Better Routes For Bicycles

With for all the world what looked like an eye on 2018 and a bid for higher office, Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone went for a bicycle ride recently in Southampton Village. The camera-ready event (Mr. Bellone eschewed his usual jacket and tie for a T-shirt) was to promote a countywide bike-sharing program, like the ubiquitous blue bicycles in parts of New York City.

Getting more people on bikes is a good idea, particularly in tandem with improved rail service that could help link workers with jobs. However, given lackluster efforts in the past for bike lanes and other safety measures, Mr. Bellone is getting out ahead of his handlebars.

Biking on the South Fork is nerve-racking. Its narrow roads often do not have shoulders and those that do may not have proper surfaces or adequate maintenance to keep two-wheelers safe. Sag Harbor Village is about the only municipality hereabouts that can boast bike lanes that are set off by clear boundaries, but, as if in a cruel joke, they just fade away at the village limit where Hampton Street becomes Route 114. 

It was not all that long ago that a young man just walking on the side of the road in East Hampton Town was killed, struck from behind on Old Stone Highway by a passing van. Less-serious accidents take place all the time, including one in Montauk just the other day in which a woman was knocked off her bicycle near the Catholic church after being struck by the mirror of a passing vehicle. That more incidents of this kind do not happen daily is a small miracle.

As Mr. Bellone and other elected officials start pushing more bike travel, they need to make sure there are safe places to pursue it. Handing out loaner bikes at train stations and similar locations, as envisioned, may make for great photo-ops, but it is premature. Wider roads, dedicated bike lanes, and clean and smooth pavement must come first.