Brooklyn

The debate is over, and as of today the Ninth St. bike lanes are swiftly becoming a reality.

For the Regional Plan Association, Michael Frumin visualized their plan for a rapid transit line in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx that could be built almost entirely on pre-existing rail and would connect with at least twenty existing subway lines. The "Triboro RX", which originated in the 1996 Third Regional Plan, could provide effective transit between these boroughs at a fraction of the cost of most transit projects.

It seems each year the number of people bicycling to Coney Island's annual Mermaid Parade grows. This year was particularly bike plentiful with thousands of bikes locked to poles, fences, signs, and over a dozen blocks of the boardwalk railing. Even bikes locked to other bikes!

Police officers from Brooklyn's 94th precinct are, at this moment, clipping bike locks and seizing bicycles parked along Bedford Ave. according to Community Board 1 Transportation Chair Teresa Toro. The precinct gave Community Board members no advanced notice of the police action. Phone calls to the precinct have gone unanswered. Toro, who also works for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, reports that Council Member David Yassky's staff is looking into the situation and says:

From the Streetsblog tipline: 

Cyclist of the Month: Petra Kirstein A Streetfilm by Sean Clifford Running Time: 3 minutes 50 seconds

All of the bicycles parked on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg had these flyers stapled to them recently. The reverse side of the flyer has translations in Spanish & Polish.

When I first met Brian McCormick, Milton Puryear and Meg Fellerath in the spring of 2002, they were picking up trash and planting tulips alongside a Brooklyn-Queens Expressway off-ramp in Cobble Hill. I asked them what they were up to and they told me they were working to create a waterfront greenway for Brooklyn -- a linear park running from Greenpoint to Red Hook. I didn't have the heart to tell them they looked like a gang of juvenile delinquents paying off 40 hours of community service for shop-lifting. Clearly, these people were either insane or visionary.

With the city promising to improve mass transit via congestion pricing revenue, Gary Reilly, author of neighborhood blog, First and Court has started a petition asking the MTA to restore express subway service on the F line and to extend the V line for local service to Brooklyn: