Hello, I just came from the George Washington Bridge (NYC) on my Saturday morning run. I live in the neighborhood and it's very convenient to me to do sprints on the bridge as it's long and straight and I can judge my distances by the cables. Recently however, as the weather has been getting nicer, there have been more cyclists on the path on the bridge. I believe the north-walk is closed so we're all stuck together on the south-walk. This isn't an issue for me. I don't take up too much room and I can share. There are what I would consider pretty clear markings as to which side of the path is to be used for what sorts of traffic. There are signs on the cables that can be seen from both directions. There are painted figures on the path itself, granted, some are considerably faded but there are some visible ones as well. My interpretation of these markings has been that regardless of direction of travel, pedestrians go on the side closer to the vehicles and the bicycles go on the side closer to the water. If I am interpreting these signs incorrectly or if maybe there are secret rules I don't know about, please let me know.

I was shouted at today by a very shrill woman this morning and it was quite alarming. She was leading a pack of cyclists towards New Jersey as I was running back towards Manhattan. She waved at me angrily to move out of the way when as far as I could tell, I was in the correct lane for my mode of transportation. This is not the first time I have had cyclists be rude to me while I was running on the bridge.

I don't know if the cyclists see the signs or if they just don't care. I see cyclists on the street going towards the bridge and they do not stay in the bike lane (I'm not sure if they have to) and they ignore the traffic lights and ride right through red lights; I was almost hit by a cyclist as I was crossing the street a couple weeks ago, I had the right of way...

I realize that there are plenty of pedestrians on the bridge who do not follow the rules either. People want to walk by the water, not traffic. But the walkers do not seem to be in a hurry and do not mind getting out of cyclists' way. The cyclists and the runners however, are in a hurry. We all want to move as fast as we can and we don't like obstacles. When I have to stop in the middle of a sprint to let a cyclist pass, I get annoyed, I'm sure cyclists are annoyed when I run in their way and they have to stop for a moment.

So what is the solution? Should I write a letter to the city and ask them to make bigger more obvious signs? Should they repaint the figures on the path? Maybe we can have them open the north-walk and have one path for pedestrians and one for cyclists. If we can get a big enough group maybe we can change it so that pedestrians are on the side of the water and cyclists can have the side next to the cars.

My solution has been to be as polite as I can and allow everyone on the bridge as much room as they think they need. But I do not appreciate being shouted at when I am following the rules.

I plan on getting a bicycle soon. I want to ride it to school and maybe I'll take it out for rides in my spare time. But this whole mess has put a bad taste in my mouth as far as cyclists go and I'm not so sure I want to associate with them as much. I hope someone has a solution.

Thank you, Have a nice day.