Brooklyn

Streetfilms: Car-Free Bedford Avenue

By Aaron Naparstek

10:47 AM EDT on October 19, 2006

Emil Kozerawski is still working on the idea of making Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s “Main Street” into a car-free pedestrian boulevard. Now Car-Free Bedford Avenue has its own Streetfilms-style video on YouTube. Speaking of which, don’t forget to tag those YouTube videos “Streetsblog” to ensure that we get a hold of them.

I love the vision and ambition of this project. It is worth noting, however, that this is the same Bedford Avenue where the community has been waiting for two years for the city to replace one or two on-street car parking spaces with bike racks near the heavily-used L train subway stop. At least once a year the NYPD will come and saw off the locks of all the park-n-ride commuter bikes tied to street furniture around the subway station.

While we wait for a Car-Free Bedford to materialize, improving the bike parking situation around the Bedford Avenue L station would be a cheap, easy way for DOT to show off its new commitment to Livable Streets. There isn’t even any community resistance here. The local Community Board has approved on-street bike parking at Bedford. Everyone is ready to go. Until then…

Aaron Naparstek

Aaron Naparstek is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparstek's journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. He was also one of the original cast members of the "War on Cars" podcast. You can find more of his work on his website.