Bike Lanes And Safety Changes Proposed For School-Filled Blocks In Brooklyn

By Ashley Borja, The City

August 9, 2024

The perennial debate about adding bike lanes in the city has returned, this time in a school-saturated area of central Brooklyn where drag racing is common and protected bike lanes do not yet exist.

At issue is a proposal from the city Department of Transportation that aims to transform an area on the border of Crown Heights and East Flatbush long known for speeding vehicles, crashes and injuries. The plan includes creating protected bike lanes that would narrow the roadways, as well as curb extensions and pedestrian islands.

At a virtual hearing about the project hosted by Brooklyn’s Community Board 9 this week, locals aired concerns over safety, congestion and of course, parking.

The proposal comes amid one of the deadliest years for New Yorkers in traffic crashes; during the first six months of 2024, 127 people across the city were killed in traffic crashes, according to an analysis from the street safety advocacy group Transportation Alternatives.

That’s the highest number since the inception of the traffic safety initiative Vision Zero, begun under former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014.

The new proposed bike lane project in Brooklyn is in a particularly dangerous area, according to city transportation officials. It spans Brooklyn and Kingston Avenues between Empire Boulevard and Winthrop Street, which saw nearly 160 injuries caused by traffic within five years.

Neighbors note the span also has a high volume of student pedestrian traffic due to the more than 10 schools in the area, including Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts and Beth Rivkah School.

In its study of the corridors, the DOT found speeding was rampant and drag racing common. Adjacent to the school campus next to Wingate Park, 95% of cars were driving above 41 miles per hour. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, at least 70% of drivers were driving more than 38 miles per hour.

Locals that rely on biking to get to work were excited to see the proposal from DOT, which includes bike lanes on the east-west side streets of Rutland Road and Fenimore Street

“As someone who commutes with my bike, I think something like this seems like necessary infrastructure,” said George McCracken, an attendee at Monday’s meeting, who noted that existing unprotected bike lanes “always become a parking lot basically and bikes have to whip out into traffic.”

The board’s vice chair, Ethan Norville, told THE CITY the district has “only one proper, full-length north-south bike lane that fully spans the district,” Bedford Avenue, which is among the most dangerous bike lanes in the borough.

“Some would call this deadly and unacceptable. Others, however, want it to stay this way,” he said. “My goal has been to balance both opinions and get road setups that work for everyone.”

Protecting the Children

Those opposed to the new bike lanes worry that narrowing the streets could lead to even more congestion. CB9 board member Jolee Cobb said parents who use these thoroughfares to pick up their children after school already have to deal with loads of traffic.

On Brooklyn and Kingston Avenue, especially, drivers “succumb to traffic during school hours regardless, which is like a heavy car traffic time between three and five,” she said.

She suggested that instead of narrowing the road to discourage speeding, the city should lower the speed limit on the avenues from 25 miles per hour to 15 and install speed bumps.

Brooklyn Community Board 9 ranks lowest of 59 community boards for the presence of protected bike lanes, with zero street miles with the feature, according to Spatial Equity NYC, a mapping project by Transportation Alternatives and MIT. (The neighborhood has some bike lanes that share space with vehicles, but none that are separate from traffic.)

However not all meeting attendees agreed that bike lanes would provide more safety. Meir New, a longtime resident of Crown Heights and a member of the neighborhood’s Jewish Community Council, said that protected bike lanes posed a greater risk to children.

A cyclist weaves through traffic on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Aug. 5, 2024. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

“I have a bunch of kids and I’ve many times parked on such a protective bike lane. I have to tell you that my heart goes right into my throat every single time I park by one of these things because my kids are now running out of the car, they’re running to the sidewalk, and they’re not thinking at all about a bike flying by in either direction. It’s extremely anxiety-inducing,” he said.

The proposed plan is also set to eliminate 54 parking spaces, according to the DOT. Some voices raised in the meeting believed that was inconsiderate to local car owners. (According to Spatial Equity NYC citing Census data, about 36% of households in the district own cars, lower than the citywide average of about 45%.)

“The fact is that people do have cars in the city and the whole agenda DOT’s trying to eliminate parking spots to make it more harder for drivers, is not going to work. It gets cold here, it gets cold. Not everybody can go on a bike,” said attendee Menachem, who did not share his full name in the meeting. He questioned how emergency vehicles will operate on narrow streets, predicting that “it’s only gonna make response time and people’s lives worse.”

In a statement, DOT spokesperson Vincent Barone said by “repurposing a very small number of parking spaces” the city can “save lives.”

“Protected bike lanes and curb extensions have proven to make our streets safer for everyone — whether you’re biking, walking, or in a vehicle — and, with 10 schools located within a block of these corridors, these redesigns will help keep young children safe as they travel to and from the classroom,” he said.

CB9 plans to hold another hearing about the proposal in September, according to Norville. A date has not yet been set for that meeting.

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.