Attention drivers! There will be a number of street, bridge and highway closures all over the city this Sunday, as the Five Boro Bike Tour takes two-wheeling participants from edge to edge of New York City.
Most relevant to our area is that a portion of the Verrazano-Narrow Bridge will be closed for most of the day, as will the Gowanus Expressway and BQE.
The lower level of the Verrazano Bridge from Brooklyn to Staten Island will be closed from 12:01 a.m. to 6 p.m. The Brooklyn-bound lower level will also close at 12:01 a.m. Two lanes will reopen about 8 a.m. The upper level will be open in both directions.
From 7:45 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., the BQE/ Gowanus Expressway will be closed between BQE – West Entrance Columbia Street and the Verrazano Bridge. Beyond Columbia Street, the Bike Tour’s route is mainly on local streets, though their presence on the BQE also means traffic exiting the Hugh L. Carey (Brooklyn Battery) Tunnel in Brooklyn will be diverted to Hamilton Avenue from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
If you’re planning on driving around any other borough on Sunday, make sure you check with the DOT’s advisory.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has announced plans to kick off the second phase of construction on Plumb Beach in April, but say they’ll have to close the parking lot and detour the damaged bike path until the end of the year.
Police described the 24-year-old perp as a “bad character” with a rap sheet that includes nine previous arrests.
According to authorities, a vigilant neighbor spotted the perp looking through backyards and peering into cars. She snapped a photo of him with her cell phone and called police. The suspect then took off on his bicycle, and the neighbor began following him. The suspect then took his bike and threw it down on Oriental Boulevard and Amherst Street, laid on the floor and claimed the neighbor hit him with her car.
EMS responded to the scene and found the suspect without a scratch on him, and police pieced together the story.
The 24-year-old is charged with trespassing and menacing.
A bicyclist was struck by a white SUV on Oriental Boulevard at Amherst Street at approximately 11:30 a.m.
According to a scanner report, the cyclist claims a white SUV hit him on purpose, then left the scene when he called police.
An ambulance is en route to the scene.
This is a breaking news story and may contain inaccuracies. We will update it as more information becomes available. If anyone has more information or additional photos, please send them to tips (at) sheepsheadbites (dot) com.
Existing and proposed bicycle routes in Community Board 15. Dotted red lines are "potential bike routes." (Click to see the full map)
Community Board 15 Chairperson Theresa Scavo is blasting the city’s plan to add three new bicyle routes in the Sheepshead Bay area, saying it puts cyclists’ lives at risk.
The city’s master plan for bike lanes identifies Avenue Y, Avenue T and Avenue P as potential bike routes within the boundaries of Community Board 15. The exact paths of the bike routes are:
Avenue Y between Ocean Parkway and Knapp Street. Knapp Street is also a proposed bike route between Emmons Avenue and Gerritsen Avenue.
Avenue T between Stillwell Avenue (where it branches off to Bath Beach and Coney Island) and Gerritsen Avenue.
Avenue P between Stillwell Avenue (where it joins another proposed bike route heading up Bay Ridge Parkway) and Nostrand Avenue. At Kings Highway there is a proposed spur that runs up Kings Highway into Canarsie.
Cyclists have been riding on the Belt Parkway to avoid dismounting at the destroyed portion of the bike path.
Bicyclists will have to endure another summer of rubble on the Plumb Beach bike path, as the city has again postponed repairs to the 300 feet of asphalt swept away by Hurricane Ida in 2009.
The “transportation advocacy organization,” Transportation Alternatives — whose mission it is “to reclaim New York City’s streets from the automobile, and to advocate for bicycling, walking and public transit as the best transportation alternatives” — will be bicycling over to our neck of the woods this weekend, and I know all of you will give them a hale and hearty welcome… right?
According to the TA Brooklyn Committee calendar, for its “Monthly Ride,” members of the group will ride this Sunday, January 29 at 11:00 a.m., to Emmons Avenue, “since there has recently been discussion about problems for cyclists there and recommendations for improvement.” From the calendar item:
The riders will meet at the corner of Washington Ave/Eastern Parkway in front of the Brooklyn Museum at 11AM. We will ride a couple of blocks on Eastern Parkway, then make a right on Bedford Avenue and ride Bedford all the way to Emmons Avenue, where we will get a chance to see first-hand the current layout and what we can suggest to improve the situation for cyclists, pedestrians and motorists. We will make a left on Emmons and ride until Knapp St, where we will make a left, go a few blocks and wind up at Jordan’s Lobster Dock, where we can warm up with some clam chowder, lobster rolls, grilled salmon sandwiches or other delights. Be sure to bring a lock so you can comfortably leave your bikes and head inside to eat. Heading back, we can take Bedford Avenue again, or we can ride Emmons a little further and hook up with Ocean Parkway. The ride will be 16-17 miles round trip including the lunch stop. Approximate time for people heading all the way back to the Brooklyn Museum location would be 2.5-3 hours.
For additional information, call (212) 629-8080 or go to www.transalt.org.
With a tainted history of traffic accidents and the death of a 4-year-old boy, Oriental Boulevard is now sporting brand new bike lane signs courtesy of the New York City Department of Transportation. The agency hopes the signs will provide a safer street, but local leaders are incensed, saying the signs indicate the agency is backtracking on community-led initiatives that the agency had previously appeared to support.
A local advocate is proposing a marked bike lane on Emmons Avenue to make cycling on the busy stretch safer. The only problem is community leaders don’t care one iota for the plan.
It’s no secret that City Councilman Lew Fidler is not one to coddle bike lane advocates. The pol has been painted by bicycling enthusiasts as a car-crazed obstructionist hell-bent on keeping his district’s yokels addicted to gasoline. But to locals, he’s a bit of a savior, winning over Community Boards and civic groups in his district by blasting the Department of Transportation’s misguided installation of bike lanes in awkward, unsafe and unwanted areas.
But if you ask the councilman, he’s not on a crusade against peddlers and their thoroughfares; he just wants more community input – and input from local cyclists – before a bike lane “drops out of the sky,” as he put it in September 2010, when he announced he would draft legislation securing that right. (Sheepshead Bites was the first to report on the legislation, back in August 2010.)
