No Speed Limit Required

Please enjoy the following 'guest blogger', AKA Drake. He's having a unique NYC experience, but I can't say he's really enjoying it.

Driving and walking in Brooklyn are like living in two different dimensions of the same universe.  They share the same landscape but perspectives and experiences are entirely different.  The one commonality is the selfish attitude of, “All these other people out here are obstacles to my progress and are trying to get in my way”.  

Until recently, I understood this only from the pedestrian viewpoint.  Brooklyn drivers take dangerous liberties with my safety by turning quickly in front of me even though I have the Walk signal (“the little white man”) right of way.  Now behind the wheel of my Avis rental, I begin to see the other side.

Our Brooklyn transportation experience was initially limited to public transport and walking.  No car needed.  Subways and buses are convenient here, and good old fashioned shoe leather fills in the gaps just fine.  Covid-19 has changed all of that.  Public transport suddenly became unsafe, so walking more is a necessity.  In our case, a short bus trip plus a 0.2 mile walk from our apartment to our daughter's apartment (“our work place”) for nanny duties turned into a 1.1 mile walk each way.  In the morning the walk was all downhill; but what goes down must go back up.  The after work walk, all uphill, became a daily struggle.  Even so, this was manageable until our daughter and son-in-law changed apartments, mostly to live in a better school zone for Cedric (or 27 pounds of joy as we now call him).  Suddenly, a walking commute became a show stopper until we could make an apartment move ourselves.  Thus, we have a rental car.

Everything looks different in the driving dimension.  The sort of casual observations while walking cannot happen for the driver.  For starters, pedestrians sometimes cheat at crosswalks, daring the approaching vehicle to maintain speed, or just wander out no matter the “little red hand” telling them to stop.  The vehicle density on the streets is high and movements are chaotic.  There are cars, trucks, construction vehicles, delivery vans, ambulances, fire trucks, garbage trucks, street sweepers, motorcycles, bikes, joggers, and even miscellaneous vehicles like skateboards and electric powered scooters all jockeying for street space and competing to make the next light.  Lane-blocking construction zones are numerous and potholes are everywhere.  Avoiding potholes is a hit or miss proposition depending on the density of traffic.  Since curb parking spaces are in such short supply, every block seems to have at least one double parked car (hopefully with hazard lights on) to make things even more challenging.  The level of concentration and need for constant maneuvering makes me think car racing must be something like this.

There’s not a single speed limit sign around downtown Brooklyn or the surrounding neighborhoods.  Speed is easily controlled by the congestion.  Speed limit reminders are simply not needed.  As a result, everybody drives as fast as possible.  When the city was in shut down mode because of the virus, we observed bus drivers and delivery truck drivers hauling ass.  One silver lining of the damn virus was people who deal with this hideous traffic each and every day experienced a few months of impediment free joyful driving.    

Fortunately, this driving torture is temporary.  As soon as we move into a more conveniently located apartment, the car goes away and we'll be back to our slower paced walking.  Foot power will have to do while the virus crisis is still with us before we can broaden our reach using public transit again.