PPW Bike Lanes Still Controversial
Surprise! The Prospect Park bike lanes are still stirring up controversy. Today the Brooklyn Paper reports that this PPW Bike Lane Survey started by Council members Steve Levin and Brad Lander got 800 responses on its first day. While the city has been analyzing traffic speed and accidents after the lane was put in, it…
Surprise! The Prospect Park bike lanes are still stirring up controversy. Today the Brooklyn Paper reports that this PPW Bike Lane Survey started by Council members Steve Levin and Brad Lander got 800 responses on its first day. While the city has been analyzing traffic speed and accidents after the lane was put in, it wants community feedback before deciding whether or not to make the bike lane permanent. Questions deal with safety and design modifications. (One question asks if the bike lanes should be more compatible with the historic character of PPW.) In the meantime, rival bike lane protests are planned for this Thursday morning – supporters will be at GAP with protesters at PPW and Carroll Street. Uh oh!
Survey Says PPW Bike Lane Still Very Controversial [BK Paper]
fuplease, you rock. Keep fighting the good fight.
I thought about this more since I posted my windy comment yesterday and I wish I had only written this:
How can anything that forces cars to slow down while encouraging people to get out and exercise be a bad thing?
cmu: thanks! i learned something.
>Do you want them riding in traffic? They’re not allowed to ride on the sidewalk.
Afaik, those under 16 riding bikes with tires 24″ or smaller are legally allowed to ride on the sidewalk
I really can’t add anything to what jagarch said. It’s 100% accurate. Plus, does anyone think changing the flow in the park itself is easier? I’m sure people who would find some reason to object to that.
Personally, I don’t see any good reason why the lane is so controversial in the first place. I ride it almost every day. It’s safe, pleasant, widely used and everyone riding, walking or driving (without an obvious personality disorder) seems happy. Driving and parking is easier than on 5th, 6th or 7th, which have fewer traffic lanes in each direction. Getting out of the care is safer than on 8th. On the traffic side, cars are being driven more carefully. On the bike side, there’s a buffer between parking and bike traffic, so I don’t have to worry about dooring someone. Crossing the bike lane on foot is a little tricky, but there’s some fine-tuning in process that will make that easier.
This whole bike lane *controversy* is a joke. A lot of people don’t like changes they see in Brooklyn and they’re focusing on *bikes*. But it could just as easily be the *food coop*, *organic produce*, *yuppies*, *hipsters*, *Bloomberg*, *smoking bans*, whatever.
The majority of the people who object to the bike lane don’t ride bikes, don’t really care about bikes one way or the other and don’t even seem to live in Park Slope. Look at this thread. *morralkan*’s profile say he lives in Crown Heights. *brooklyndreamland*’s says Marine Park. So why do they even care?
If you like the bike lane, show up at GAP at 8AM this Thurs and show your support. At 8:30 AM we can ride past the anti-bike people sitting in their lawn chairs or on the hoods of their 1991 Buick Regals at the corner of PPW and Carroll. Should be fun.
“So there were two city votes restricting who you can vote for as mayor, not the greatest day in freedom of choice.”
The people voted for how many terms you could serve as Mayor not who you can vote for. This was then conveniently cast aside by those elected. I do agree this was not the greatest of days in freedom of choice. But November is coming and the issue of elected offcials who ignore those that elected them faces us again. See you on Nov. 3rd.
Well, it’s funny that you recommend carving a bidirectional lane into the park. Some of the same pro-car people who are complaining about the PPW lane are the ones who constantly complained when bikers tried to make the park car-free. Their reasoning for keeping cars driving through the park? “It will keep cars off of local streets”. Well, now they are advocating for keeping cars ON local streets – namely, PPW. Which is it, cars in the park at the expense of bikes or cars on PPW at the expense of bikes? Why do they get to have both?
For those who say, “cyclists don’t need the PPW lane, because they have the park. Motorists need 3 lanes on PPW.” Remember that cyclists SHARE the park with motorists, who have an additional lane in the park at rush hour!
Furthermore, the park is not a viable replacement for a bike lane on PPW because it has only limited exits. The bike lane allows bikers to exit anywhere there is a west-bound street coming off of it.
I think those children should ride in the PARK, fuplease. It’s really only a few feet away, isn’t it? And most of the day, it’s void of vehicular traffic.
As to the park, jagarch, don’t you think it’s possible to carve out a bidirectional bike path in the park? For god sakes, the roadway there is three traffic lanes wide. As to 1AM to 5AM, probably you are at very little risk along PPW even if you are doing wheelies all over the street there. I’m pretty sure the emperor is backing the bike lanes is that he gets off telling people how to live, especially if they are not billionaires.
As for you, lechacal, you are a total asshole. period! If you cannot see that someone spending $100 million (as reported in every newspaper and which did not include wll those donations he gave to various charities around the city) is buying an election, then you’re an idiot also. One does not have to be a conspiracy advocate to recognize reality.
“do away with term limits that the city electorate had twice voted for.”
I wish people would STFU about this. So there were two city votes restricting who you can vote for as mayor, not the greatest day in freedom of choice.
Then the city said screw that and voted in the mayor. End of story.