July 3, 2020 - (New York, NY) Bellitte Bicycles, one of the oldest bike stores in New York City, if not the country, has been around for more than 100 years according to an article by Sasha von Oldershausen in the New York Times.
Bellitte was here for the Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, the 1970s oil embargo, the transit strike of 1980, the aftermath of Sept. 11, and for Hurricane Sandy, too. The coronavirus outbreak is just the latest crisis to popularize bikes where sales have nearly doubled nationwide.
Bicycles are a great option in lieu of crowded subway cars and buses. Could the current demand for them finally be what transforms the city into a bike-friendly metropolis? Years of advancement, including the introduction in 2014 of Vision Zero, a citywide initiative to protect pedestrians and cyclists, suggest the stars could be aligned.
Perhaps it’s too soon to tell. “Copenhagen’s bike network wasn’t built in a day,” said Jon Orcutt, the advocacy director of the nonprofit Bike New York, who was also instrumental in rolling out CitiBike, New York’s bike-share system, under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “Systems take a while to build.”
Read the full story here.
