Aliyya Swaby Photo
Douglas Gormany had been biking around New Haven for almost 30 years without lights or reflectors, until he was directed to a group of cycling advocates who installed a rear light for free.
“I’m most definitely going to get me a front light tomorrow,” Gormany (pictured above) said Monday night before biking away.
For a little while, a group of four Elm City Cycling members created a bottleneck on the sidewalk at the corner of Elm and York streets as they flagged down “lightless cyclists” and installed new rear bike lights in time for Daylight Savings. They handed out about 80 rear lights over two hours, as well as tickets offering local discounts for front lights.
The event was intended to prepare riders for the start of Daylight Savings Time, which brings sunset an hour earlier. The city’s department of transportation’s Street Smarts program provided ECC with 100 rear lights to hand out, said organizer William Kurtz.
Connecticut law requires bikers to have at least a white front light and red rear reflector at night.
In the past, some cyclists have said the event marginalizes them, by making biking seem like a fringe or extreme activity. Others have refused to stop for the team to clip on the devices.
This year was relatively free of “curmudgeons,” Kurtz said, though a few riders did decline the offer.
Drawn like moths to “carnival barker”/outreach coordinator Coby Zeifman’s liberal use of the word “free,” many Yale students flocked to take advantage of the deal. As the line got longer, organizers had to remind people to move to the side, to allow pedestrians to walk through.
Elliot O’Reilly, a Yale junior, said he never thought of getting a bike light since he started biking in New Haven a few months ago. He said he bikes “in a more dangerous way” in New Haven than in his home city of Sydney — heading against traffic, for example — because New Haven is smaller.
Some hadn’t ever considered getting a light; others had been deterred by the cost.
Yale senior Nicholle Lamartina Palacios said her lights had been stolen from her bike last winter, and she never replaced them. A good quality rear light such as the ones ECC distributed costs about $12 – 15 retail.
When asked if she would use the discount ticket to buy a new front light, she said: “Probably not.”
As he paused to get his light installed, Chris Volpe told ECC board member Rob Rocke about his first biking accident just that morning. Volpe had turned to look at someone trying to get his attention, faced front again, and crashed into a truck parked illegally in front of him.
That accident had nothing to do with lack of illumination, he said, but he kept reminding himself he had to replace his bike lights.
“I knew I needed to do it for Daylight Savings, but I never got around to it,” Volpe said. Then, with a red light pulsing from the back of the bike, he pushed off and pedaled down Broadway.
Douglas Gormany had been biking around New Haven for almost 30 years without lights or reflectors, until he was directed to a group of cycling advocates who installed a rear light for free.
This is what I am talking about.30 years.How come he was not given a ticket.If this was a car owner they would have been given a ticket.Like I said pick on the car owners.