6 AWP Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 May 3–9, 2019
Grand Street redux
City to fi nish, extend halted Williamsburg bike lanes
MEAN
Streets
Our Perspective
The Humanitarian
Crisis of Central
American Refugees
By Stuart Appelbaum, President
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, UFCW
gang’s territory where travel is forbidden.
Here in America, a callous President says
“the country is full” while he leads a tide of
fear-mongering and xenophobia against these
desperate refugees in hope of winning another
election.
No parent wants to take their children on a
3,000-mile journey through gang territories where
there are real threats of rape, kidnapping and
human trafficking. Parents do not want to send
their children — often unaccompanied — on
such a dangerous journey. But for these people
seeking asylum for themselves or their children,
they simply see no other choice. These people are
coming for survival, not to steal our jobs or
mooch off of taxpayers’ money.
We are being led down an immoral path of
scapegoating and fear, and it’s a path we must not
follow if we hope to maintain any kind of moral
authority in the world. Members of my union, the
RWDSU, have families in the Northern Triangle,
and they are worried and scared about their wellbeing.
At meat-processing plants in Ohio last year,
RWDSU members endured the frightening
spectacle of an armed ICE raid. This persecution
of hard-working people trying to support their
families with dangerous jobs brought with it a
sense of shame and sadness; these people
deserve to be treated humanely and not
threatened with automatic rifles.
We need to change the
rhetoric and understand
that just like many of our
families did in the past,
people are fleeing to
America for refuge.
Ever since the day Donald Trump began his
campaign for President, and in the over
two years of his administration, he has
focused on Central American immigrants. As his
administration continues to ring alarm bells about
immigrant caravans while calling for a pointless
and expensive wall, much of the rhetoric has been
disturbing. And so, New York State Comptroller
Tom DiNapoli, Executive Director of Catholic
Charities of the Archdiocese of New York
Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, and myself decided to
make a trip to see for ourselves what is creating
the crisis at our southern border. The three of us
travelled together once before, to Bangladesh in
2013 following the horrific collapse of the Rana
Plaza building in which over 1,100 garment
workers were killed.
What we found in the Northern Triangle
(Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) was
much different than what the President has been
talking about. We saw a humanitarian crisis of
epic proportions where violence combined with
poverty leaves many people with no choice other
than trying to escape. Families there are
oppressed by extreme poverty, gangs, and
violence. To describe the stories we heard as
heartbreaking would be an understatement;
mothers spoke of daughters and sons who
contracted HIV because of rapes. Mothers and
fathers describe the crushing poverty they live in,
and extortion by gangs that adds to their difficulty
in providing their families with even the most
basic of needs. One woman told us of the fear
they have of even attempting to seek help from
corrupt authorities who tell gangs when anybody
reports crime or seeks justice. A grandmother
tells us that she hasn’t seen her neighboring
grandchildren in months because they live in a
www.rwdsu.org
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
It’s a Grand comeback!
The city will finish and extend
the so-called protected
bike lanes along Grand Street,
a transit leader announced last
week.
The Department of Transportation
will revive the Lpocalypse
era design of building
the two cycle lanes along
the commercial corridor in
Williamsburg from Rodney
Street to Morgan Avenue, and
extend the path into a more
industrial area to Vandervoort
Avenue, the agency’s
chief said on April 24.
“We’re going to be keeping
that bike lane design that
we had rolled out during the
L-train closure — one protected
lane and one buffered
lane — and we are going to
extend it into that industrial
area to Vandervoort,” Commissioner
Polly Trottenberg
said at the April 24 press conference
in Manhattan.
The agency still plans to replace
one of two parking lanes
on the Williamsburg Bridgebound
side of the thoroughfare
with a bike lane protected by
a painted buffer and the remaining
parking lane, while
painting a buffer and adding
plastic poles that are supposed
to shield riders on the Bushwick
bound bike path across
the street.
The department will also
install additional metered
parking and new loading
zones around the corners
from Grand Street, according
to a release from Mayor
Bill de Blasio’s office.
The city announced the
plan’s revival as part of its
joint pilot project with Hizzoner
to close off a busy
street on the Distant Isle to
private through-traffic in order
to clear the way for buses
there during the L-train tunnel
reconstruction, which kicked
off on April 26 .
The bike-friendly project
was in limbo since Gov. Andrew
Cuomo abruptly called
off the L-train closure in January
and local cycling advocates
demanded the city
Photo by Maya Harrison
A cyclist dodges a parked van obstructing the Grand Street bike lane. Transit
honchos revived the L-pocalypse-era plan to construct two so-called protected
bike lanes along the busy corridor on April 24.
keep its promise to finish
the project it started in the
fall of 2018.
The Metropolitan Transportation
Authority’s crossborough
shuttle buses —
which were initially going
to transport straphangers
from the Grand Street Ltrain
stop to Manhattan via
the Williamsburg Bridge as
part of the shutdown plan
— did not make it into the
new plan.
The agency got rid of that
proposed service because the
L-train will continue to run
for the repairs of the Canarsie
Tunnel, albeit at reduced frequency
on nights and weekends,
and because of the alternative
lines available to
commuters, according to an
MTA spokeswoman.
“The new plan keeps Ltrain
service running throughout
the day so we won’t need
shuttle buses across the Williamsburg
Bridge,” said
Amanda Kwan.
Trottenberg said she and
her fellow transit leaders are
still hashing out a blueprint
for the new extension between
Waterbury Street and Vandervoort
Avenue to make sure the
lanes will be safe for pedal
pushers while not hampering
businesses.
“We’re going to come up
with a design that’s safe for
cyclists but enables them to
do their business,” Trottenberg
said.
Trottenberg didn’t commit
to a completion date for the
new lanes but said the transit
agency would aim to finish
them as soon as possible now
that the warmer weather allows
for builders to once again
pour the green paint.
“That’s going to be as fast
as we can now that the weather’s
turned,” she said.
One cycling advocate
lauded the city for bringing
the bike plan back to life,
but said that the buffer with
the plastic poles doesn’t adequately
protect bikers and
that scofflaws block the Bushwick
bound lane by parking
their cars there.
“The painted buffer, which
we’ve seen isn’t safe — they’re
routinely parked in and driven
in and really aren’t providing
the level of safety to make sure
that all cyclists are still safe,”
said Philip Leff, a member of
the pro-cycling group Transportation
Alternatives.
The Williamsburg resident
urged the agency to instead
build concrete barriers
between traffic and the
bike lanes.
“The worldwide gold standard
is physical protection
with concrete,” Leff said.
Motorists have killed
three cyclists and injured
dozens more on the strip
since the beginning of 2016,
according to city records.
One biker told this paper
he sometimes goes on the
footpath to avoid the risky
road.
“I mean I wouldn’t call
this road safe to bike on,”
said Rio Gonzales. “I tend
to bike on the sidewalk because
it’s safer.”
Several cars and trucks obstructed
the bike lanes last
Wednesday around noon,
forcing many cyclists to
swerve out into traffic or go
along the middle of the road
past rows of trucks.
One local bodega owner
said he needs the road space
for deliveries on an almost
daily basis.
“We get deliveries four to
five times a week — we need
our delivery trucks parked
outside our store,” said Hector
Arollo, owner of D&J Spanish
Grocery Store at the corner
of Catherine Street.
But many people working
in the area are also cyclists,
so business owners — especially
those in heavy industries
— should encourage
a safer street for them
too, according to Leff.
Brooklyn’s
boulevard
battle lines
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