State Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D–Crown Heights) at the bike equity forum on Oct. 30. Photo by Kevin Duggan Pedaling change
Cyclists demand new bike lanes in black communities
COURIER LIFE, NOVEMBER 8-14, 2019 3
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 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-year-old 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.