Editorials of The Times

The dysfunctional subway system notwithstanding, there’s no shortage of ways to get around New York City these days — buses, bikes, taxis, mopeds, Uber, Lyft, Via, ferries, even roller skates. It’s a boon that has benefited residents and visitors alike.

It would seem natural, then, to welcome warmly electric bicycles and scooters, the latest in for-hire wheels. Ask the people who live in cities that have (or had, in some cases) these newer transit modes, however, and they have feelings, strong feelings — both positive and negative.

So the question for New Yorkers is this: Can the city’s traffic-clogged streets support yet another mode of transportation? Of course they can — if, for the safety of everyone, city officials and companies can agree on much-needed changes: more protected bike lanes, better transportation data and enforcement, wider sidewalks, access for low-income users and sensible restrictions.

In fact, most of these improvements are already needed. The subway isn’t going to be fixed any time soon — state lawmakers continue to refuse to pass congestion pricing, the surest way to fund the necessary repairs to get trains running reliably. Even if that weren’t the case, many people live and work in parts of the city that are far from existing train lines, and it’s there that electric bikes and scooters can truly fill a mass transit gap. Used properly, these vehicles are an efficient, affordable option to get people that last couple of miles between their destination and a subway or ferry stop.

But, to be useful, these vehicles also need to get people to their destinations in one piece. Which is why Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration needs to commit to expanding and improving the city’s network of protected bike lanes.

Citi Bike has been in New York for five years and is increasingly popular. The system clocked more than 80,000 trips in one 24-hour period this summer — that’s equal to about a quarter of the 300,000 yellow cab trips that take place in a typical day. Even during the frigid first three months of the year, the system averaged nearly 30,000 trips a day. Contrary to the overblown jeremiads against them, the bikes have not caused mass chaos. The city and Motivate, the company that operates Citi Bike (and whose core operations are being acquired by Lyft), ought to keep expanding the system.

New York is already making room, too, for electric bikes. E-bikes, as they are called, are outfitted with battery-powered motors that make pedaling less effortful. Citi Bike is planning to introduce them this week. It eventually will add a thousand as part of the plan to help commuters affected by the impending L train shutdown in April. The city also has started field trials with several similar firms — with catchy names like Lime, Pace, Ofo and Jump, which is owned by Uber — offering bike rentals, both traditional and electric, in the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island.

Then there are electric scooters. Also powered by batteries, scooters can travel as fast as 15 mph and are meant to be ridden in bike lanes. Electric scooters are illegal in New York, but at least one company, Bird — yes, a name four letters or less does seem to be required in this sector — is exploring introducing them here in coming months; other services will surely follow.

So far, scooters — or, really, their riders — have not universally won over cities where they have landed. Yes, both scooters and e-bikes are useful to people who cannot get on a regular bicycle for health or fitness reasons, or who prefer not to arrive at work drenched in sweat. But in certain places, pedestrians have been imperiled by users riding scooters on sidewalks. And that dangerous tendency is only where the complaints begin.

San Francisco banned all scooters in June until officials come up with regulations, which should prod their counterparts in New York to proactively do so.

First up, the city must ensure that New York doesn’t meet the fate of virtually every city where these vehicles have arrived — finding thousands of scooters haphazardly dumped onto sidewalks one day. Will Bird and others agree to an initial pilot program? Perhaps concentrating first on neighborhoods outside Manhattan that are transit deserts?

It might also make sense to keep scooters outside the busiest neighborhoods, like Midtown, where sidewalks are so crowded that pedestrians often spill over onto the streets. (Rental companies have the ability to remotely lock devices and restrict where they are used.)

These companies are also inevitably collecting copious amounts of data. The city should insist on seeing it — as other municipalities have — to better understand transportation patterns and needs. The services must also be accessible to all New Yorkers. Citi Bike already offers discounted rates to residents of public housing and to food stamp recipients, and the same should be expected of new entrants. (Bird, for one, says it would do both.)

