowingly participates in a permitless march may be arrested, fined or imprisoned. Bystanders, onlookers, stirred by the passion evoked by a political march, join at their peril," he argued.

Prosecutors are deciding whether they will appeal, and this lower court ruling does not preempt the city's ongoing efforts to use the parade statute to obtain permanent injuctions against Critical Mass in state and federal courts.

Nevertheless, bike advocates were ecstatic. "We're very excited," said Dave Rankin of Free Wheels, a volunteer group founded to provide legal support to bicyclists arrested during Critical Mass rides. "This is what we've been saying all along--that the parade permitting scheme gives the police far too much discretion to decide what is a parade, and that they're arresting people at their whim."

Defense Attorney Gideon Oliver called the ruling "well-reasoned" and said he hoped it would "challenge the City to reconsider its aggressive stance toward policing First Amendment activities in general, and Critical Mass bicycle rides in particular."

Since August 2004, the city has arrested more than 2000 people for violating the parade permit law. According to Bruce Bentley of the National Lawyers Guild, the vast majority of the 1,806 people arrested during the Republican National Convention were charged with parading without a permit.

And since the RNC, cops have arrested nearly 350 more bicyclists for "parading without permit" during Critical Mass rides. Harris's decision is not binding on the 50 or so other bike arrest cases still pending before the courts. A trial of 30 bikers is scheduled to begin later this month.

Yet Oliver said the judges in those cases would at least have to consider Harris's ruling. "It certainly does have relevance in the context of cases that are before the criminal court," Oliver said.

Not surprisingly, the city's law department dismissed the decision as "erroneous," noting that two judges had found the parade permit law valid in three previous Critical Mass cases.

"This is the first decision to dismiss a criminal case on this basis, and we believe that it is erroneous," said City Attorney Sheryl Neufeld in a press statement. "Several Criminal Court judges have previously determined that the City's requirement that parades and processions obtain a parade permit does not violate the First Amendment rights of bicyclists who participate in Critical Mass rides. . . . This is the first judge who ruled to the contrary."

Their deaths seem so sadly ignoble. Crushed by a garbage carter. Plowed under by an ice cream delivery truck. Slammed from behind by a speeding SUV.

Twenty-one cyclists were killed in traffic accidents in New York City in 2005, up from 15 in 2004, and 13 in 2003. That made 2005 the most deadly year for bicyclists since 1999, when a record 35 died.

Yet rather than going after dangerous drivers, the NYPD spends its time spying on bike activists and sending undercovers to infiltrate Critical Mass rides and vigils for dead cyclists.

Angered by what they see as the city's refusal to rein in reckless drivers, more than 150 bicyclists turned out for a citywide memorial ride on Sunday (click for pics). They rode in groups from each of the five boroughs, then converged in Manhattan. Along the way, they stopped to commemorate the places where cyclists have died in the last year.

The event was organized by bike activists with Times Up! and the Brooklyn-based arts collective Visual Resistance, which affixed "ghost bikes"--bikes coated in white paint--near the spots where cyclists have perished.

"We wanted to respond in a way that would make the deaths of these cyclists less invisible," said Kevin Caplicki, a 27-year-old teacher from Gowanus, Brooklyn, who was inspired by similar campaigns in Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

"There's more people dying and more people are trying to get out and do something about it," says Times Up! founder Bill DiPaola. "We need to convince the city that they need to give bicyclists more respect, because their hostile attitude is creating this negative climate that just leads to more deaths and injuries."

While New York's former Mayor Rudy Giuliani responded to the spike in bike deaths by implementing "zero tolerance" sweeps for reckless drivers, advocates say the response from Mayor Bloomberg's administration seems to be to go after the bicyclists.

From the NYPD's much publicized crackdowns on Critical Mass, to ticketing blitzes for minor infractions like riding without a bell, or hauling off bikes chained outside subway stations, cyclists say the Bloomberg administration has put bikers on the defensive, even as it pays lip service to improving street safety.

"Bloomberg campaigned on greenways," notes Noah Budnick, projects director for the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, speaking of the mayor's pledge to ring the city with bike paths and expand dedicated bike lanes.

"But in reality, the conditions on the streets are