Photo: QueensPost
Aug. 15, 2014 By Christian Murray
Is Sunnyside a bike-friendly neighborhood?
One transportation advocacy group thinks so and is planning to celebrate the fact on August 23 with a bike tour around the neighborhood—which encompasses a visit to a number of bike-friendly businesses.
Transportation Alternatives, a group that is advocating for safer streets, has declared Sunnyside a “Bike Friendly Business District.” The neighborhood is the first to be bestowed with that title in Queens, and will join just two other bike-friendly businesses districts across the city.
There are 70 businesses in Sunnyside that Transportation Alternatives views as “bike friendly”—a number that led it to give the neighborhood its own designation. The 70 businesses were deemed “bike friendly” for supporting Transportation Alternatives’ campaign for a safer Queens Boulevard.
Transportation Alternatives is calling on the Department of Transportation to study—and ultimately—redesign Queens Boulevard and has been soliciting the help of local businesses and the community board. In 2013, six people were killed on Queens Boulevard and more than 150 pedestrians and cyclists were injured.
The Sunnyside bike tour will kick off at Bliss Street Plaza (46th and Queens Blvd) at 2 pm (August 23) and bicyclists and pedestrians are invited to tour six pre-selected businesses that Transportation Alternatives deems “bike friendly.” Those businesses include: Café Colombia, Bar 43, Go Natural, Arriba Arriba, Jack’s Ale House and Aubergine Cafe.
“We want to showcase the neighborhood and introduce people to businesses that are bike friendly,” said Celia Holl Castellan, the Queens organizer, for Transportation Alternatives.
Sunnyside Shines and Sunnyside’s Boulevard Bars are sponsoring the event.
