Vaad Hakohol: Protect Our Children, Elders, and Neighbors – Say No to Dangerous Bike Lanes
The City has proposed installing protected bike lanes on Kingston Avenue and Brooklyn Avenue. While the intention may be to encourage cycling, the reality is that this plan will put our most vulnerable community members directly in harm’s way.
Why This Matters to Crown Heights
– Children’s Safety: Every school day, buses discharge children on both sides of Kingston and Brooklyn Avenues. With protected bike lanes, children would be forced to cross into the path of oncoming bicycles — an unacceptable risk.
– Elders and Disabled Residents: Many seniors and disabled neighbors rely on ambulette services or drop-offs from family cars. They, too, would have no choice but to cross through active bike lanes.
– Motorized Bikes and Scooters: These lanes are not only used by pedal cyclists but also by motorized bikes and scooters that travel at high speeds, leaving little reaction time for pedestrians.
– A Proven Hazard: Similar bike lane designs in other neighborhoods have already been reversed after multiple serious accidents involving mothers and schoolchildren.
Our Community Has Never Supported This
We are aware that there have been suggestions that our community is “okay” with these bike lanes. Let us be clear: the Crown Heights community has never supported, and does not support, the installation of protected bike lanes on Kingston or Brooklyn Avenue.
Our children, elders, and disabled neighbors are not numbers. Their safety cannot be reduced to statistics or traffic studies.
What We Are Asking
The Crown Heights Jewish Community Council (CHJCC) is calling on the City of New York to:
1. Immediately halt the planned installation of protected bike lanes on Kingston and Brooklyn Avenues.
2. Work with community representatives and safety experts to design alternatives that keep cyclists safe without endangering pedestrians.
Add Your Name
This is a matter of life and safety. Together, we must make our voices heard.
Jay Sorid
CB 9 Transportation Cmte Meeting: Wed, Sept 10, 2025 at 7pm – 890 Nostrand Av
https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/brooklyn-ave-kingston-ave-empire-blvd-winthrop-st-jun2025.pdf – ( Bike Lane Proposal – see pp 31-33 ) , ( Assemb Cunningham, City Councilwoman Rita Joseph & Sen Zelnor Myrie support this proposal., p 4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPG4hKWWj9g – Williamsburg removed them
P. McDonald
Yes! bike lanes on Kington Ave.
G.Singh
Need bike lanes on Kington Ave.
BG
(A) we don’t, and (B) stop posting the same nonsense as two different people (“P.McDonald” and “G.Singh” – the same misspelling in both posts gives the game away. It’s called sockpuppeting, and if you need to resort to cheating like that to get your point across, then it shows that it’s not worth making in the first place.
Wrong
This is all wrong. Say YES to bike lanes. The community would be so much healthier if we used bikes instead of cars. Not to mention how much cars, gas and insurance costs, which many of us can’t afford.
BG
Absolutely. You need groceries for a family of six or eight? Shlep them on a bicycle. You want to go on a family trip? Tough, your “betters” have decided that you can’t have a car to do it in. You need to get somewhere? Take public transit; maybe you too can get your name all over the news like that poor woman in Charlotte!
Or, you can stop trying to run people’s lives for them.
Moshich
Where do you want bikes on the side walk
No way
They belong on the street with same laws as driving a car with a lane of there own
And brooklyn Ave is like a drag racing show make it 1 lane so pedestrians can cross safely with out fear of a flying car down brooklyn Ave
BG
Frankly, we don’t want bikes at all. But if we have to put up with them, then no, they don’t need an extra lane of their own; they can go in the same line of the cars. If they’re entitled and feel that they ought to be able to go faster, tough noogies, life isn’t about catering to entitled yuppies.
Menachem
BG, would you have your son or daughter go “in the same line as the cars”? Brooklyn ave is a drag race track for drivers from other neighborhoods rushing through ours. The downhill makes it much harder to stop.
I encourage everyone to watch this video of a lubavicherer and his son get hit and then tell me that bike lanes are “dangerous”.
https://x.com/CurbJumpingNYC/status/1055581503780986880
BG
Then they can put in speed bumps on Brooklyn. That will take care of the “drag racing” problem, and then the bikes can go at the same pace as the cars.
Menachem
I hate to disagree with the choshuve vaad hakahal, but bike lanes are not dangerous. Whatever is is we have now is dangerous, and a bike lane would be safer. We need to focus on real problems, not narishkeit.
Anonymous
The Vaad’s petition is opposing protected bike lanes which are between the curb and the parked car, as opposed to conventional bike lanes which are a bike lane in the street.
https://www.nycstreetdesign.info/geometry/protected-bike-lane