Author: linked

How the Greenway gang met.

Clowns defend the Kent Avenue bike lanes, and the Brooklyn Eagle promotes (transfers?) Evan Thies to Transportation Chair on CB1 (he chairs the Environmental Committee).

I’m sure the clowns had fun, but as a frequent pedestrian on Kent, I have rarely seen cars or trucks blocking the bike lines. So this is more about drama (and comedy) than it is about defending bike lanes.

UPDATE: More at the Brooklyn Paper, Gothamist, Yeshiva News (a Gothamist retread, but with better comments), and Curbed

Since someone asked – it will be Alligator Lounge II. Presumably the same ownership as before, but a different theme (I think Alligator, Charleston, Capones (RIP), the N5th Noodle Shop and one of the N6th bars all share common ownership).

Seriously, its official now – the Electoral College has spoken.

Obama picks HPD’s Shaun Donovan for HUD Secretary.

Maps and description of the G-W R6 contextual zoning. This is the a follow-up to the 2005 waterfront rezoning, and introduces contextual zoning to much of the inland areas of north Brooklyn. The goals are similar to those of the upland portion of the 2005 zoning as well as the 2006 FUCA and the 2008 Grand Street rezoning. Hopefully this will be certified in January, 2009.

The biggest increase in commuter traffic was seen on the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges, both of which had new bike paths built on them in 2002.

Since then, commuter bike traffic over the Manhattan Bridge has jumped up from 546 to 2,232 riders per day. On the Williamsburg Bridge, that figure has jumped from 1,117 to 3,001.

Different kind of biker this time. In 25 years of riding, I’ve never heard of an “EPA sticker”, and I’m quite certain that no bike I have ever owned had such a sticker (and they all had stock or extremely quiet aftermarket pipes).

But then again, its chuckleheads like this who make stupid laws possible:

[Biker] Bill Ferraro, president of the Union Ironworkers Motorcycle Club, Local 580, testified that “it’s unsafe for us to ride when the pipes are too low [i.e., quiet].”

If you want to be safer, take a rider safety course and wear a real helmet. (Which isn’t to say that straight pipes don’t sound incredibly cool; they do, just in a really annoying-to-the-rest-of-the-world kind of way.)

The Brooklyn Paper engages in a little sensationalist headline writing over David Yassky’s letter to DOT regarding the Kent Avenue bike lanes. While Yassky’s letter does talk about the impact of the bike lanes on local residents, the emphasis of the letter is clearly on the economic impact. Which is as it should be – as I’ve said before, the Kent bike lanes are a failure in planning because of the impact they have on local businesses, not because we are losing parking spaces. So the headline should read “Pols Back Local Business in Bike Lane Fight“.

(If Yassky, Markowitz et al want to do something for the residents who are most impacted by the greenway, they should be pressuring Shaefer Landing to revoke it exclusionary access policies and let all residents use the driveway for pickups and drop offs. That is just a shameful policy.)

The Daily News gets in on the Meeker plume story. They note that companies are accused of “dumping toxic chemicals”, implying that it was an intentional act. Most other stories have used “leaking” or otherwise more passive language.