NYC Blocked Bike Lanes Calendar

Update: June 18, 2021

I put the calendar together and planned to send to Mayor Deblasio in early 2020. But I got delayed and then, of course, the pandemic hit.

But now that NYC is re-opening and electing a new Mayor, I thought it’d be good to get this calendar off my windowsill where it’s been collecting dust, and into the hands of someone whose job will be to improve the safety of our streets.

The following was the letter I had written to Mayor Bill Deblasio and would have sent with the calendar but never did. I’ll revise and send to whoever is elected.

March 1, 2020

Dear Mayor Deblasio,

If you ride a bike in NYC, there is a 100% chance you’ve encountered a driver blocking a bike lane. For most of us, this interaction is so common and leaves us feeling so helpless, we can only shrug and “go around”.

I built an app called Reported which helps to hold drivers accountable by making it easy for cyclists to report bike lane blocking and other reckless driver behavior to 311 so the TLC and NYPD can take action.

You may have heard of this app. In September 2014 at the Big Apps awards ceremony, Reported won the Vision Zero award. You said on stage: “This is going to potentially save lives. This is a profoundly important new tool that’s going to help people in a profound way.” It has come a long way in the last 5 years and we hope that the 28,000 reports to date have made our streets safer.

As you well know, 2019 was a particularly horrific year for cyclists. It is a year in which 29 cyclists tragically lost their lives. There’s a saying that “tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength,” and that’s exactly what New Yorkers did. For Reported, both the number of users who filed a report, as well as the total number of reports, quadrupled from 2018 to 2019. More than 900 people filed 18,000 reports, most of which included a photo.

It can be hard for non-cyclists like yourself to understand the perspective of riding a bike in a bike lane and what that feels like. So a few of the core collaborators on Reported and I created the enclosed 2020 “NYC Blocked Bike Lanes” Calendar to provide a sampling of the bike lane blocking that goes on all over New York City, every day of the year.

It represents the collective work of 900 cyclists who in 2019 submitted more than 11,000 photos.

- Each day’s photo comes from an actual report submitted to Reported, a blocked bike lane that was actually observed on that day in 2019, and later submitted to 311 by our app. On average, there were more than 30 unique reports every day.

- Superimposed on the image is the vehicle’s license plate, the observed time and the address.

- 2019 was the deadliest year for cyclists in 20 years. To honor the memories of the cyclists we lost, on days when a cyclist was killed, the image is black and white and includes the name and age of the cyclist at the bottom. It is striking and shameful how many black and white pages there are.

We believe this calendar plainly calls out the dysfunctional curb management, the poor infrastructure and the reckless drivers who put our lives at risk so casually and so consistently with no repercussions. Day in, day out.

We hope you will put this on your desk as a daily reminder that we need to break the car culture and make much more aggressive progress on bike safety and infrastructure. You have the power to make Vision Zero a reality.

Thank you,

Jeff Novich

Brought to you by the Reported App team

Dear Supporters of Safe Streets and Clear Bike Lanes,

If you ride a bike in NYC, there is a 100% chance you’ve encountered a driver blocking a bike lane. For most of us, this interaction is so common and leaves us feeling so helpless, we can only shrug and “go around”.

The Reported app helps to hold drivers accountable by making it easy for cyclists to report bike lane blocking and other reckless driver behavior to 311.

2019 has been a particularly horrific year for cyclists. It is a year in which 29 cyclists tragically lost their lives. There’s a saying that “tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength,” and that’s exactly what New Yorkers did. Indeed, these crashes and deaths have also inspired a new wave of tech-focused safe streets activists. An Instagram account @onthebikelane was created and saw tons of posts. Usage of Hows My Driving to look up violations of vehicles became more common in news stories. For Reported, both the number of users who filed a report and the total number of reports this year have quadrupled from last year, to 900 people filing 17,500 reports, most of which included a photo.

We wanted to respond to the tragedy and do something creative and meaningful with these photos.

A few of the core collaborators on Reported and I created a desk calendar to show some of the bike lane blocking that goes on all over New York City, every day of the year. In fact, the hardest part about creating this calendar was that we had too many photos to choose from — enough to make 30 unique calendars all without ever repeating a photo!

The idea was that we could go from Twitter and 311, which are easy to ignore, into the real world, and send this physical object to our elected officials and provide them with a reminder of the hostility cyclists face every day. We believe this calendar plainly calls out the dysfunctional curb management, the poor infrastructure and the reckless drivers who put our lives at risk so casually and so consistently with no repercussions.

Introducing the 2020 “NYC Blocked Bike Lanes” Calendar

• It represents the collective work of 900 cyclists who in 2019 submitted more than 11,000 photos of drivers blocking bike lanes throughout NYC. A huge thank you to everyone who has submitted a report or has supported the project.
• Each day’s photo comes from an actual report submitted to Reported, a blocked bike lane that was actually observed on that day in 2019. On average, there were more than 30 reports every day.
• Superimposed on the image is the vehicle’s license plate, the observed time and the address.
• 2019 was the deadliest year for cyclists in 20 years. To honor their memories, on days when a cyclist was killed, the image is black and white and includes the name and age of the cyclist at the bottom. It is striking and shameful how many black and white pages there are.

On days when a cyclist was killed, the image is black and white and includes the name and age of the cyclist at the bottom.

We want this project to raise awareness for safe streets and to tell NYC to aggressively improve cycling infrastructure that we all know we need. You can help out in two ways:

1. Consider purchasing a calendar for yourself.
2. Consider purchasing a second calendar to send to an elected official. We would love it if you mailed it to any person or office who you think should take notice, whether it be a city council member, Mayor Deblasio, your community board, your borough president, DOT commissioner Polly Trottenberg, etc. If you do this, please take a photo and tweet about it and tag us @Reported_NYC.

How to buy this calendar

We are not selling this calendar directly and there is no way to provide a simple sales page. This is a custom, full color calendar so it’s not cheap. It costs $45 + $7 shipping. Nice things are expensive.

There are 2 ways to purchase the calendar.

Option 1: Email Social Print Studio with the order ID

1. Create an account by going to: https://accounts.socialprintstudio.com/
2. Use the referral code 2UZOGQIWT2 to get $5 credit to your account.
3. Send an email to hello@sps.io with the order number and ordering information. I made a template email for you to make it easy.

Hi!
I’d like to re-order the NYC 2020 “Blocked Bike Lanes” calendar. The order number is: PSDB849238. I would like [how many], shipped to [your address] using standard shipping. Please apply the referral code: 2UZOGQIWT2 for $5 off. Please email the invoice to [your email address].
Thanks so much

Note: All reprints take 2–4 business days for most projects to print. Standard shipping is 3–5 business days, and we also have FedEx Two Day and FedEx Overnight shipping options available to our US customers.

Option 2: Create the calendar yourself on Social Print Studio

Follow these instructions to create the calendar and simply buy the one you create (or buy several!):

1. Use this link and download the 366 images (yes it’s a leap year).
2. Go to SocialPrintStudio to create a new calendar project. They are an awesome company that I am very happy to support.
3. Upload the photos (50 at a time, sorry). The file names are already in order so just start from the top. It’s a little annoying but will only take 10 minutes.
4. Use my referral code to get $5 off the purchase: 2UZOGQIWT2

Note: We do not get any proceeds from this (other than a $5 discount at SPS if you use my referral code). This is purely a passion project to raise awareness.

Thank you for your support and here’s to a safe and productive 2020! See you on the greenway!

Interested in learning more? Go to www.reported.nyc, find us on Twitter @Reported_NYC, email us at reportedapp@gmail.com.

— Team Reported