See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Daily
Many car-loving Southern Brooklyn residents are breathing a collective sigh of relief because they’re being spared the wrath of the city so-called “CitiBike” bike-rental program that is driving many Downtown Brooklynites nuts.
None of the controversial CitiBank-sponsored docking days for the man-powered vehicles that are being filled today across Downtown are coming to the less bike-friendly streets of Marine Park, Mill Basin, Sheepshead Bay, Bensonhurst, and Bay Ridge. In fact, according to the bike station map on CitiBike’s website, Atlantic Avenue will be the rental bikes’ proverbial 38th Parallel, with no stations scheduled to cross beneath it.
And that’s just the way some Southern Brooklynites like it.
“I always say, Lance Armstrong does not live in Coney Island,” said Chuck Reichenthal, the district manager of Community Board 13 in Coney Island. “As a means of alternative transportation, I don’t see people from Brighton or Coney hopping on a bike and going over the Brooklyn Bridge to get to work in Manhattan.”
Car advocates in the Community Board 18 area, which covers Marine Park, Mill Basin, Canarsie, and Flatbush, have long grumbled about the effect bikes have on road safety, claiming that many two-wheelers don’t know the rules of the road.
“If you drive and use a car, you know the bicyclists have no code,” said Community Board 18 district manager Dorothy Turano. “They don’t stop at lights or signs.”
And if the laws of supply and demand are any indication, its clear that the people living in the area are not interested in riding or buying bikes, according to Turano.
“There aren’t even bike places around here,” she said. “If the neighborhood doesn’t call for bike shops, that’s an indication that it doesn’t need bikes.”
But not every person living in Southern Brooklyn is against bikes.
Bay Ridge resident Bob Cassara, who claims he was booted from Community Board 10 for supporting a bike lane on 75th Street, says he’d love to see bike rentals come to his neck of the woods — but, thinks many of his neighbors don’t agree with him.
“I absolutely would love to see it in Bay Ridge, but I don’t think it’s realistic to think it’s going to be in Bay Ridge anytime soon,” he said. “They’re going to put it in places of high density and need, not in places where you’re going to run into opposition, like Bay Ridge.”
Not surprisingly, Ridge resident Allen Brotnick, who once lobbied the city for his own personal parking space on a city street, thinks more bikes on the street is a bad idea.
“They have f----- traffic up so bad it’s unbelievable,” he said.
Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4514.