Brooklyn Community Board Meeting on Williamsburg Bike Rack Placement & Sidewalk Buildouts

Jon Orcutt, Senior Policy Advisor to the New York City Department of Transportation, will give a presentation to Brooklyn Community Board 1 on locations for proposed sidewalk buildouts and bicycle racks.

• 552 Driggs Avenue, corner of North 7th Street
• North 5th Street and Bedford Avenue, southwest corner
• Kent Avenue at North 8th Street
• 560 Manhattan Avenue, at Driggs Avenue
• Grand Street and Bushwick Avenue

Here is additional information about this meeting from Transportation Alternatives' Brooklyn Committee

This Monday, September 10th, Brooklyn Community Board 1 will be having a public session. There will be a presentation made on proposed locations for "parking swaps" in the district (see item 7 below). These parking swaps, modeled after the one that the DOT recently added at the L subway stop at Bedford and North 7th, involve removing on-street car parking, building out the sidewalk and adding large amounts of bike parking.

Parking swaps reclaim public space on behalf of NYC's super-majority: walkers and bikers. For example, in North Brooklyn, 70% of households do not own cars. This speaks to the need for both bike and pedestrian improvements in CB1's district, and why it makes sense to remove small numbers of on-street car parking spaces to accomplish that goal. Parking swaps result in larger sidewalks at busy locations. This allows for much needed bike parking without a crowding of pedestrian space. Parking swaps at transit locations, like stops along the L subway line, encourage intermodal transport. New Yorkers can ride their bikes to the subway and park them safely before taking advantage of NYC's excellent subway system.

As many of you may know, the DOT is looking to complete some 100 of these parking swaps over the course of the next year. Garnering public support at the Community Board level is fundamental in making these changes happen. Please attend CB1's public session and speak out in favor of these important bike improvements.

For background information on parking swaps, please see:

• StreetFilm: Trading Car Parking for Bike Racks (7/13/07)
• Streetsblog: An NYC First: On-Street Parking Spaces Replaced by Bike Racks (7/12/07)
• Sreetsblog: Small Step for Pedestrians and Cyclists; Giant Leap for NYC (12/22/06)