Call Stephen Hawking! 5th Ave Bicycle Route Emerges from the Ether!

There is a new connection developing across the space-time continuum where none existed before - a marked bicycle route along 5th Avenue in Sunset Park.  BRBR saw it this morning, extending from 36th Street to 50th Street as a freshly painted line of sharrows along this commercial corridor in Sunset Park.  It looks like it will extend farther north, along the edge of Greenwood Cemetery.  Maybe it will extend all the way to 23rd St, where the 5th Avenue Bicycle lane currently ends?

Physicist Stephen Hawking in 2007 inside of a zero-gravity jet airplane.

Citi Bike Launch

Today was the day - bike share officially launched in NYC.  If you are reading this post, you certainly know something about bike share in NYC and the apparent threat of cataclysmic apocalypse that the bike share program will bring to the city... or not (let's be real, here!).  They are just blue bicycles!

The Scream, in blue: "Bikeshare is here!"  Get a grip.

If you are looking for a story, just google bike share and you can see plenty of news headlines.

Admittedly, no member of the expansive staff at BRBR actually rode a CitiBike today.  Instead, we were all at the 146th Kings County Memorial Day Parade in Bay Ridge, with not a CitiBike in sight.

And although no bike share stations are in Bay Ridge (the closest stations are about 4 miles away, near Atlantic Ave), the actual bicycles are closer than you may think  - they are being stored in Sunset Park, not too far from the Brooklyn Army Terminal.  We saw them on the warehouse floor and stacked in storage crates on Sunday afternoon.

CitiBike storage in Sunset Park

The Harbor Ring

Check out the Harbor Ring at harborring.org or on facebook and be sure to sign the petition for bicycle access across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

The Crowe Effect

An article from this past week in the New York Times, "Anxiety Over the Future of Bike Lanes," raises questions about the long-term lifespan of bicycle lanes in NYC - will they survive past the Bloomberg administration?

At BRBR, we believe bicycle lanes will remain.  They have become a core definition of experience and opportunity, providing a new means for people to move through, use and access all of NYC.  Bicycle lanes have embedded themselves into the culture of this town.  The date they fully took hold can be pinpointed: October 23, 2012.  On that morning, paparazzi photographer J.B. Nichols chased actor Russell Crowe through the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn, on bicycles.

When has an A-list, Oscar-wining actor and personality ever before considered a bicycle as primary transit through the streets NYC? Crowe's bodyguard was also on a bicycle and they both were followed by a total of 6 bicycle riding photographers.  Imagine how this scene would have appeared!  Instead of photographers climbing over each other along the edge red carpet, they were maintaining pedaling cadence and scrambling past Crowe and his bodyguard along green-painted and bicycle-icon marked lanes of the street.

It has required many years of effort to develop the current on and off street bicycle network in NYC and the number of bicycle riders has steadily increased every year over the past 10+ years.  Motorists have also slowly grown accustomed to sharing the streets, whether or not a bicycle lane is in place.  Potential riders see other bicyclists and marked designation for places to ride.  The lanes create the possibility for people attempting their first rides throughout NYC.  The first trip is probably local in the neighborhood.  With some confidence and experience, another bicycle journey is to work or school.  The extent of the bicycle network allows a sense of empowerment to take hold, an a person can ride even farther or more regularly, making the bike a part of their personal transit system.  Soon, anything is possible... even actors on bicycles being chased by paparazzi on bicycles!

October 23, 2012 should be remembered as an important day in NYC bicycling!  Read the full account of this milestone in the Daily News.

 

Bicycle Lane Update

Good news for bicycle lanes lanes in Bay Ridge.  On September 24th, the full board of Community Board 10 voted to send a list of recommended streets to DOT for bicycle lanes.  The streets include:

Sixth Avenue
68th Street from Sixth Avenue to Shore Road
72nd Street from Shore Road to Sixth Avenue
Marine Avenue
11th Avenue

Read more about it on StreetsBlog, Courier Life's Brooklyn Daily and  Bay Ridge Odyssey.

Verrazano Bike & Pedestrian Lane

Kudos to Brooklyn Community Board 10 member Bob Hudak for recommending that the DOT consider installing a bicycle and pedestrian path across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, in combination with the planned road deck and approach improvements.  Unfortunately, the reply was "no."  Read the Eagle's article here.

The bridge is designed to accommodate the pathway but the installation was nixed by Robert Moses during construction for concerns about budgets and potential suicide jumpers.  (Suicide?  We suppose that when you are caught between bell bottoms and the Bronx burning some 35 to 50 years ago, plus the President is telling your town to drop dead, ending it all might have seemed like a viable option.)

A study done in 1997 to consider a retrofit to add the path as intended.  It is a through document and was years ahead of its time in comparison to the current pro-cycling attitudes and initiatives of NYC.  One of the study's deputy directors, Regina Myer, is now director of Brooklyn Bridge Park, a place that is becoming a significant connector along Brooklyn's waterfront. It also has a bike and pedestrian path along its edge.  That park and path also has tremendous community and city support.

But in Bay Ridge, it's a different story.  Our community will not give a 5' wide painted stripe on the road for bicyclists.  And in Staten Island, bicycle lanes have been removed along Father Capodanno Boulevard.  Staten Island has also been frequently noted as the least friendly bicycling borough.

Mr Hudak also asked if MTA buses could be equipped with bicycle racks to provide some basic means to cross the Verrazano with a bicycle.  If other cities can do it, NYC should have the capacity, too, right?  BRBR's online survey indicates that 88% of respondents would want to cross the bridge on a bicycle path and 53% would load their bicycles on a bus rack.




Currently, there is a total of zero bicycle racks on buses in NYC.  Maybe the S53, S93 and S79 can be the first?  BRBR suspects that an initiative for racks on buses would have to come from a higher city agency or the Mayor's office, rather than starting solely with the local representatives.  Lack of a bicycle and pedestrian connection across the Verrazano Narrows is one of the most obvious missing links in the expanding NYC network.

...Survey Says!....

A recent survey by the New York Times reveals that 66% of New Yorkers think bicycle lanes are a good idea!