Speak Out at Tonight’s CB1 Meeting: Bikes Belong on Bedford

The removal of the Bedford Avenue bike lane in South Williamsburg this morning proceeded without any public input. Although the thermoplast has already been stripped away, the cause of safer streets will be better off if New Yorkers who ride this bike lane speak out strongly in response. It’s important, if you can make it, to enter your opinion into the public record at tonight’s meeting of Brooklyn Community Board 1.

CB1 transportation committee chair Teresa Toro tells us that there should be a full house at tonight’s meeting, with a big crowd expected to protest a new waterfront development planned for South Williamsburg. So come early and bring snacks and some water. You may have to wait a while to speak, but hang in there, because the people who’ll be up in arms about the "Rose Plaza" development are by and large the same constituents who complained so loudly about the Bedford Avenue lane. Call me naive, but I think something productive might come out of everyone getting together in the same place.

You must sign in by 6:15 to speak at the public session tonight, and getting there by 6:00 or sooner is highly recommended. Head to the Swinging 60s Senior Center at 211 Ainslie Street, by the corner of Manhattan Avenue.

  • Did CB 1 have the opportunity vote for or against this stretch of the Bedford Ave. bike lane at the time it was first installed? If so, how did it vote?

  • Maybe you can get Bill Thompson to show up. I hear he’s in favor of the community getting proper input over every change that happens to their streets.

  • to answer the first commenter’s question, cb1 did not have an opportunity to vote on the bedford ave bike lane — neither its installation or its removal. similarly — aside from a vote which took place some significant time before the kent ave bike lane was put in place (and which only lent the cb’s support to the concept of the brooklyn waterfront greenway) — the actual installation of and subsequent alterations to the kent ave bike lane were nyc dot’s call, pulled off without specific input from the cb. critics from all sides complained about the kent ave actions’ lack of community input. seems like, for better or worse, the dot can pretty much make whatever alterations to street markings and traffic patterns that it likes.

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