Spinning wheels
To The Editor:
Re “Officials say wait yet another year to reopen bike path” (News article, Aug 28 – Sept 10):
We have been cycling in the city for over 30 years and live in the Financial District. We were very distressed to read your article, “Officials say wait another year to reopen bike path.” This is yet another example of cyclists not being taken seriously by city agencies.
How is it that after 7 years and more (since the bike lane was also closed for a long while after 9/11/01) there is still no safe passage for cyclists near the W.T.C. site?
We ride the streets of the city on a daily basis and find it difficult and hazardous to take the detours provided by city agencies. Every day we see cyclists riding up the West Side Highway with fast moving cars, trucks and buses, because they know of no alternative, and frankly, the alternative is just as bad.
The crowded plaza in back of the Winter Garden is filled with blissfully oblivious walkers listening to MP3’s, determinedly oblivious skateboarders practicing their latest jump, little children breaking free from their parents so that they can try out their new tricycles, not to mention mothers with baby carriages who are attempting to get from Point A to Point B.
This is certainly not the place to redirect fast-paced bikers who have just been bumped off their bike path. It is unconscionable that this has been going on now for seven years.
We anticipated back in 2006 that the redirection would only take “a year or two” and now, we learn, it must continue for yet another year. It’s simply not fair and it’s not safe.
Esther Regelson and Jack Cadwallader
Too much on Southbridge ballot
To The Editor:
As a long-time resident of Southbridge Towers, I am disturbed by the choice we are being forced to make in our vote on privatization this month.
The measure includes changes to the by-laws that would: eliminate term limits that were voted in by cooperators; reduce the board from 15 to 9 members assuring concentration of power in the hands of fewer and fewer people; allow directors to attend board meetings via conference telephone or similar communication equipment, thus allowing a board member to spend months at his/her vacation home and still make decisions that affect the lives of those of us who actually live here; allow directors to vote on contracts in which they have substantial financial interest.
These changes are significant. They should be dealt with in a separate vote. Allow cooperators to vote once on the issue of reconstitution and again on each of the issues listed above.
Barbara M. Lerner
