Protected Bike Lanes where Installed on Skillman and 43rd Avenues last summer (QueensPost)
May 3, 2019 By Alexa Beyer
A Family Fun Bike Ride is scheduled to take place in Sunnyside tomorrow.
The ride, which starts at the Lou Lodati Playground at noon, will celebrate the protected bike lanes that the Department Of Transportation installed last summer on Skillman and 43rd Avenues.
The celebratory ride is a follow-up to a November event commemorating the installment of the lanes.
The event is being hosted by the Transportation Alternatives Volunteer Queens Committee, whose stated purpose on its website is to “organize Queens residents to fight for street redesigns including protected bike lanes and better crosswalks, in order to make our streets safer for everyone.”
While the group’s mission statement may not sound controversial, the bike lanes in question were. Community Board 2 rejected the plan last summer in response to resident concerns that the replacement of parking spaces with bike lanes would worsen an already troublesome parking situation and harm businesses on the two avenues.
But the mayor instructed the DOT to go ahead with the project anyway—a move which he justified in a July tweet: “Nearly 300 people have been injured along Skillman and 43rd Avenues in Queens. 2 lives have been lost. @NYC_DOT has listened to voices across the community. I’ve instructed them to move forward with pedestrian safety and protected bike lanes that will save lives,” he said.
Transportation Alternatives’ Queens Organizer Juan Restrepo thinks that events such as the ride could serve as antidotes to the drawn-out neighborhood squabble over the project.
“We’re trying to follow up that negative history with something more positive,” he said.
The 3-mile ride is set to last two hours, and people of all cycling abilities are encouraged to participate. The group expects 30-50 people to attend. Children under 14 will be required to wear a helmet.
For details, click here
57 Comments
Patricia Dorfman,
You see the animosity on anything and everything bike related, with people going as far as wishing ill towards young families in our community. Can you look in the mirror and say you did not open the floodgates for this hatred? Are you humble enough to admit you were quite simply wrong about our popular new street design? How about now that you’ve been contradicted by professional engineers and first responders with years of experience? Will you continue being a gadfly who casts aside expert analysis, denies statistics, depravedly continues pushing debunked narratives and conspiracy theories in alarmingly deranged editorials? Will you ever apologize?
If not, we your neighbors (NOT internationally funded anti-car conspirators) ask you to at the very least for SILENCE. No more words, no more testimony, no more hateful rallies, no more op-eds, no more facebook posts, no more “Small Town Confidential.” Your capitalizing on the hatred you’ve caused to launch a business(!) in the form of a vicious self-published newspaper has to be the last straw.
Please, Pat, STOP THE HATE. It has gone too far.
Imagine having your feelings so hurt by a Family Fun Bike Ride!
A whopping 14 people showed up! Bike lanes are a disgrace
Where are you getting your facts from, friend?
it’s hard to follow you guys – are you against the cyclists or the bike lanes? or is it both, or is one a symptom of the other for you? at least you have the bad cyclists, as you say, contained mostly in the bike lanes.
I’m okay with both..but cyclists need to use the bike Lanes not only to begin with but also appropriately).
and those bike lanes are right on top of the curb, thus, as few bikers stop for lights/stop signs, they create an imminent threat.
Saw a group of several Chinese tourists riding Citibikes on sidewalks in park row near Cityhall where are the cops to tell them to off the sidewalk? Bike lanes on Skillman Av but Qns Blvd full of bikers in the morning.
Hope it was a wash out. Nice propaganda from Transportations Alternatives.
It wasn’t – I saw them out my window and it looked like a nice bike ride. Certainly better than the twats with busted mufflers driving up and down all day and night.
HOW DARE THEY PUT ON A HARMLESS EVENT FOR FAMILIES
TA’s restrepo is a clown
I’m opposed to the new traffic design. Won’t vote for anyone who wants to continue this
Anonymous- Nobody cares who you’re voting for or how you feel about the new traffic flow design. Are you always this self absorbed? Can you say narcissistic?
Go move to Houston or some shit if you love cars so much.
Sounds great. I’ll be there with my kids
The “troublesome parking situation” is that people are allowed to park their private cars for free on public land.
the troublesome situation is that 90% of bikers continue to violate the rules of the road on a daily basis. Car owners don’t park for free. We pay all kinds of fees-parking, inspection, registration, etc. It’s time for all the lance armstrong wannabes to start paying for their share of the road. Some juicy tickets would help remind these fools to follow the rules of the road. Maybe Transportation Alternatives can educate the kids to stop at red lights, instead of whining about getting more bike lanes and then ignoring them once they are built
You can’t claim 90% of anything without some evidence. I imagine it’s higher than 90%, if anything.
The roads are paid for by taxes. I pay them too, as does anyone who pays taxes. Those roads are usually occupied on both sides by someone’s private property–cars. Paid for by the public, then used for free by private owners. That’s the current situation. If car owners want to park on public property they should pay an additional fee for that.
Incidentally, I’m not a cyclist or a driver.
And probably not a tax payer either.
Riiiight.
According to Trump not paying taxes makes you smart
Please, you are both clueless and living neck deep in a river in Egypt. I walk/run the neighborhood enough to see with my own eyes exactly what bikers do not do. Not to mention sitting in my car for extended periods on alternate side of the street days to witness the ongoing recklessness. It’s easily 90%. Yes, you pay taxes, just like everyone, but to say that car drivers aren’t paying their share to pay for the roads is an ignorant statement, when they are paying much more than you through annual fees like car registration & inspection fees, as well as tolls, parking fees, which have both gone up lately. So, before you open your trap to debate please make sure you have a clue.
Those fees are not fees for parking on public property. Of course you pay fees, as all drivers should. That’s not the issue.
