Bike lanes rile CB13

Community Board 13 (CB 13), denying the Department of Transportation's (DOT) allegation that they requested bike lanes to be installed, has joined with Councilmember David Weprin and other Queens Civic organizations, in proposing legislation to allow community boards the right of approval prior to installation.
The proposed legislation comes because of the DOT's decision to place bike lanes along Commonwealth Boulevard from Jamaica Avenue to Union Turnpike, for a distance of 2.2 miles.
According to Austin Shafran, a spokesperson for Weprin, the DOT never consulted with CB13 or any other community boards and the bike lane along Commonwealth Boulevard would &#8220be more dangerous than not.”
The installation of bike lanes is part of a joint plan entitled New York City's DOT's Master Bike Plan, devised in 1997 by the DOT and the Department of City Planning to increase bicycle ridership in the City.
Based on the 1990 census which revealed difficult cycling conditions and the absence of sufficient marked-off lanes as the reason only 0.9 percent of all trips made by vehicles in the city were via bicycle, the DOT developed the plan to address these conditions.
The plan seeks to convert automobile and public transportation commuters into bike riders, resulting in improved air quality, reduced energy costs by alleviating congestion on our crowded roadways, and diminish transportation costs - providing an economic savings for commuters.
Shafran describes Commonwealth Boulevard as a street with two-sided parking which means that creating an additional bike lane would force cars further into the middle of traffic as well as make it difficult for cars to make a turns onto and from Commonwealth Boulevard.
&#8220The community knows best,” Shafran says. &#8220They should have input.”
Weprin believes that the implementation of the bike lane project which was designed to benefit members of the community should be openly discussed in a free exchange of ideas between the community and the DOT.
The DOT claims that CB 13 requested bike lanes be installed in their community, and a few days later rescinded the request.
We've had &#8220several discussions with CB 13 members while planning the Commonwealth Boulevard bike lane,” says DOT spokesperson Kay Sarlin, &#8220a project that CB 13 had initially requested and supported.” The DOT plans to move full-speed ahead with their plans to install the bike lanes.
District Manager of CB 13, Sally Martino-Fisher, maintains that they were always against the bike lanes, and they never requested them.
&#8220One of our board members, Robert Morin, was killed a couple of years ago, riding a bicycle on Hillside Avenue,” she says. &#8220We never changed our minds; we were against bike lanes from the beginning.”