Transportation Alternative(s) invites you to register for "New York City's greatest adventure," this year's NYC Century Bike Tour

But could I just pick a bit at the org name?

Online registration closes Friday for the 24th Annual NYC Century Bike Tour on Sunday.

by Ken

I think it was a couple of years ago on a Jane's Walk walking tour on Staten Island that I met a bright, committed person affiliated with Transportation Alternatives, which I'd never heard of. But the name sounded interesting, and the young lady gave us all cute little TA buttons, and all you have to do to get me to log onto a website is to give me a button. So I signed up for the e-mail list, and among the e-mails I've received since then is this one I got today:

This is it. It's finally here. New York City's greatest adventure hits the streets this weekend. Will you be registered to ride?

Stretched with scenic bike lanes and rebuilt with space especially for you, the streets of New York are better for bicycling than ever before. For 40 years, Transportation Alternatives activists have fought to make New York City streets perfect for your bicycle ride.

The NYC Century Bike Tour is the ultimate celebration of all that activism. And every dollar of your registration fee goes directly to the fight for more streets safe for bicycling. Plus, when you ride the NYC Century Bike Tour, you'll get a free, limited-edition t-shirt and water bottle. You'll have special access to the Central Park Finish Festival too, where trainers from Equinox will be on hand to help you stretch out after your ride.

There are five routes to choose from, but every single route is packed with extraordinary New York City sights, connected by some of the city's best routes for biking. You'll find your new favorite ride on the NYC Century Bike Tour, guaranteed.

Register for this ride of passage today, before your chance passes by. Online registration closes on Friday.

Now doesn't this sound great? I mean, if you're a bicyclist -- and of course if you're going to be in NYC on Sunday. If this describes you, then note the deadline: Online registration ends Friday.


NOW FOR THIS ONE ITTY-BITTY POINT
RE. "TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES"

"For 40 years, Transportation Alternatives activists have fought to make New York City streets perfect for your bicycle ride."

As I said above, once I heard about the organization, I logged onto the website. I mean, who wouldn't be interested in transportation alternatives. But I don't remember figuring out from the website what it took me an inordinately long time to figure out from the e-mails I received: that the only transportation alternative that the group seems involved with is the bicycle.

With which there is nothing wrong. Bikes can undoubtedly play an important and productive role in our transportation network as well as in the riders' lifestyles -- including both commuting and recreation -- and fitness regimes. And the Bloomberg regime has been conspicuously sympathetic to the value of bike use in NYC, engineering bike lines in parks and streets all over the city, and encouraging the new bike-share that's already visible all over Manhattan and in selected areas of Brooklyn and Queens, with further expansion sure to come soon. This is all great.

But it so happens that I'm not a cyclist, of either the commuting or recreational variety, and so I'm acutely aware that the bicycle isn't "transportation alternatives," it's one transportation alternative. I suppose "Transportation Alternative" would be an odd-sounding org name -- and would also sound kind of, I don't know, vague. Which is already part of the problem, the way I see it.

The actual name, Transportation Alternatives, doesn't in fact tell you what it is the organization is involved in. If your thing is scooters or skateboards or Segways, you might think you're included, but as far as I know, you aren't. And if by chance you thought from the name that there might be activities related to neglected other modes of transport -- besides the obvious ones like cars and mass transit -- well, I think you're just plain out of luck. (No, I don't know what those neglected other modes of transport might be. I was thinking that they'd tell me.)

Maybe the thinking is that putting "bicycle" in the name -- like, say, "Crazy for Bikes," or "Bikes 4U" -- would make the organization sound unserious? Or it might sound like a group for bike-racing enthusiasts -- a fine pastime, but not really a "transportation alternative."

I don't really have a brilliant suggestion here, but then, I'm not a bicycle person, so I don't really have a stake in it. And it could be that I'm the only person who's ever committed this particular blunder about the mission of "Transportation Alternatives," and so there's really no problem now that I've finally worked it out.

I wonder, though, whether there aren't sizable numbers of NYC cyclists who don't know that TA is for them? And wouldn't that be a shame? After all, there's such a thing as being too discreet.

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