I recently helped organize a campaign to install a new bicycle lane on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn. We were successful and it looks like the bike lane will go in by the end of the summer. Unlike many northern European cities where cyclists get their own dedicated lanes separated from vehicles and pedestrians, here in New York we have to settle for painted bike lanes that run alongside parked cars. Because motorists can easily drive, double park, and open their doors into these unprotected bike lanes, I used to think they were totally useless. But now that the New York City bike lane network has been built-out a bit, my opinion has changed. I've noticed that motorists mostly tend to respect the lanes and that this has a slight calming effect on traffic. The traffic engineering guys call it "channelization" -- the way the bike lanes narrow the street and keep traffic in line. Most important, the bike lanes create a general, constant sense of awareness for cyclists among not just motorists, but among DOT and other city agencies. Cyclists now have infrastructure that needs to be maintained and improved upon. They have a line item in the city budget. The lanes make bicycles an official part of the urban fabric.

The 5th Ave. bike lane project started one night a couple of months ago when DOT appeared with the giant asphalt strippers and started tearing up the street for a major repaving project. I had always thought that 5th Ave. would be the perfect spot for a bike lane. The long stretch from Carroll to 24th Street is, for some reason, much wider than normal and that makes it a great north-south route for cycling in this part of Brooklyn.

When I saw the repaving project getting started, I e-mailed a guy I knew at DOT and floated the idea of a 5th Ave. bike lane. He said he thought it was an intriguing idea and he'd kick it around the office. I expected nothing to happen. But a few weeks later, much to my surprise, the project got a green light. DOT wanted to install the lane. In New York City, however, nothing can be so easy. Every action -- no matter how small, harmless, or beneficial, provokes a reaction. If you can't imagine two painted stripes on an extra-wide avenue in a heavily-biked neighborhood creating a problem, that means you've never attended a New York City community board meeting. In my experience, community boards are best at doing two things: Saying "no" to anything new, and vigorously maintain the status quo. Even Brooklyn's CB6, one of the most enlightened and progressive in the city, can be incredibly conservative.

So, we put the word out on Transportation Alternatives' Brooklyn Committee mailing list that we needed to organize a quick community outreach campaign for the bike lane. Our fears that the community might freak-out about the new paint stripes were immediately confirmed by my very first outreach attempt. The president of the Fifth Avenue Merchants Association refused to sign-on as a supporter. In talking with her, it was clear that the bike lane idea made her nervous. When I went back to her a second time to give her a bike lane information sheet, she told me that another nearby merchant, the proprietor of one of the older restaurants on this rapidly gentrifying merchant strip, also thought the bike lane was "a horrible idea." This feedback concerned me. These are people who are considered to be local leaders, both very active on CB6.

So, we got a small group of volunteers together to canvass the neighborhood. We passed out our bike lane information sheet and collected signatures along the full stretch of 5th Avenue from Union to 24th Street. We got more than 100 local merchants to sign-on in support of the lane. These merchants reflected the full diversity of the avenue -- from Mexican tacquerias and 99 cent discount shops to French bistros and high-end design stores. Very few people expressed negative feelings for the bike lane. In fact, the greatest enthusiasm and quickest signatures came from members of the Fifth Avenue Merchants Association, reflecting a serious disconnect between the organization and its leadership. We also got about 650 regular citizens to sign-on (including actor John Turturro, who lives in the neighborhood).

On Thursday, July 15, Community Board 6's Transportation Committee met to discuss the project. DOT's Brooklyn office and bicycle staff showed up in full force. In their presentation they made clear that the bike lane wouldn't take away any motor vehicle travel capacity, parking space, or the ability for merchants to load and unload in front of their shops. (Brooklyn community activists have this odd tendency to complain about the traffic in their neighborhoods while consistently rejecting proposals that would solve that problem by limiting New Yorkers' freedom to drive and park their massive vehicles wherever, whenever and however they want). Along with our huge stack of signatures in support of the bike lane, it was basically impossible for the Committee to reject the bike lane. We won a 7 to 1 vote.

Throughout this process I found myself most intrigued by the small but vociferous group of people who thought the bike lane was a "horrible idea." For the most part, these folks fit a distinct profile. The prototypical bike lane opponent had a strong Brooklyn accent, was 40 to 60 years-old, and lived and worked in the neighborhood a long time, if not their entire life. They wanted to be heard but didn't like to listen (to me, at least). I could chat with them for 30 minutes and, if I was even able to get a word in edgewise, could easily allay each of their bike lane concerns. But it was pretty much impossible to change their minds. Some of them were downright hostile. One guy told me he hated "bike fags." Another local business owner launched into a tirade over bicycle "elitists," which was funny coming from a man who owns his own business and probably drives a $45,000 SUV. I'm betting he also owns his own home and, who knows -- went to high school with Borough President Marty Markowitz or some other local power broker.

If there's an elite in Brooklyn, it's these local boys with the strong accents, not me with my Cleveland drawl. These are the guys who run the powerful city agencies, collect the big pensions, and own and operate the city's political machinery and local business. If I'm an "elitist" because I ride a (Specialized Cirrus Elite) bicycle into Manhattan rather than a $45,000 SUV, well, you've got a funny definition of "elite."

In the end, the most amazing thing about the anti-bike neighborhood conservatives was that each and every one of them complained about too much traffic and lack of parking. Yet, they refused to acknowledge that encouraging people to ride a bikes is a great, low cost solution to both those problems. Keep in mind that we weren't asking them to ride bikes -- just to make it easier and safer for others to do so. Their "no's" and "horrible idea" responses -- few as they were -- never ceased to astonish me.

I've begun to see this as something of a psychological disorder. Call it: motoritis brooklynum. The afflicted grew up in the 1950's with the idea that the automobile is the civilized form of personal transportation, the means of freedom and escape from the confines of the crowded neighborhood, and the reward for a life of hard work and playing by the rules. Without really putting much conscious thought into it, they believe that the majority of New York City's public space should be dedicated to the storage and movement of automobiles and thus the city has been shaped. Just as water is invisible to the fish, motor vehicles and the increasing damage they wreck on our environment are invisible to these old-timers. They have grown up in a world filled with cars and car junk. They are simply unable to imagine any other way.


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