There are upwards of a hundred students who commute to school on a bicycle, or a smaller vehicle that operates similarly to a bicycle, but areas around schools like Francis Lewis have no developments. Despite the efforts to introduce bike lanes in places like Woodside Avenue, the NYC DOT confirms that there are no current plans for any bike near Francis Lewis High School, or any high school in the area. Students, as well as others who commute by bicycle, will continue to face the problems they always have, hoping plans for a better system will soon be realized.
“I remember this one time, there’s a car that almost ran me over because I was on a bike lane, but then he ran a stop,” Sophomore Jameson Li recalls. “He ran a stop sign.”
Although they make up a fraction of the Francis Lewis population, those students rely on this mode of transportation to get to school, and get back home every single day, forced to commute in unsafe areas where they can potentially come just inches away from a car going almost triple their speed.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of great infrastructure for riding bicycles in this neighborhood,” Health teacher Mr. Schildkraut expresses. “There are no bike lanes around. If you go further, New York City has a lot more.”
Despite the number of people who cycle in the school, there is almost no cycling infrastructure near the school, with the nearest bike line being almost half a mile away. This lack of infrastructure brings students to ride elsewhere, disregarding the consequences for the sake of getting to school on time.
“Honestly, I feel like I cross over like maybe one bike lane a day,” Li says. “I feel like there’s not really enough bike lanes. I could be using a lot more bike lanes.”
Many students and recreational riders take to the sidewalk as their main choice of pathway to ride, trying to avoid the busy, congested roads packed with cars that not only make it harder to navigate but also increases the risk of things such as collision by a great deal
“Technically you’re not supposed to have to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk, but people are forced to because there’s nowhere to go on the street,” Mr. Schildkraut says. “Cars are just coming out from out of nowhere.”
When dismissal arrives, hundreds of students rush out of the building, hanging around outside the campus talking with friends. Combined with the large number of drivers and buses passing through to pick up students, it becomes much harder to traverse with all the obstacles in the way
“So I would say on Utopia, in front of the school is a terrible area,” Mr. Schildkraut explains. “I usually go towards the expressway, so making that left turn under the bridge, those are all tough areas because people are dropping off, picking up, they’re stopping in the middle.”
The main reason cycling can be dangerous can often be linked back to cars. Cyclists often try to share the road with drivers, forced to make do with the lacking system that’s in place, but imbalance in size, speed, and protection leaves riders especially vulnerable.
“They run red lights, they drive too fast, they just don’t check their blind spots,” Junior Jacky Zhong describes.
Some drivers try to be mindful of vulnerable cyclists around them, but not every driver is like this. Unpreventable accidents can still occur, and can be devastating to both parties, even if nobody is at fault.
“When I see a cyclist, I try to always keep in mind that I try to avoid them and I need to check all my blind spots,” Zhong explains.
Weather conditions can also make riding more hazardous, with conditions ranging from light rains across springtime, all the way to disastrous snow storms that cause major road blocks in winter, lengthening commute times by a great extent. Cyclists are unable to ride through the blocked sidewalks, having to make do with riding on the road, squeezing beside the cars.
“There are definitely a lot of potholes, especially during the winter months when there’s salt on the ground from the snow,” Mr. Schildkraut says.
According to the NYC.GOV, there have been a total of 809 reported crashes in Queens, and another 1660 involving two wheeled motor vehicles. Traffic accidents are increasingly becoming more frequent as road infrastructure develops, affecting cyclists even more as they don’t nearly have enough protection against crashes as cars do.
“They might not even necessarily go to Francis Lewis, but I’ve seen people on the side of the road, or at Northern Boulevard that have just either been hit by a car or they avoided a car, maybe hit a pothole,” Mr. Schildkraut describes.
New York is deeply rooted with cycling culture, dating back hundreds of years, from early commuter bikes all the way to modern bike-share programs. However, while the city works on expanding bike infrastructure in the city, areas surrounding schools such as Francis Lewis continue to remain overlooked. As the school population continues to use unsafe, unreliable infrastructure to commute, the lack of cycling infrastructure raises an important question, if cycling has always been part of New York’s identity, why isn’t there space for it where students need it the most?
“I mean, I’d like to see that everywhere, not just for students but for people at work and all kinds of, you know,” Mr. Schildkraut says. “I think it’s an important part of a city is to improve infrastructure of bicycles.”
