We, the undersigned residents, parents, and community members of Crown Heights, strongly oppose the installation of protected bike lanes on Kingston Avenue and Brooklyn Avenue. Our opposition is based solely on the serious safety hazards this design creates for children, elders, and disabled residents.
Safety Risks
- Crossing Through Bike Lanes
- School buses stop on both sides of Kingston and Brooklyn Avenues. Every day, children are forced to cross an active bike lane to reach the sidewalk.
- Elders, disabled residents, and families exiting private vehicles face the same danger — stepping directly into the path of oncoming bicycles.
Increased Severity of Accidents
- These lanes are frequently used by motorized bicycles and scooters, which travel at higher speeds and reduce the reaction time of both riders and pedestrians.
- Collisions involving these vehicles pose a grave risk of severe injury to children, elders, and disabled members of our community.
Proven Record of Harm
- Other communities in New York City have successfully had similar bike lanes removed after multiple serious accidents involving mothers and schoolchildren.
- Installing such lanes here, despite these precedents, exposes our community to preventable danger.
Accountability
Recently, the Department of Transportation itself acknowledged community pushback by scaling back parts of the Brooklyn protected bike lane plan after safety concerns were raised. Recently, the head of Community Board 9’s Transportation Committee was quoted as saying:
“It all comes down to the fact that some people don’t trust the numbers or just don’t know the numbers.”
But our children are not numbers. Safety cannot be reduced to statistics or spreadsheets. Every morning and afternoon, real children exit school buses on both sides of Brooklyn Avenue and step directly into harm’s way. Shockingly, the very official entrusted with overseeing transportation policy in our neighborhood did not even know that school buses have doors on both sides for drop-off.
This lack of basic awareness underscores why our lived experience as parents and residents must be heard. We see the danger daily, and we cannot allow our children’s & elders safety to be dismissed as “just numbers.”
If this project moves forward, any accidents or injuries that result will rest on the responsibility of those who forced this dangerous design upon our community despite clear opposition and warnings.
Our Demand
We demand that the City of New York and the Department of Transportation:
- Immediately halt the planned installation of protected bike lanes on Kingston Avenue and Brooklyn Avenue.
- Prioritize the safety of children, elders, disabled residents, and families above all other considerations.
Safety is non-negotiable. We will not accept a design that knowingly places our most vulnerable community members in harm’s way.