Working towards more livable streets in Brooklyn.
Held at the Cobble Hill Community Meeting Room, 7pm

Topics: Epic Ride re-cap, Bike Valet, Josh's cross country ride, Parking Day, DOT Presentation

OPENING REMARKS

Epic Ride was awesome! Many people attending the meeting went on this ride that took place 7/18 and covered territory between Greenpoint and the Rockaways. A more intense ride than some of the more family-oriented ones, it was jointly organized by Transportation Alternatives, Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, Regional Planning Association and the National Park Service, lasted 40-45 miles, involved many delicious tacos and will be organized again next summer.

Riders work up an appetite cruising Brooklyn's waterfront bike paths.

Thank you to all the Brooklyn Waterfront Epic riders and marshals for making this a second year of awesome-ness!! But that big ride was just a warm up for the Century Tour (http://www.nyccentury.org/)!

Early registration ($55) for the T.A. Century Tour on September 12th ends this Friday, July 23rd. After that, it goes up by 5 bucks every few weeks until $70 the day of the ride. Online registration (http://bit.ly/d4fXlY) is open until September 10th.

Sunday July 18th. 10 am-3 pm
Depart: Manhattan Avenue at Newtown Creek, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
End: Rockaway Taco on Rockaway Beach Blvd and Beach 96th Street

Join the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, the Transportation Alternatives (T.A.) Brooklyn Volunteer Committee, the Regional Plan Association (RPA), and the National Park Service (NPS) for a 40-mile ride along Brooklyn's entire waterfront that highlights the potential of a fully completed Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. We will have brief stops at Owls Head Park in Bay Ridge and a refreshment stop at the Carnarsie Pier with an update on plans to complete the Jamaica Bay Greenway. After the ride feel free to enjoy the beach, hop on the A train back to Brooklyn, or ride back with volunteers along Flatbush Avenue, the most direct route back to northern Brooklyn.

This ride is moderately-paced (12+ miles/hour).

This holiday weekend, T.A. Brooklyn Committee distributed a flyer pointing out massive safety gains accomplished by the PPW two-way bike path. Click here to view the flyer (PDF).

First off, we just wanted to add an update and reminder to about the great safety improvements now in place on Prospect Park West with the new bike lane. Even though there is great support out there, there is still vocal opposition to this improvement, and we encourage you all to continue to use the bike lane and express your support!

Last night I attended the 84th Precinct Community Council Meeting. During the public forum portion of the evening, I presented an illegal use issue on behalf of the Brooklyn Committee of Transportation Alternatives. Many thanks to Rebecca Mayo for bringing this issue to the committee's attention.

The issue, as discussed at our May meeting: livery cars parked in the bike lane at the SW corner of Fulton and Smith/Jay. (see attached images). This causes bikes to merge into the single car lane, in a heavily trafficked pedestrian intersection. As instructed by the Precinct, I also presented photographs of the issue, with livery car companies visible in the images. (thanks to Paco for the pictures!)

Remember, it is still Bike month and there are LOTS of great bike month events this week including:

• Bicycle repair workshops in Brooklyn and Manhattan, including a Wednesday night workshop at Times Up! Brooklyn.
• Bespoke, the handmade bicycle exhibit opens at the Museum of Art and Design http://www.madmuseum.org
• On Tuesday night Revolution Rickshaws presents "Organic Transport for New York: Moving People & Cargo" a presentation on the present and future of pedal-powered cargo and passenger transport in NYC.
• Wednesday tour of the various new and old bike infrastructure featured on Manhattan's streets with Upper West Side Streets Renaissance
• Volunteer nights and workshops at Recycle-A-Bicycle on Wednesday and Thursday
• Thursday awesome views ride in Liberty State Park
• Friday evening demonstration for traffic calming on prospect park west

In place of a regular March meeting (since February's happened so recently) TABK met at the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway Workshop instead, this past Thursday, March 25th.

About the project:

"The Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway is a planned 14-mile multi-use path, stretching from Newtown Creek to Owl's Head Park. The project will increase access to the waterfront, improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and connect the numerous public open spaces along the waterfront."  

Due to snow and rescheduling, we just had our make-up February meeting (see minutes here) and rather than have a regular March meeting so soon after, we are doing something a little bit different (and fun!) this month.

The Brooklyn Greenway project is having the first of a series of DOT-run community planning workshops on March 25th (what would be our normal meeting time) and we thought it would be a great opportunity to meet, learn, and represent.

NYC DOT Greenway Workshop

6:30pm - 8:30pm

209 Joralemon Street (CB2)

Held at the Cobble Hill Community Meeting Room

Housekeeping

New officers were elected in January, among them Inbar as secretary, however she has recently been hired by the D.O.T. (Department of Transportation) for their bike outreach program and therefore had to step down from a leadership role in TABK. Jill Peterson and Pippa Brashear will be sharing the role as co-secretaries.

Initiatives

Car-free Prospect Park

led by Mark Guralnick

Mark attended the GAPCO (Grand Army Plaza Community Organization) meeting this past week where the D.O.T. discussed the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue, which has proven to be a dangerous area.

BROOKLYN,
We are canceling today's ride in light of excessive slushiness. This ride is currently rescheduled for March 14. For more info, check out the ride details on facebook.

http://bit.ly/9ndq32

Hope to see you then.

Larry