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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, NOVEMBER 10, 2019
Pedaling change
Cyclists demand new bike lanes in black communities
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
map showing cycling
paths throughout the borough.
Park Slope — while not exactly
overfl owing with protected bike
lanes — 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
State Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D–Crown Heights) at the bike equity forum, where locals marked unsafe cycling spots. Photo by Kevin Duggan
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.
At the meeting, locals used
Myrie’s interactive map to identify
dangerous areas throughout
the district, tagging intersections
including:
• Flatbush Avenue at Lincoln
Road
• St. Johns Place between Rogers
and New York avenues
• Empire Boulevard between
Utica Avenue and Prospect Park
• Pitkin Avenue in Brownsville,
a block from where 57-yearold
cyclist Ernest Askew was fatally
hit by a driver.
One Bedford-Stuyvesant advocate
said that poor cycling infrastructure
in those areas don’t
refl ect the growing numbers 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 McFadden.
“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.
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