Hudson River Path in NYT

Artemisia said:

After the death of Dr. Nacht, there was an article about the Hudson
River Greenway Path in today's New York Times. The moral of the story
is: path great, but don't ignore red lights.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/nyregion/28bike.html

While it's true that many cyclists routinely blow through red lights on
the path, the article really misses boat. As far as this incident
goes, the tow truck operators pulling in and out of the tow pound
routinely run red lights, cross the path without without ceding the
right of way, or just stop in the middle of the path and block it. It
was only a matter of time before they killed someone. NYPD in general
are pretty lawless on the roads, but these guys are in a class by
themselves.

Also, the article makes it seem as though the path is well designed and
safe, and that the issue is the behavior of cyclists. This is very
misleading. There are many design problems on the path -- visibility,
signal sequence, poor handling of vehicle/cyclist/pedestrian/skater
interactions. All of this is made worse by the abysmal implementation
of construction detours. The only thing keeping more cyclists from
getting killed is the wits of the cyclists themselves (though the
witlessness of some cyclists cannot be overstated).

John