Bikers Mourn 5th Ave. Victim

Brooklyn Paper | June 17, 2006

By Sara Vogel

Trucks are still the big issue on Fifth Avenue. One year after a Park Slope bicyclist was killed trying to avoid a double-parked truck on Fifth Avenue, the very same trucks drowned out a memorial service in her honor last week. Elected officials and activists raised their voices over the thundering noise to announce the new signs and bike-lane markings the city will paint from Dean Street to Carroll Street this summer. But the new paint isn't enough, some said. "What we need is an administration more friendly to pedestrians and bikers," said City Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Prospect Heights). James paused as a truck rattleddown the avenue. "We've got to stand against development, which will just bring more cars," she said. Cycling advocates used the one-year anniversary of bicyclist Liz Padilla's death to call for even more improvements. "We have to pay attention tocarnage on our streets," said Paul Steely White, executive director of the non-profit group Transportation Alternatives.City Councilman David Yassky (D-Park Slope) lingered at a makeshift memorial to Padilla a 10-speed bike painted ghostly white to promote a bill that would create an assistant commissioner for alternative transportation within the DOT. "Otherwise, it's impossible to get the DOT to care [about biking]," Yassky said. The Department of Transportation's Brooklyn officewould beg to differ. The agency said in a statement that Fifth Avenue's bike path is being updated as part of a citywideeffort to "make it clear that motorists need to share the city's streets with bicyclists."

Submitted by admin on December 18, 2007 - 16:57. categories [ ]