Thread by @BrettDahlberg

Here's some behind-the-scenes "#reportersnotebook" on this story @WXXINews published Friday on cars parking in @CityRochesterNY's bike lanes.
wxxinews.org/post/rochester…
(I'm the "a reporter" who rode around on a bike with a camera strapped to the front for eight weeks.)
1/?

First, let's do the numbers. (heh. h/t @Marketplace)
- Every local trip I made for those 8 weeks (except to/from the airport) I went by bike.
- I rode about 300 miles.
- I saw more than 200 different cars parked in bike lanes. (>250 total, incl. those spotted more than once.)
2/?

Numbers, cont'd. Over 8 weeks…
- I saw the same car parked in the same bike lane 17 times. It had a ticket 1 time.
- I saw a total of 4 tickets on cars parked in bike lanes. (Doesn't mean only four cars were ticketed—just that 4 had tickets on the windshield when I went by.)
3/?

Numbers, cont'd. Over 8 weeks...
- I got hit by cars 3 times.
(I hesitate to say "hit," because I didn't get knocked off. But there's nothing really gentle about getting run into by 3,000 pound of metal. If you've got a better word for it after these vids, I'm all ears.)
4/?

Hit number 1:
April 17. I'm westbound in the bike lane on Main Street when this @RochesterNYPD car, with no lights or sirens, drives across the bike lane from left to right. I get on my brakes and my front tire runs into the side of the car. The driver keeps going. 5/?

Hit number 2:
April 24. There's no bike lane here, and I'm trying to stay out of the way of drivers. I'm southbound on East Henrietta Rd when this SUV hits my handlebar with its wing mirror. The mirror folds in. The driver stops after someone honks. Says he didn't see me.
6/?

Sidenote: there's a whole school of bicycling education advising people not to ride like this because it makes you harder for drivers to see (+ other reasons). @SmokedPorter told me about it for our story. @Forbes covers it in depth here: forbes.com/sites/carltonr…
7/?

Hit number 3:
April 29. I'm southbound on Saint Paul St. I stick my left hand out to show I'm planning to merge into the left turn lane, but I see a car behind me, so I don't make the lane change yet. The driver honks, and the car's wing mirror hits my hand as it passes me.
8/?

Hit number 3 (cont'd):
Could I have pulled my hand back in after seeing the car behind me? Yep.
Should the cost of not doing that be a threat to "knock your ass off that motherfucking bike"? Probs not.
(Spoiler alert: he didn't follow through.)
9/?

Then there are the countless other occasions where I didn't get hit but it sure felt like I was going to. Like this one, where a driver comes so close that the wing mirror passes *over* my handlebars, just to get to a line of cars stopped at a red light.
10/?

The original story is about cars/trucks parking in ROC's bike lanes. But it's also bigger than that. The bike lanes exist because @CityRochesterNY says "safe and accessible bicycle facilities are a paramount concern," and...
wxxinews.org/post/rochester…
11/?

... and the city's banking on those facilities to increase the number of people who ride bikes to get around.

In my reporting I was literally hit with an understanding of why people wouldn't ride bikes if there's not a clear bike lane on their route.
12/?
wxxinews.org/post/rochester…

Apologies for the pun. (Is that even a pun? idk.)

Reporters end up in dangerous situations all the time to bring you the news. My most recent? Riding a bike around Rochester, NY.
wxxinews.org/post/rochester…
13/end
I think.