The first? No. Does it make sense? Yes. In fact, in Idaho, it is law that cyclists may treat a red light as a stop sign (not exactly a yield, but it's a huge step in the right direction).

I think everyone is missing one point here. For 40+ years, Central Park has been closed to cars at some point during the week and there has never been any enforcement of any traffic light laws, EXCEPT when it was open to cars in the am. Suddenly the cops have changed the rules, written or unwritten, about what is acceptable. Who gave them the right to change the rules? It has always been acceptable to ride the park without stopping. This is not about blowing through lights, weaving through the cars, knocking pedestrians down. It is about riding through the park at a reasonable pace (in some parts of the park riding fast is reasonable, others not so) without needing to stop at lights. The DOT could just as easily turn them to flashing yellow and the problem goes away. it is a PARK, not a highway. I almost always stop at the red lights on the streets, when I don't I soft pedal through because the street is deserted. If there is any traffic at all I stop. Do the pedestrians in CP go to the lights and wait to cross??? Don't be silly, maybe a tourist from Seattle would, but no New Yorker gives it a thought. They are all over the road, crossing wherever they are and it makes the lights completely meaningless.

They've done some pretty idiotic things about cycling in this city, this is just another of them, and it is because the cops have a bug up their a$$ about cyclists. Do you remember the head level stop signs at EVERY intersection on the west side greenway? They may as well have strung a rope across the path. How about the non-existent 15mph speed limit? That one has been floating around for about 20 years, but there never was any such thing, it was made up by Betsy Gotbaum.

It isn't the cops per se. Do you think that one day every cop decided to enforce bicycling laws?
The pressure on the police comes from the community.
They feel that bike lanes were forced down their throats and it goes down the line until it hits us at the bottom of the totem pole.
It's been a pissing contest since the installation of bike lanes without any community input.
You see it every day. The battles between Transportation Alternatives or Commisioner Sadik and the non-biking community.
It's tit for tat and we, the cyclists, pay in the end.
I was riding in Prospect Park on Tuesday. Lap after lap with other cyclists and the police bothered no one.
But at one red light, the police car decide to stop, and so every paranoid one of us did the same.
Waiting at a red light where not a soul was crossing.
Kind of takes the fun out of cycling.

Actually, yes. I'm sure the word went around internally, although like ticket quotas, it doesn't exist.

Interesting part is, not every cop is enforcing bicycling laws -- certainly not the ones in my neighborhood except the corner of Lafayette and Prince Street after the NY Post did another anti-bike exposé. Much of the current enforcement seems to be centered around Central Park, the Upper East and Upper West sides, and a few neighborhoods in Brooklyn. We seem to have just as many salmon downtown as we did before the crackdown.

Yeah, a guy on a neighborhood board was recently issued a summons for slow rollin' through a red in Park Slope. Unmarked car and all - gotta sneak up on these menaces.