Safety, however, is the top priority. City officials have to be a lot more serious about protecting people using bike lanes, whether on a bike or a scooter. Lack of protection has been a problem for many years. In one recent example, a truck struck and killed an Australian tourist on a rented bicycle this month when a livery cab abruptly blocked her way on Central Park West, forcing her out of the bike lane.

New York needs more bike lanes that are behind parked cars and other barriers, which shield bikers and scooter riders from traffic and make it harder for cars, vans and trucks to park in them. Bird has pledged to help pay for such improvements through what it calls its Save Our Sidewalks initiative, promising city governments $1 a day per vehicle on their streets. It’s an offer New York shouldn’t refuse, and other scooter and bike rental firms should pony up funds, too.

But de Blasio could help today if he just insisted that city employees not park in bike lanes, and he directed the police to crack down on the misuse of these lanes. Wider sidewalks for pedestrians also would help keep bike lanes unobstructed.

There always will be New Yorkers who complain about cyclists — and, perhaps soon, scooters — blaming them for ills both real and imagined. But bikes and similar vehicles take up far less public space and are much more environmentally sustainable than cars. If the city is serious about wanting safe, reliable ways for people in all areas of New York to get around, the path ahead is clear.

Even President Donald Trump’s fiercest critics should find something to applaud in the administration’s campaign to protect and advance religious freedom around the world.

The State Department’s inaugural conference on the subject drew hundreds of activists and scores of foreign officials to Washington in July and produced a statement of core beliefs and a plan to hold follow-up meetings in the United States and overseas.

Invoking the 70-year-old Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the conference’s concluding statement asserted that “every person has the right to hold any faith or belief, or none at all, and enjoys the freedom to change faith” and argued that “defending the freedom of religion or belief is the collective responsibility of the global community.” To which we say, amen.

But the initiative’s good intentions are in danger of being undermined by the administration’s political agenda, which emphasizes the U.S. strain of evangelical Christianity over other beliefs. In addition, the administration is pursuing immigration and foreign aid policies that belie its stated defense of religious rights.

While the horrific genocides against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and against the Yazidis in Iraq have been widely publicized, there are countless other examples of religious-based persecution and discrimination — against Coptic Christians in Egypt, Muslim Uighurs and Tibetan Buddhists in China, Bahais in Iran, and others.

The Trump administration is not the first to speak up for religious liberty. Since 1998, when Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act, the State Department has issued annual assessments on how countries handle the issue.

The current administration took its advocacy to a new level with the three-day conference, whose invited participants were more diverse than many expected. Despite his own strict Catholic leanings, Sam Brownback, the ambassador for international religious freedom, said the goal was to protect religious freedom for all, “not to say we favor this faith or that faith.”

Yet, the event, headlined by Vice President Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian, was clearly meant to appeal most to the evangelicals who are among the president’s most fervent political supporters.

One major focus was a demand for the release of Andrew Brunson, an American Christian pastor held by Turkey for nearly two years on bogus charges of complicity in the 2016 aborted coup. Under pressure from evangelicals, Trump this month imposed sanctions on Turkey, shaking its fragile economy, in an effort to secure Brunson’s release. The president has been silent about 19 other detained Americans, including a NASA scientist who is Muslim.

President Barack Obama made a point of reaching out to the Muslim world, as well as to other faith communities. And like previous presidents, he tended to consider religious rights within the broad spectrum of human and civil rights.

The evangelicals, however, are increasingly promoting religious freedom as “our first freedom,” as Pence did in his speech.

There are other reasons to question the administration’s motives, starting with the fact that it has been reliably tough on human rights abuses only when they involve adversaries like Iran, North Korea and Cuba. In 2017, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told aides not to let human rights concerns create “obstacles” in pursuing U.S. interests.

Then there are Trump’s disgraceful attempts to ban Muslims from some countries from entering the United States; his reprehensible treatment of refugees and immigrants, especially in separating children from their parents; and his continued support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen that has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.

Supporting people facing religious persecution overseas is both a moral burden of the United States and an exercise in self-interest.

If the Trump administration aspires to truly advance religious freedom, it will need to embrace a far broader vision of human rights than seen so far.