The ongoing funny saga of New York Avenue south and east of Central Avenue has taken a botanical turn of sorts.

Incorporated as bike infrastructure escape from Central Ave. at its curve around the Country Club in response to A.R.T. construction and the El Vado Motel Redevelopment, New York Avenue, a crudely drawn and engineered “cycle track” is supposed to safely get riders to from Central’s bike lanes west of New York Avenue.

The only problems with this idea have been:

1. New York Avenue becomes part of a parking lot adjacent to the El Vado, so cyclists are “safely” riding through a parking lot;
2. A bollard installed in an attempt to block drivers from exiting said parking lot onto New York Avenue proper has been repeatedly battered since Day One of its existence, eventually leading to its being sheared off entirely.

A similarly battered but more batter-friendly traffic cone has been up where the bollard once stood for the past few months. The lonely cone has been reinforced with two large planters ceramic, providing a visually virile, but perhaps ultimately inadequate guard against drivers and their SUVs and such.

The Better Burque Tactical Urbanism Team (BBTUT) is riding out this morning to see if the planters survived Saturday evening, after having first spotted them yesterday. We are hopeful, but not optimistic.

In the almost words of Roy Schneider in “Jaws,” “I think we’re gonna need a bigger planter.”