TSTC recently received an email with the attached letter from Westbury, Long Island resident Kevin Lucas, along with a note informing us that it had been sent to “a number of public officials, interest groups, and media organizations” with the hope of creating an opportunity for dialogue on the subject.

Though local leaders are pursuing policies to increase road safety across Nassau County, the true challenge is how to bring about cultural change. While Complete Streets policies are a politically visible means of demonstrating commitment to the cause, they are not as visible to motorists as the installation of dedicated infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians, which serve to convey to drivers the message that the roadway is for sharing. It’s time for the state and local governments to hit the pavement and start walking their Complete Streets talk.

A couple of weeks ago my wife began joining me on my daily runs, except she follows along on her bicycle. And even though the run is only a mile, and is over in less than ten minutes, it has been a fulfilling and fun bonding experience for us. The runs instantly stopped feeling like a daily chore, and I looked forward to them. The way she encouraged me every day made me feel like we were Rocky and Mickey. This was going to be our daily routine. That is until July 12, 2014, at 8AM, when a man pulled up beside my wife in his car to tell her she was stupid for riding her bike in the street.

We moved to Long Island, Westbury to be exact, in February and for the most part we’ve enjoyed it here. We do not drive, by choice, and we knew that the area was suburban in nature before arriving. And although this has proved somewhat difficult we enjoy walking and the increased distances between necessities has not deterred us from walking to them. In fact, we’ve found certain stretches to be enjoyable on foot, despite being poorly designed for pedestrians. Mostly, the only consistent issues we’ve faced are lawn sprinklers spraying directly onto the sidewalks, pushing us into the street; and inattentive drivers failing to yield, particularly when turning right.

With this in mind I thought it would be nice for us to get bikes. Neither of us are cyclists, and only I had ever even really used a bike to get around before at any point in my life. She was nervous, but I assured her that it would be fine, that in a way it was safer than walking because drivers can see you better in the road. After all, everyone who drives learned how to properly give way to bicycles and pedestrians, to properly and safely pass, and to share the road. Plus, we would keep to the neighborhood streets. There would be no braving the traffic on Old Country Road. We just wanted to get around a little quicker, not make a statement. The busiest road on which we would travel was Maple/Westbury Avenue. Anything more than that and we would get off and walk our bikes. Once we got our bikes the apprehension quickly gave way to excitement. This was going to be fun, or so we thought.

What followed was as disappointing as it was unexpected. The people of Nassau County – whom we previously thought of as amongst the most kind and gracious we’ve experienced, whose words, local websites, and iconography have touted the image of friendly neighborhoods and tight-knit communities – became hostile, threatening, and aggressive. We’ve had our bikes for less than one month and in that time we’ve been absolutely menaced by automobile drivers. We’ve been shouted at, honked at, told to get on the sidewalk, and passed dangerously closely by speeding vehicles including Nassau County buses. The drivers use their vehicles to threaten and intimidate us, pass us in narrow no passing areas, and force us off the road and into parking lanes, leaving us to inevitably have to stop behind parked cars to wait until we feel safe enough to continue. At intersections they will pull up on our left and make right turns around us when the light turns green as if we are not there.

I feel like it’s important at this point to reiterate that this behavior has all been happening on neighborhood streets. We would agree that riding on Old County Road, or the Jericho Turnpike, or North Broadway Avenue in Hicksville would not be appropriate for us considering our lack of experience. We’re not even entirely comfortable being on Post Avenue and will generally only ride on it for a single block, if at all. But even if we were to choose to ride on these roads the behaviors we’ve experienced would still be inappropriate.

I can already envision the types of responses that this letter will generate. People will tell us that we should just ride on the sidewalk despite the fact that that this doing so is strongly discouraged by the state and county, illegal in most cities including Westbury, and often impractical and dangerous. I have been intimidated onto the sidewalk a couple of times in the last week, and it always ends up with me nearly crashing into someone walking out of a home or business or a car pulling out of a driveway. There’s a reason that riding on the sidewalk is often prohibited, and I agree with that reason. Others will suggest bike lanes, but talk of bike lanes is often empty, dismissive, and poorly executed. Besides, bike lanes already exist – they just happen to be the same lanes that automobiles use as well.

My daily runs are once again going to be lonely from now on because on July 12, 2014, at 8AM my wife decided that she is no longer riding her bicycle. She says it’s not worth it, and she’s right. She doesn’t want to have to fight for her right to be respected on the road, and she shouldn’t have to. She just wanted to ride her bike. But the idea that someone who didn’t have any reason to speak to her, an adult, a stranger, a neighbor, felt the need to endanger her life by pulling up right beside her on her bike to call her stupid on a neighborhood street two blocks from her home was too much for her. Those words hurt her, even more so because there was no reason behind them. It was as if the very idea that he had to share the road with a bike was unacceptable to him, that being forced to consider the safety of someone whose vehicle is not powered by a motor offended him. But what’s worse is that after all that we’ve experienced his words were not even a surprise. We now know full well how people will behave when they might have to momentarily slow down, or share, or be considerate of others. It’s a shame.

Nassau County may do well to take a page out of its neighbor’s book and consider further embedding its new Complete Streets policy into the county’s capital plan, thereby ensuring that there are dedicated funds to implement much-needed infrastructure improvements. With federal funds for transportation as undependable as ever, a consistent source of local funding could be the key to Nassau’s policy implementation issues.