Community Boards

Teresa Toro, one of New York City's most productive livable streets activists in recent years, has been deposed as chair of Brooklyn Community Board 1's Transportation Committee. CB1 covers the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn and has recently been embroiled in bitter fighting over the new bike lanes on Kent Avenue. CB1's executive committee voted unanimously to remove her.

With news swirling about possible cuts to New York's bike network build-out and City Council oversight of street re-designs, we'd be remiss not to pass along this anecdote from the Bikes in Buildings hearing earlier this week. After DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan wrapped up her testimony to council members, she was peppered with questions about how her department goes about installing bike lanes, TA's Wiley Norvell told us:

On Tuesday, Transportation Alternatives made the case for a car-free Prospect Park to the transpo committee of Brooklyn Community Board 7. Reactions ran the gamut from wholehearted support to outright opposition, reports T.A.'s Lindsey Lusher-Shute. Toward the end she unveiled a compromise -- reducing vehicle lanes on the loop drive from two to one -- which piqued the interest of several people and appeared capable of generating broad agreement.

From Caroline Samponaro, Director of Bicycle Advocacy for Transportation Alternatives:

If you want to see more of this, and less of this, at the community board level, Transportation Alternatives is making it easier to apply for a spot on your own neighborhood CB.

New bike facilities on Kent Avenue are expected to be the subject of protest tonight from motorists angry about the removal of on-street parking.

Nine months after Inwood residents first proposed a physically separated bike lane for Dyckman/200th Street, connecting the east- and west-side Greenways, this week the Community Board 12 Traffic and Transportation Committee approved a resolution calling for DOT to "test the feasibility" of such a project. CB12 action was considered necessary to gain the involvement of Borough President Scott Stringer's office, which, it is hoped, will also carry weight with DOT. Streetsblog reader and Inwood and Washington Heights Livable Streets member Daniel O’Neil attended the committee meeting and files this report. 

Manhattan Community Board 12's Traffic and Transportation Committee will consider a resolution tonight requesting that DOT "test the feasibility of creating a greenway connector along Dyckman Street," in Inwood.

Inwood recently got its first city bike shelter, by the A train station at the corner of Broadway and Dyckman/200th Street. It wasn't getting a lot of use when I snapped this shot, probably because it was Sunday morning. Still, in the couple of minutes I was there quite a few cyclists passed by, most of them on the sidewalk -- as many, it seems, don't consider Dyckman a safe place to ride.