Our readers are well familiar with the controversy around the Bedford Avenue bike lane, which has raised a storm among the Williamsburg community do to the serious problems of traffic, parking, and safety which it brought to the busy, crowded streets. After the city realized how out of place the bike lane was, after serious interventions by Rabbi Moses David Niederman and other activists, it was, thank god, removed. But some have taken upon themselves serious actions against removal of the lanes. Certain activities even took illegal steps unilaterally restriping the bike lanes. Some have taken upon themselves provocative marches which, thank god, were almost unnoticed. Also, in the press there have been serious provocations against the Williamsburg community and criticism against the administration for reckoning with the demands and interests of the community. Transportation Alternatives is a group with 8,000 dues-paying members which works to expand the use of bicycling public transportation and walking. Throughout the debate they also demanded that they should return the Bedford Avenue bike lane. Nonetheless, they have condemned the wild performances and the provocations against the community and its interests. Several weeks ago, they reached out to Der Yid that they would like to be interviewed in order to properly discuss the issue. On the advice of leading activists, this interview was arranged with Paul Steely White, the executive director of the group and Wiley Norvell, the group's communication director. Following are excerpts of the interview.

Der Yid: Your organization was founded in 1973. What was the goal?

Transportation Alternatives: To encourage bicycling, more walking, more public transportation use. We believe that cities work better for everybody when use of cars is reduced and when the other modes of transportation are expanded.

D.Y.: Was the environment an issue then?

T.A.: Actually, it was. The first Earth Day was in 1971.

D.Y.: I thought that we believed at that time that there was global cooling, not global warming.

T.A.: True. Global warming, was no longer, was not a hot controversy. But people were already working to improve the environment. Also, the oil crisis was then going on and people were trying to conserve.

D.Y.: Did you come by bike?

T.A.: Yes!

D.Y.: You don't have a car?

Paul: No!

D.Y.: You can run an organization like that?

Paul: It's in my contract.

D.Y.: How did you come?

Paul: You mean to say did I take the Bedford? No!

D.Y.: How did the city change in the last years under the Bloomberg administration for bikes?

T.A.: Mayor Bloomberg's plaNYC has brought a new epoch not only to transportation but also to water quality, green building. Transportation is only a part of it. Cycling is the fastest growing transportation mode in New York. It's up 36% from '07 to '08 and 29% from '08 to '09. In the last five years it's almost doubled. Two neighborhoods that are growing the fastest are Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant, therefore you will see a lot of cycles in the street. Bicycles are no different from taking the bus or the train. It works as a network or as a part of a network. If it's cut off or fragmented, people can't get where they want to go.

D.Y.: Why is cycling growing particularly in these neighborhoods?

[?]: I believe that it has a younger population. Also transit connections are not very good, especially in Williamsburg. There's also something that I want to raise in the beginning. The overwhelming majority of cyclists on Bedford are using Bedford because it's the most comfortable way for them. They're not on Bedford to upset anyone or to disrespect anyone. We know that there's a very small minority who have made their mission to deliberately provoke and to encourage both sides and to inflame the advocates on both sides. We're also very upset for those, for what they're doing. We felt that it is dangerously counterproductive and it skews things to in a dangerous direction. People have asked, isn't Bedford redundant? The fact is that there aren't a lot of other options for the Bedford cyclist. People don't want to detour for the alternatives on Kent Avenue and which in its far part past Broadway the bike lane merges with the sidewalk. I believe that people will continue to ride on Bedford due to the important connections that it has with the bridge. That is the busiest bridge in the city for cycling. Four thousand bikes per day ride over the Williamsburg Bridge. The question which we ask is, What is the best way to encourage a better bike behavior and to protect from tragedy?

D.Y.: Why wouldn't you propose differently that the Kent Avenue lane should be widened past Broadway?

T.A.: Doesn't matter what people think whether it's a better route. I believe that Bedford will stay popular, therefore the question is, How do we protect the cyclists? Another thing is, How do we improve the behavior of cyclists? One way is to set up a protected bike lane.

D.Y.: The Kent Avenue lay out is what you're proposing. It's separated.

T.A.: But a good design can't substitute for a good route.

D.Y.: Are you satisfied how the city has installed the bike lanes? How they have decided where to lay them and how they coordinated it with the neighborhoods?

T.A.: I think that the short answer is yes! I also believe that the city has the right to lay bike lanes on any street where there's safety issue. The Department of Health has published a study that bike lanes save lives. Save lives doesn't need negotiation. I believe that it's important for the city to discuss and to cooperate with the communities but I don't believe that the communities should have veto power over a clear safety issue.

D.Y.: What we hear is that they did not discuss the bike lane with our community board. When the community board asked for it to be brought up that the Kent Avenue bike lane be brought up for a vote they said, It is not necessary. We suspect that it was forced upon us.

T.A.: My hope is that there will be a day in the future when the city and the community will come together and we'll be able to ensure safety as a priority. We could also come up with a way how cyclists and drivers should behave. This would need to be done from the beginning.

D.Y.: According to the number of bike lanes in the city does our neighborhood have more than in general?

T.A.: I think that the bike lanes in this neighborhood are in line with the strong use of bikes in this neighborhood.

D.Y.: How many neighborhoods have this, a lane like Kent Avenue; a greenway?

T.A.: That's a good question. Tonight, the DOT will be announcing that First and Second Avenues from Houston St. to 125th St. will have installed bike lanes that will also improve the safety of pedestrians. The islands in the middle of the street where people stand to cross will be separated from the bike lanes. Kent style lanes exist on 8th and 9th Avenues. Grand St. has a similar lane. Ocean Parkway is the first bike lane in the U.S., built in 1895.

