Eyes on the Street: A Historic Sidewalk Widening in Williamsburg

1:15 PM EDT on June 8, 2007

A Streestblog tipster snapped this photo of workers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn preparing the southeast corner of Bedford Avenue and N. 7th Street for a historic sidewalk widening. So, what's the big deal?

This project represents the first time ever in New York City that on-street car parking spaces have been eliminated to make way for bicycle parking.

DOT says that construction should be completed by the beginning of July, if the weather holds up, and will yield somewhere around 25 new bike parking spaces. A similar project with even more bike parking has been sketched out for the northwest corner of the intersection as well. The Bedford Avenue L subway station is a popular park-and-ride spot for
many bike commuters and has often been the scene of sparks flying as NYPD officers cut bikes off of street furniture with circular saws.

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks 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. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

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