'Pretty Crazy:' Bicycle Couriers Mistakenly Pedal Through Lincoln Tunnel
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Bicycle riders have recently been pedaling through the Lincoln Tunnel, where bikes are banned.
As CBS2's Tony Aiello reported, it happened last month, last night and then again Friday. In fact, it happened three times Thursday.
Now, the riders face charges.
There are several signs showing a bicycle with a red slash through it – the universal symbol for "no bikes allowed." Eight such signs are posted outside the North Tube. But apparently not enough to keep three bike riders out of the Lincoln Tunnel on Thursday.
"I don't see how that's happening. I don't get it. I'm confused with that," one driver told Aiello.
Yep, it's weird. It happened at 1:30 p.m., again at 5:05 p.m. and once more at 7:36 p.m.
Three different bicycle couriers rode into and through the tunnel. They were spotted by police and busted once they pedaled out the other end on the plaza at Weehawken.
"Inside the Lincoln Tunnel?" another bicycle courier asked. "No, I would never do that."
"Pretty crazy. I can't imagine it actually happening," a driver added.
"I wouldn't hit them, but I would worry about other people hitting them," another said.
All of the riders told police they were following GPS on their smartphones. But apparently not using an app that specifies routes for people on bikes, such as Google Maps.
When Aiello asked for directions from Hell's Kitchen to Weehawken, the app indicated the bike route involved taking a Hudson River ferry – not the Lincoln Tunnel.
"If they weren't using the bike part of the app and they were using the car part of the app, it would have told them to go through," another bicycle rider said.
"You have to have your brain also. You can't just trust the GPS," a woman added.
You can trust the Port Authority is concerned. While the agency believes the current signage is sufficient, it promises aggressive enforcement to bust bike riders who ignore them.