Hi “wake up”,
It’s not ignorant to say that car drivers aren’t paying their fair share for the roads. They don’t come close, in fact. And let’s not forget the massive subsidy that is free street parking. We live in a city with some of the most valuable real estate in the world, after all. Why should drivers get so much of it for free?
See this article for an analysis of how we subsidize drivers: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/
If you have data disputing this, please share it. Otherwise, “before you open your trap to debate please make sure you have a clue.”
Best regards,
One of your neighbors
these fees go toward the roads. What fees are bikers paying? They should be made to cover their fair share of the costs to redesign the road.
Woodside resident needs to research where all the funds go that car drivers pay. It’s time for bikers to pay their fair share. The redesign of the road came @ a cost, start charging them to recoup the funds. Bikes should be registered, have plates. The visigoths and ne’erdowells that go thru lights need to be ID’d and pay the price. Too many clowns on 2 wheels putting themselves, and the public, in danger with their reckless behavior. Own up to it, you are as guilty as anyone in a car.
>The redesign of the road came @ a cost, start charging them to recoup the funds
Those are called “taxes”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax
And the cyclists are provided with free bike lanes, without any accountability for reckless cycling, or paying any license, registration and insurance fees. Talk about entitlement!
I’m not a cyclist.
Cyclists (and everybody else) pay taxes, which pay for the roads and bike lanes. We, the non-driving public, are “entitled” to use the public resources that we paid for. You’re not (or shouldn’t be) entitled to leave your hunk of metal on either side of every road for free.
Seems most drivers and car owners have come to feel like they own the roads because they’ve had free reign for so long. It’s way past time to claw some of the privilege back for non-drivers.
Licensing cyclists is a red herring. It’s automobiles that are the real danger and problem.
That’s a load of crap, get a shovel. Of course bikers should have to register their bikes, get plates too. This way some valuable le$$on$ could be taught via tickets to the miscreants that don’t seem to care enough about others to stop at a red light, or stay off the sidewalk. Bikers hit peds often. Where is the insurance to cover someone’s medical bills? Without a plate how can the bike and perpetrator be identified? Exactly
I agree that cyclists sometimes hurt people. But it’s much less frequent than cars.
“Of the 754 pedestrians killed on city streets in the half decade before Tarlov’s death, three pedestrians were killed by cyclists.”
http://gothamist.com/2019/05/06/pedestrian_cyclist_death.php
You are either getting old and repeating your lame argument by accident or you have run out of ideas to make excuses for bikers
Uh, okay.
Where are the stats on bikers injuring peds, there are plenty of collisions that do not result in death. You think a broken arm/etc is not a big deal? What about bikers covering the costs of these injuries with no insurance? 3 is too many according to mayor diclownio’s vision zero, or did you fail math?
Whoa boy! This ought to open up the floodgates to nasty comments…
A red light means stop, kiddies. Yellow? Slooooow down. Don’t forget your helmets.
“Yellow, slowwwww down.”
Yep, don’t be like drivers with their 2000 pound steel cages who do the opposite.
I see far more bike riders going thru red lights than cars, the # is not even close. I’ve never come close to getting hit by a car in the city, can’t say the same when it comes to all the Sammy Schwinns out there though….
So you’re saying you’ve “almost been hit” by a bike
I have been almost hit by a bike and completely mowed down. You saying that only car operators are capable of breaking the law?
So you’re saying you’ve “almost been hit” by a bike
That’s nice. My comment and the quote I was responding to were both about yellow lights.
But since you want to change the subject and talk about reds, do you ever jaywalk? If so, you don’t get to complain about bikers acting the same way, Pauly Pedestrian.
From the picture of restricted parking down to the beating the drums of controversy and division, this is less promotion of a family event than sour grapes. Just let it go already and accept that people love our safer streets.
streets aren’t safer, just take a look @ the latest stats from mayor diclownio’s vision zero. Take a particular look @ the # of bikers that hit peds.
You mean these?
https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/nyc dot-pedestrian-fatalities-by-bike-motor-vehicle.pdf
Or the stats that show 315 pedestrians hit by cyclists in all of 2017?
Wow yeah, good idea. The stats show that you’re COMPLETELY WRONG, cyclists almost never hit pedestrians.
Thanks for providing the statistics to prove yourself wrong. Maybe if you’d read them yourself you wouldn’t look so stupid right now?
315 is almost one a day, and that’s obviously not counting those that go unreported. That’s a significant #. Red light. Stop. End of argument. Slap these morons with a few tickets and see attitudes change. Traffic signals are not optional for those on 2 wheels, get over misguided self importance.
Yeah, if you read about any of the NYPD’s “cyclist crackdowns” you’d know they’re ticketed regularly.
Like most Trumptards you don’t know any facts, but you rant about it anyway.
Enough of perpetuating the myth that cyclists somehow think they’re above the law and/or are more dangerous. The numbers speak for themselves, the danger posed by cyclists are negligible and cyclists are among the most conscientious users of the street. You should step down from your own position of self importance and learn something.
This would be a good place to start:
https://youtu.be/DBP2LTxqZ8
When my kids were young I taught them not to play in traffic. Now it’s encouraged. Keep your toys in the park.
Did you teach your kids about exercise, pollution, alternative transportation, and that bike lanes are mostly used by adults?
Sure. Which is why she has her kids playing in the park!
Crap, Stop thinking everyone is against bicyclists. Just be for safety.
No wire hangers evaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahr
Watch out, bikers! Car lovers have been laying thumb tacks on the bike lanes. Also, watch for people on their phones who aren’t paying attention and parked cars who’s doors are open and not looking.
You mean like cyclists? Seriously, if I see one more cyclist scrolling his or her phone while coasting through a red light at 51 and skillman I will pitch a fit.
Luckily motorists never look at their phone or that argument would be completely stupid!