Photo: AP via New York Times

How green is our mayor? Fielding a question on his weekly radio show about using the city’s underground tunnels to move freight, Michael Bloomberg this morning went off on cyclists who bring their bikes on board the subway. City Room has the quote:

There are messengers who do it. Some of them take their bikes, which drives me crazy, cause I’ve just never agreed with the M.T.A. I know bicyclists will now ring the phones off the hook, but they are just too big, particularly at rush hours — I just don’t think they should allow it. But I’m not running the M.T.A. …

While the mayor, who rides the 4/5/6 line to work, is not in charge of the MTA, he does control the city’s streets. Could it be that many East Side cyclists are driven underground by a lack of adequate biking facilities?

It’s disappointing that Bloomberg, who seems to understand the value in providing dedicated spaces to ride, doesn’t see a connection here. If he wants fewer cyclists on his train, protected bike lanes for the East Side would be a good place to start.