SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

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.

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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.

Keep reading to find out what locals have to say, and how the DOT defends its actions.

Source: Jaszek Photography via Flickr

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.

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As if the city’s bike lane battles weren’t serious enough – what with top-less protests, Holocaust comparisons, and misplaced priorities - Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz kicked it up a notch by skewering the city’s bike line obsession, and fanatical proponents, in a song and dance routine. Literally.

Joining the cast of Symphony Space’s political cabaret Thalia Follies during the production’s first Brooklyn performance, Marty Markowitz took to the stage to voice the plight of Brooklyn drivers, besieged by the city’s fast-and-furious implementation of lane alterations citywide. Bus lanes and bike lanes and sidewalk cafe lanes – all given a tribute of sort to the tune of “Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music.

“Strollers and schlepers and skaters and joggers,/ Holiday lanes just for all the egg-noggers,/ Let’s not forget cars, it’s getting insane./ Welcome to Brooklyn the borough of lanes,” Markowitz crooned in his Elmer Fudd-like voice.

Keep reading to find out the backstory.

In yet another installment of the never-ending saga of Brooklyn’s bike lanes and the bicyclists who love them, cyclists all over the borough are gnashing their handlebars over an explosion in the amount of traffic tickets they’ve been slapped with this year versus the same time last year.

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With the midterm elections over, our nation taken back, it’s finally time to get down to the people’s business. There’s a sinister element among us, and we need to shine the light of freedom brightly upon it.

We’re talking, of course, about bikers. And no, not the leather, tattoo and goatee types, nor the midlife crisis-stricken insurance brokers out on Long Island who bought a Harley to prove to their younger co-workers that yes, they really are cool. (Ed. – We’re looking at you, Chad.)

I mean bicyclists. They’re everywhere, and they’re wreaking havoc among our citizens. Or at least, they may be, and the City Council Transportation Committee thinks we ought to know about it.

Bikes running over pedestrians, bikes colliding with other bikes, colliding with motor vehicles, crashing through shop windows, leading police on high speed chases before exploding in a fiery swan dive off of a cliff – okay, maybe not the last two, but the point remains: statistics on bicycle-related accidents are non-existent and are currently not collected by the NYPD or the DOT.

The City Council wants to change all that, seeking to put a bill to vote that would compel the Boys in Blue and the DOT to keep tabs on the pedaling menace, wherever it may lurk, which happens to be everywhere… except on bike lanes. The bill, expected to move forward early next year, would require reports to be filed for accidents involving bicyclists even when there is no automobile involved and no injuries occur.

“We cannot assess traffic safety without knowing how many accidents are caused by bicycles and where,” Transportation Committee chair Jimmy Vacca told CBS. “It’s an important part of our attempt to improve pedestrian safety in the city.”

[via Queens Crap]

– Eitan Kahan

Councilman Lew Fidler unveiled details of a hotly anticipated bill requiring community input before bike lane implementation.

“Bike lanes drop out of the sky without any notice to the community and they’re based on a master plan that’s more than 10 years ago,” Fidler told the 61st Precinct Community Council’s September meeting. “That plan is out of date and the community should at least have the opportunity before we go through the expense of changing our streets.”

The legislation, which the councilman said is still being drafted, comes in the wake of outcry from his Canarsie constituents to a planned bike lane on East 94th Street and East 95th Street. Sheepshead Bites was the first to report that he was considering such a bill.

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Source: Jaszek Photography via Flickr

City Councilman Lew Fidler is questioning the decision-making behind bike lane implementation in his district and across the boroughs, leading the city to re-evaluate proposed lanes in Canarsie and opening the door for challenges elsewhere.

In a letter to Department of Transportation Brooklyn Commissioner Joseph Palmieri, Fidler said it was “imperative that community feedback be factored into any proposed changes.”

The request came following months of outcry from Canarsie residents to the city’s plan to install bike lanes from Avenue D on East 95th Street to the Canarsie Pier, and from the pier to Ditmas Avenue on East 94th Street. The lanes would connect bicyclists to the Shore Parkway Greenway, which extends from Sheepshead Bay to Queens. Neighbors in Canarsie say the city is bike crazy and it doesn’t suit residents’ needs.

Fidler agrees that the plans, devised more than 10 years ago, are flawed and outdated.

Find out what’s wrong with the city’s bike plan, and what Fidler proposes to help.