BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Bike advocates accused the
city of constructing bike lanes
to protect rich, white Brooklynites,
while leaving impoverished
cyclists of color to fend
for themselves at a meeting in
Crown Heights on Wednesday.
“A lot of the changes that
we’ve seen have been in predominantly
gentrifi ed neighborhoods
that have a lot of
white settlers or a lot of money,”
E. Flatbush resident Mohamed
Bah said at the meeting hosted
by state Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D–
Crown Heights). “In Park Slope
the bike lanes are separated
from the street. In my neighborhood...
there’s only a white line
that’s separating me from the
cars.”
Myrie — whose 20th Senate
District has only one protected
cycle lane, located on Eastern
Parkway, east of Prospect Park
— hosted the gathering at a Sterling
Place health center to discuss
bike lane equity with about
100 resident cyclists and transit
advocates, who pored over an interactive
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map showing cycling
paths throughout the borough.
Park Slope features both uptown
and crosstown protected
bike lanes on Prospect Park
West and Ninth Street respectively,
and the Department of
Transportation is currently
hard at work constructing a
third protected cycling path
along Fourth Avenue.
And the Brownstone neighborhood,
not unlike parts of
Crown Heights and Bedford-
Stuyvesant, is fl ush with unprotected
bike lanes, which grow
scarce in black communities
such as Flatbush, E. Flatbush,
East New York, and Canarsie.
That said, bike lanes of all
sorts begin to thin out the deeper
you head into southern Brooklyn
regardless of demographics,
and neighborhoods such as
Marine Park, Sheesphead bay,
Midwood, Gravesend, Dyker
Heights, and Bensonhurst remain
bike lane deserts as well.
Transportation offi cials are
currently looking to enhance
safety along the southern and
eastern borders of Prospect
Park, and the Department of
Transportation unveiled plans
to build protected bike lanes
on Parkside Avenue, Ocean Avenue,
and Flatbush Avenue earlier
this year.
City legislators also approved
a bill Wednesday spearheaded
by City Council Speaker
Corey Johnson to construct 250
miles of protected bike lanes
throughout the city within a
fi ve-year period, although that
$1.7 billion expansion of the
city’s bike network won’t begin
a month before Mayor de Blasio
leaves offi ce in 2022.
One Bedford-Stuyvesant advocate
said that poor cycling
infrastructure in those areas
don’t refl ect the growing numbers
State Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D–Crown Heights) at the Bike Equity Forum on
Oct. 30. Photo by Kevin Duggan
of bikers on the streets.
“On Eastern Parkway it gets
a little hairy and on Pitkin Avenue
it gets a little crazy,” said
Dulcie Canton, a cycling advocate
with Transportation Alternatives.
“We need to have
more of those facilities because
if people don’t feel safe they’re
just not going to take this up.”
A nurse living in Crown
Heights claimed the lack of
good cycling infrastructure
promotes driving, which in
turn increases pollution that
results in negative health effects
for locals.
“Black women have a premature
birthrate that’s twice
as high as the overall premature
birthrate ,” said Katy Mc-
Fadden. “When you look at
maps of pollution in New York
City, it’s right over the predominantly
black neighborhoods. If
you look at where the bike lanes
are, where your Citi Bikes are,
where it’s safe to bike, it’s a perfect
overlap.”
A bike lane engineer for the
Transportation Department
said the area’s lack of bike infrastructure
dated back to its
heady commercial traffi c in the
past and that the agency has
failed to keep pace with changing
populations.
“It takes time to look at and
we have to address the commercial
traffi c but you also have to
redevelop how those streets are
moving to match the population
that’s moving to those areas,”
said Olguine Alcide.
Pedaling change
Cyclists demand city install new bike
lanes in black communities
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