Readers: Who needs bike lanes anyway?
COURIER LIFE, FEB. 28-MAR. 5, 2020 25
When transportation offi cials
announced plans to install 10 miles
of protected bike lanes throughout
the borough this year, only three
streets in southern Brooklyn were
earmarked for new cycling paths
— but even that was too much for
local civic leaders, who successfully
lobbied the city to reconsider
their plans for a bike lane on Canarsie’s
Remsen Avenue.
“Maybe eventually we will need
bike lanes when people are going to
be forced off the streets and forced
to ride bikes, scooters, and roller
skates,” said Dorothy Turano, the
district manager of Community
Board 18 . “Until that occurs, we
don’t want bike lanes on Remsen
Avenue. It serves no function.”
Many residents of southern
Brooklyn, where locals are disproportionately
dependent on car usage,
have long resisted efforts to
alter roadways in favor of bikers,
arguing that the added congestion
is a deal breaker.
So when the transit department
announced a 1.3-mile protected
bike lane slated for Remsen Avenue
between Foster Avenue and
Canarsie Park, several local leaders
demanded that the agency reconsider.
“There is absolutely no reason
for a bike lane on Remsen Avenue.
It will disrupt traffi c and it isn’t
needed,” said Councilman Alan
Maisel (D—Canarsie).
Readers had a lot to say online:
This is the first time I have seen
a successful opposition to putting
bike lanes where they are not only
not needed, but also unwelcome. As
a biker myself, I would love to see
a real plan that would entail finding
out the best way to encourage
people not to drive without causing
more bike deaths as the history of
these ill-planned routes has demonstrated.
the newest idiocy are
protected bike lanes for Flatbush
Avenue, where bikers like myself
fear to tread….. those bikers with
a brain (bwab) avoid all major commuter
and truck routes.
Andrew Ottiger
The bike lane serves the function
of making it safe to ride a bike
on a street where it once wasn’t
safe to do so, it’s really not hard to
understand this.
Dave Colon
Only transplanted beardos
named Ethan want this madness.
Seamus McHenry
Put a bicycle lane on Rockaway
Parkway instead of Remsen Avenue.
Start near Exit 13 of the Belt
all the way past Foster.
Liz Chalfi n
Good riddance to plastic!
Ahead of the state’s ban on single
use plastic bags on March 1,
Downtown Brooklyn businesses
and shoppers are preparing for
the sweeping changes with mixed
feelings.
The ban will make it illegal
for nearly all people or businesses
who collect state sales tax
to distribute carry-out plastic
bags, and the city will require
retailers to collect a fi ve cent fee
for paper bags from all customers
— except for the benefi ciaries
of food assistance programs,
who are exempt from the fee. To
further move away from singleuse
packaging, the city will force
sellers to provide reusable bags
for sale.
The new law aims to cut back
on the more than 10 billion single
use plastic bags New York
City residents use every year,
which harm the environment and
costs the city government $12 million
annually to dispose of.
Readers had a lot to say online:
I’ve missed the paper bags since
the late 70s early 80s when they
started fazing them out. I reused
them for many reasons, tucked between
the fridge and a wall for easy
grab. and then there was plastic. I
hated the flimsy, noisy sound they
make every time you touch them.
Having to double them up when
you have cans or anything heavy.
Good riddance. All states should
abide by what New York is doing.
Judy
I notice that merchants have
been interpreting no plastic bags
to be the same as no bag…. Was that
the intent of the ban? .. Shouldn’t
they be providing alternatives instead
of trying to sell us reusable
bags?
Michael Johnson
I’ll still be using plastic bags.
I got a thousand of them babies
ready to go!
Seamus McHenry
BQ-Why?
An engineering fi rm contracted
by City Council is proposing
a scheme to demolish the
Brooklyn-Queens Expressway —
and replace it with a $11 billion
tunnel!
The report by engineering and
design fi rm Arup proposes a threemile,
four-lane bypass tunnel that
would stretch from the Prospect
Expressway to Bedford Avenue,
allowing the city and state to turn
much of the BQE through brownstone
Brooklyn into a groundlevel
boulevard complete with bus
and bike lanes, parks, and other
public facilities.
The downside? Construction
would take between seven-10 years
to complete — at least two years
beyond the 2025 crisis point when
the BQE’s triple-cantilever is expected
to become unsafe — and
will cost anywhere from $5-11 billion,
according to Arup’s estimates.
The plans call for fi lling in the
trench where the highway runs
through Cobble Hill, tearing down
the crumbling triple-cantilever between
Atlantic Avenue and Sands
Street, and removing the Park Avenue
viaduct.
The tunnel would primarily
service through-traffi c, while
planners would encourage Manhattan
bound drivers from the
north to take the Williamsburg
Bridge, and those from the south
to go into the Brooklyn Battery
Tunnel.
Readers had a lot to say online:
Great idea. But no way it gets
done for less than $15 billion.
Andrew Ottiger
So they could put up 50 thirty
story exclusive buildings on the
waterfront?
Jerry Feldman
Just hide the traffic underground.
Wouldn’t want to subject
the hipsters to seeing that everyday.
Gene Fenech
How many times had this been
discussed in the last 25 years.
Jennifer Lewis Gonzalez
They went under the river. It
didn’t have to cross at least 7 subway
lines and the infrastructure
here…under the Barclay?
Sid Meyer
This is nuts.
Santiago Lopez
Drive better!
A six-car pileup in Park Slope
that sent fi ve people to the hospital
on Thursday night was allegedly
caused by an illegal drag
race, according to fi rst responders
and multiple witnesses.
“They were drag racing,” said
a responding fi refi ghter, who declined
to provide his name.
Authorities arrived on the
scene near Fifth Avenue just before
midnight to fi nd several
damaged cars scattered in the
street and on the sidewalk between
Fifth and Sixth streets.
Paramedics took fi ve people
to nearby Methodist Hospital for
treatment of their injuries, according
to a Police Department
spokesman.
Readers made themselves
heard online:
What is the Police Department
waiting for? People to get killed?
Arrest these fools and confiscate
their motor cars, plain and simple.
Charles Campbell
Any street that it’s possible to
drive fast down needs immediate
redesign such as speed bumps
CJ Wojo
Nothing that a few asphalt speed
bumps would take care of because
obviously these brainiacs can’t follow
the speed limits…
Arlene Velez Marese
Yeah, lets keep blaming the bike
lanes.
Michael Ring
Cars are too dangerous and do
not belong on NYC streets.
Eryk Szkarłat
This is ridiculous.
Phillip Brendunn Grady Jr.
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