20
BROOKLYN WEEKLY, FEB. 24, 2019
CYCLISTS
now just span the avenue
from 60th to 64th streets,
halted last August to accommodate
two construction
projects led by the
state-run Metropolitan
Transportation Authority.
One of the projects required
Transportation
Authority workers to close
one of Fourth Avenue’s
two Bay Ridge–bound
traffi c lanes from 52nd to
59th street, in order to repair
N- and R-line subway
tunnels beneath the road,
according to agency rep
Amanda Kwan. That seven
block stretch of work
was supposed to wrap at
the end of last year, but is
still in progress, according
to Community Board
7’s district manager, Jeremy
Laufer.
And amid that ongoing
project, state transit leaders
last month kicked off
a second job to install elevators
at the 59th Street
subway station , which is
expected to wrap this fall,
and required shuttering
one of Fourth Avenue’s two
Downtown–bound traffi
c lanes between 58th and
60th streets to accommodate
construction.
Both affected Fourth
Avenue lanes are closed for
most of each day, except for
during a 2–8 pm window
when they open to vehicle
and bicycle traffi c.
But cyclists must fi ght
drivers for room on the
road while riding through
those areas due to the incomplete
bike lanes, according
to Ziglifa, who
said motorists often erupt
in bouts of road rage because
they’re forced to
share the street.
“You get beeped at and
honked at and people fl ipping
you off,” she said.
“I’ve been clipped by a couple
of side-view mirrors.”
On a recent weekday,
and intrepid intern for
this newspaper saw no
less than seven cyclists
hit the sudden end of the
bike lanes at 60th Street
in a 30-minute time span.
About half of the riders
frantically swerved
around the work sites and
parked cars to merge into
the one open lane of traffi c
on either side of the avenue
and continue their rides,
while the other half simply
gave up, dismounting
their two-wheelers to walk
them on the sidewalk.
The construction
nightmare more or less
negates any convenience
the partial bike lanes offer,
according to another
cyclist, who blasted the
city and state agencies for
not coordinating to complete
the cyclists’ paths
before the subway construction.
“You have these four
blocks of pretty good protected
bike infrastructure,
and then on either end of it
you’ve got kind of a traffi c
mess,” said John Tomac,
who lives in Bay Ridge. “It
would’ve been nice to see
them put in the protected
bike lane before the construction
had started.”
Reps for the state Transportation
Authority and
city Transportation Department
said offi cials at
both agencies are working
with each other to manage
traffi c, construction,
and safety measures in the
area.
And the city agency’s
rep added that workers
DEAD END: The city endangered cyclists by painting four-block
bike lanes on Fourth Avenue that end abruptly, spitting bike riders
out into construction sites and forcing them to merge into
one lane of vehicle traffi c, according to outraged two-wheelers.
Photo by Maya Harrison
will paint another stretch
of the bike lanes, from 38th
to Second streets, later
this year, with plans to install
the 39th–59th street
stretches of the paths after
the state agency fi nishes
its projects this fall.
But the current chaos
on Fourth Avenue is reason
to doubt those claims
that city and state offi cials
are keeping each other
in the loop, according to
Laufer, who predicted the
traffi c nightmare that the
Transit Authority’s construction
would cause at a
community board meeting
with agency reps last summer
.
“I did not really understand
DOT putting part of
the bike lane that terminated
at the construction
site,” he said. “I think most
city and state agencies are
terrible at communicating
with each other.”
— with Maya Harrison
Continued from page 1
PARK
Continued from page 14
Deutsch and Mayor De-
Blasio funded the overhaul,
which Department of Parks
and Recreation honchos began
designing back in 2015.
The years-long project to
spruce up the park was
worth every minute of effort,
according to the councilman.
“Today’s ribbon cutting
was the culmination of
years of working to improve
Asser Levy Park for our
community,” said Deutsch.
And more changes at
Asser Levy are still to come
— later this year, workers
will begin constructing an
adult-fi tness area in the
park, which Deutsch also
funded, according to information
from the Parks Department.
The agency is also still
deciding whether to allow
a lone food truck to hawk
grub outside the meadow,
an idea some locals panned ,
claiming the mobile eatery
would hurt commerce in
the area by discouraging
patronage of other restaurants
in Sodom by the Sea.