Ever since New York State governor Kathy Hochul paused congestion pricing early last month, advocates have been having what mental health professionals call a “conniption,” and most of Streetsblog’s content now consists of outraged posts about why this is the worst thing to ever happen to New York City ever. Whether or not you agree with them, usually there’s at least an internal logic to their posts, e.g. Kathy Hochul is stealing elevators from people who are missing legs. But they must be running out of angles, because the latest story is how the congestion pricing pause will harm…MTA contractors:
This is like worrying that cutting down on smoking might result in a reduction of the browning of your teeth. But sure, spare a thought for these poor unfortunates:
You know, the ones who have been getting fat off this deeply dysfunctional agency:
And counting on that juicy “MTA Premium:”
Preferred project alternatives are chosen by politicians, and then review and outreach processes are run to support those preferences, even when they add cost and even when they provoke community objections that must be expensively addressed. Design choices are often grand instead of practical. Environmental reviews take too long and do not consider the cost and negative environmental impact of tying transit projects up in environmental review. Government agencies do not work well together. Projects are overstaffed, and labor rules — often made more complicated by the difficulty agencies have in working together — reduce productivity. The MTA tries to shift the risk of cost overruns onto outside companies it contracts with, even if those overruns are caused by factors outside their control; the companies are not stupid, and they respond to this by inflating their bids for work on MTA projects in what’s known as the “MTA premium.” New York has unusual laws about contractor liability that make insurance very expensive. And on and on.
Who knew these companies were so altruistic? Sure, their inflated bids may be a major part of the problem, but they don’t even care about their own bottom lines, they just want the MTA to “do the right thing:”
Streetsblog includes the above quote apparently without irony. I mean who do they think runs these kinds of companies anyway?
If you don’t hear from me after this post you can assume I got fitted with a pair of concrete cycling shoes.
But to be perfectly honest, I don’t care about any of that. I only care about bikes, and pure, unadulterated speed. That’s why I’ve chosen two vintage Fred Sleds and commanded them to fight to the death. The combatants are The Ultimate Dad Bike:
And George Plimpton’s Y-Foil, a.k.a. The Charity Ride Destroyer:
So which is faster when piloted by the typical road bike consumer? (That is to say an old, out-of-shape, balding male.) To find out, I rode both on the same course on consecutive days. First, I headed out on the LeMond–but not before informing both the NYPD and the Yonkers Police Department as a courtesy, because no doubt both would be inundated by phone calls from alarmed residents convinced they were witnessing some sort of secret weapons testing program. The route was mostly bike path, with a little loop through the tiny hamlet of Virtue-Signal-On-Hudson, where lawn signs inform you that “Hate Has No Home Here,” probably because hate can’t afford $1.5 million plus $35K in annual property taxes for a split-level. In terms of effort, I didn’t go all out, but I didn’t dawdle either; let’s just call it “squeezing in a ride on a busy weekday” pace. Here was my time on the LeMond:
With the benchmark set, the next morning I undertook the same route on the Y-Foil, and at the same perceived effort. The result? FASTER!
However, there are some variables to consider. For example, on the LeMond ride, there was a maintenance truck in the bike path, and I had to slow to get around it both times. And that would add time, right? Meanwhile, on the Y-Foil ride, the road surface was wet and it was drizzling, and water on the road would increase your rolling resistance, right? Also, while I rode the exact same route, it says I climbed seven (7) more feet on the LeMond than I did on the Y-Foil. Is that due to line choice, or is that simply the GPS’s margin for error–and if the latter, would the difference in speed between the two rides also be within the margin of error? The altitude difference is 1.6185%, and the time difference is 2.7136%. So if we assume the difference in altitude is margin for error and deduct that from the time difference percentage we still have a time difference of 1.0951%. (I don’t know if you can just subtract percentages like that, but just go with it.) Over a ride of this duration that means with the Y-Foil you save 45 seconds on a ride like this. Multiply that by five weekday rides and you’ve netted yourself 3.75 minutes saved on your workout every week, which is that much more time you could be spending analyzing your investment portfolio or admonishing your children for small infractions, which will make them better adults and ultimately increase their own net worth as well. Given that, an aero bike like the Y-Foil seems like an investment you can’t afford not to make.
Or maybe I just lost the 45 seconds reaching down my bib shorts to adjust myself, it’s hard to be sure.
