Streetsblog readers know Shabazz Stuart as CEO of Oonee and and an occasional columnist. Now it’s time to meet him in the latest installment of Streetfilms’ “Meet the Activist” series.
Stuart describes himself in his Twitter profile as "just a kid from Brooklyn who grew up loving cities & transit," but he's really one of the city's most thoughtful and cogent analysts of bike-lane design. He takes us on a panoramic tour of bike lanes around the city, showing off the (nascent) bike lane on the Brooklyn Bridge and the established ones on Bergen and Dean streets and Flushing Avenue ("already obsolete" because it's too narrow). Stuart points out how painted lanes do not but protect cyclists but instead are filled with hazards such as doubled-parked vehicles and people opening car doors, which can fling a biker under the wheels of a moving vehicle. But he also trumpets the promise of new lanes such as the one on the Brooklyn Bridge, which will open up lower Manhattan for cyclists.
"We need to future proof our cycling infrastructure," he says. "We need to plan not for now, but for tomorrow, when biking is 25, 30 percent mode share."
Hat tip to Clarence Eckerson Jr. for a great film. Enjoy:
This is the latest in our "Meet the Activist" series. Collect them all here.