D.Y.: Why wouldn't you encourage bike riders to use the Kent Avenue lane for safety reasons? Its clearly safer for them.

T.A.: I think that the main reason is that there's no safer, easier way to detour to Kent Avenue. Even if there were, would all the encouragement and pleas which the city can use to detour to Kent, there's an urban planning concept of desire lines where people want to go. Look how many people jay walk in New York City. How many times have the city, their mom and dad, said to them they should cross at the corners? People will cross in the middle of the block because that is the quickest, most direct way to cross. That's why the city has now installed crosswalks mid-block on popular streets against what previous practice to say if you're crossing in the middle of the block and you get killed it's your problem. I believe that this is a similar development. No difference what happens on Kent Avenue, page 75, when Bedford will remain for many people the best way and they will continue to use it.

D.Y.: I think that in the press when they ask people whether they will continue to use Bedford, most people said they will use Kent Avenue.

T.A.: If that happens we'll be very happy. But despite our best wishes and hopes Bedford will stay a popular bike lane. We ask the community that we, not to translate this, not to interpret this, cycling as a hostile act.

D.Y.: We have never interpreted that way. I understand that you are concerned for cyclists but you must also be concerned for pedestrians. It's a part of your agenda. Isn't it?

T.A.: We are concerned about pedestrians and we've done a lot for pedestrians' safety overall throughout the city. And we're very proud of the record.

D.Y.: We suspect that our neighborhood, that in our neighborhood, the two modes- pedestrian safety and the interest of cyclists are competing. The buses drop kids off but the bikes don't stop at the red lights. We've had many near-misses and actual accidents. This is a safety concern. Have you studied the effects on pedestrians? I don't know if there's a neighborhood which is so busy as Bedford Avenue with school buses. We all live together. We go to private schools all with buses.

T.A.: This might have been a missed opportunity. But we can work this out. It would, maybe it would be a good idea to remake the street; it should be safer for kids. Back to the point of bicycle riders which respect, don't respect kids. This bothers me very much. We give out tens of thousands of dollars to address this issue. We print fifty thousand, easily more, safety brochures for bicycle riders. It doesn't, I believe it doesn't help when drivers drive in an unlawful way. We're now working, we just met about this yesterday, in our next edition book will include directions for bicycles including how to ride on streets with school buses, which is now very unclear. We will address this.

D.Y.: Is there a law about this? To stop for buses?

T.A.: All vehicles need to stop for a bus. A bicycle is a vehicle!

D.Y.: Can they get a ticket for passing a bus?

T.A.: If a school bus stops, they can get a ticket.

D.Y.: Would you encourage the police departments to enforce the laws? You just talked about a wish, desire routes where you can't stop people without enforcement.

T.A.: We've encouraged and lobbied the police department to enforce traffic laws. From a legal, bicycle standpoint, there's nothing worse than a bike going the wrong way. The answer is that we will see better enforcement against all dangerous behaviors.

D.Y.: Do they need to stop at traffic lights?

T.A.: Yes! According to the law, bicycles must stand, step, most stop at red lights. One of the conditions why you don't see this often is because the road, the way the road is designed, the lights are spaced for travel at 35 miles and hour. If you ride with a bike you can end up stopping at every light. Some states have already set laws where you can drive through slowly if you ensure that there are no people crossing. But it's an unwritten law in New York. This is a difficult thing for us because stopping at every light makes the travel very slow. We want to emphasize, we want to concentrate on dangerous behaviors- the brazen ignoring of pedestrians at crosswalks. I believe that every behavior which places pedestrians in danger we can get a ticket and I would encourage police to give a ticket for it.

D.Y.: Has the bike fatality rate dropped in the last years?

T.A.: The total bicycle fatality rate fluctuates between 13 and 20. For us a better indicator is, for safety of cycles, of cyclists is the rate of injuries. This has also been dropping. When cyclists increase, people expected that injuries would increase. But it actually went down. There's a study that was printed in the American Journal of Injury Prevention. It found that every time the rate of cycle riders, cycling, triples the rate of injuries halves even if there's no bike lane. This is because drivers become accustomed to watch out for bikes.

D.Y.: Do you have details on accidents rates on regular streets versus bike lanes?

T.A.: The Department of Health had looked in, looked up information between 1995 and 2005. Throughout this time there were 200 fatalities. Only one of these was in a bike lane. In that time there were about half the bike lanes that we have today. I believe that the city has gotten better in working with the communities. I believe that when the bike lanes were installed the mayor and the commissioner were trying to present themselves as being green, as putting out for cyclists.

D.Y.: The entire controversy came with a lot of accusations and hate speech against us. In the Post someone said that we're like Howard Beach, where they don't want us.

T.A.: There'll be a forum on January 27th. One of our staff will be there.

D.Y.: Other people in the forum have spoken hatefully against us. One said that we are like Howard Beach. His brother said we live a ghetto existence. And after that there will be the organizers of the provocative march. I would not send my representative to participate in that forum.

T.A.: We suspect that it's important, we feel that its important to have an intelligent voice at that forum. That is why we have issued a statement against the march.

D.Y.: Your statement deserves praise. Your statement deserves to be praised. It is definitely reduced their influence. I hope that you will use, you will take advantage of the forum to speak out more against such hate speech.

Translated from Yiddish