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Bloomberg and DOT Booed Over Bike Lanes
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 25, 2011
Modified Jan 25, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 25, 2011
Modified Jan 25, 2011
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A group of angry Queens residents booed a DOT representative and Mayor Bloomberg at a community meeting in the Rockaways last night, according to accounts in the Daily News and the Post. The jeers erupted after one local resident asked the DOT to get rid of the bike lanes that were installed last summer on the main thoroughfare of Beach Channel Drive. The response from Maura McCarthy, the DOT’s Queens Borough Commissioner, didn't go over too well.
"Rockaway is one place we’re very proud to have put them in," explained McCarthy, adding that the neighborhood is just one of many that is getting the gift of bike lanes. This was not what some locals wanted to hear, and their booing elicited a reprimand from the meeting's moderator, the Post reports. Then the mayor rose to face his angry constituents and told them, "Bicycle lanes are one of the more controversial things, obviously. Some people love ‘em and some people hate them... It’s probably true that in many of these cases we could do a better job and we’re going to try to do that."
The Post interprets that as "backpedaling" on bike lanes, but it seems Bloomberg was simply promising to involve communities more on the ongoing bike lane expansion. Of course, the notion that the DOT is adding these bike lanes in the dead of night without community input is highly dubious; as the indispensable Streetsblog points out, all of the DOT's bike projects involve the local community boards—even the controversial Prospect Park West bike lane, which was approved by the board. If New Yorkers are outraged by the "sudden" appearance of a bike in their neighborhoods, they have only themselves to blame for not getting involved on the community board level.
Tagged
bicycles
bike lane
bike lanes
cycling
far rockaway
mayor bloomberg
rockaways
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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