Note: More media content is available for this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Daily
Critics say people will die if the Department of Transportation moves on a plan to build bike paths connecting Marine Park and Flatbush Avenue before fixing the avenue itself.
Transportation honchos are gearing up to create lanes linking the green space to a stretch of Flatbush Avenue between Hendrickson Place and the avenue’s knotted nexus with the Belt Parkway. But authorities made a wrong turn sending neighborhood two-wheelers toward the six-lane speedway, one local leader said.
“We are preparing a path into a pit of danger,” said Marine Park Civic Association president Bob Tracy. “They’re going to come around that bend, and they’re going to die.”
Officials plan to create bike lanes on E. 38th Street, Avenue V, Hendrickson Street, and Hendrickson Place leading to Flatbush Avenue.
Transportation department-issued maps state that the destination section of Flatbush Avenue is a bike path — though there aren’t any actual lanes or markings. The department plans to create some in the future, but it hasn’t released specific designs, and officials first want to build the Marine Park connector, a representative told Community Board 18 on Jan. 20.
Board members fear the agency will put bike lanes directly on Flatbush Avenue, and they tabled a vote whether to support the Marine Park connector until they see a plan for the avenue that doesn’t include bikes on the street, a board employee said.
“We will never, in any way, endorse bike lanes on Flatbush Avenue,” said district manager Dorothy Turano. “They figured they could have gotten phase one voted through, so they could start it, and then they’ll come back to us with phase two in the fall — we’re concerned they’re not going to live up to their word, and [they’ll] put the lanes on Flatbush Avenue.”
The new bike paths are part of a project linking Marine Park to the greater Jamaica Bay Greenway.