Plans for new bike lanes near the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge have been in the works for awhile, but now they’re being held up because Community Board 1 isn’t thrilled about the loss of parking they’ll involve. The current Greenpoint Avenue bike lane begins at West Street and stops just short of the bridge. The DOT plans to continue the lane onto the bridge, creating two bike lanes and a buffer zone on the bridge itself. (Streetsblog’s got an image of the proposal.) The bike lanes planned for the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge itself are a done deal, says Karen Nieves of CB1’s Transportation Committee, but the lanes leading to and from the bridge are the ones that the community has problems with.
Click through to get the specifics on the plans, including the controversial loss of 50 parking spaces near the bridge…
The DOT proposed these changes for Greenpoint Avenue:

1) Take away parking from the north and south sides of the street and create a buffered bike lane against the curb.
2) Create left turn only lanes for Monitor, North Henry, and Humboldt.
3) Create a left turn lane for McGuinness and change dedicated bike lane to shares from Provost to McGuinness.
4) Create loading zone for beverage distributors.

The proposal takes away 50 parking spots on Greenpoint Avenue between Kingsland Avenue and Humboldt Street. The DOT told CB1 there was an insufficient amount of space to create a turning, travel and bike lane. CB1 asked if the DOT could carry the plan up to Monitor Street, two blocks away from the bridge. The DOT wanted to extend the lane to Humboldt since the turning volumes are also high on that particular block. CB1 voted against the parking loss included within the proposal. They did agree with the DOT, however, to change the dedicated bike lanes from Provost to McGuinness into a shared lane. It was not confirmed that the DOT will return to the board with a new plan, but Nieves noted that “the project is back on hold.” A committee member pointed out that the DOT does not need board approval to install the bike lanes, and the “DOT is known to do what they want.”


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