The city transportation department plans to install a protected bike lane to fill in one of the most glaring gaps in Brooklyn’s cycling network — and eliminate a hive of illegal parking in the process.
The project, which was announced earlier this month, aims to extend the bike lane that connects to the Brooklyn Bridge. The lane abruptly cuts off at Adams and Johnson Streets, forcing many cyclists to swerve into traffic. On that block, vehicles regularly park in the painted bike lane forcing bikes to swerve into a lane of traffic.
The plan would create a two-way bike lane protected by concrete barriers. The work would extend the protections from where the lane currently cuts off. It would run south of Fulton Street, where Adams Street turns into Boerum Place, down to Bergen Street. The city plans to finish the work later this year — and bike riders said the changes can’t come soon enough.
Lucie Vagnerova, 38, who bikes across the Brooklyn Bridge nearly every day, said the stretch of road on Adams Street is dangerous and that a protected bike lane “makes the biggest difference for cyclists.”
“There's always cars parked on here, and there are trucks and, of course, also buses, delivery vehicles, personal vehicles, and there's also a lot of potholes,” she said. “The cars coming off the bridge go so fast and when I have to veer away from the bike lane, it's a lot.”
The city's plan to redesign Adams Street between Johnson and Fulton Streets.
There are multiple courthouses nearby, and the streets leading up to the bridge are often filled with illegally parked cars with placards on their dashboards claiming to be issued by the courts systems. Other drivers regularly double park on the block while they run errands.
Alex Chorine, 50, last week rode his bike around a silver Jeep parked in the now-unprotected bike lane on Boerum Place. The two passengers inside hopped out to get a drink at the Blank Street Coffee. He pulled out his camera, took a picture and filed a 311 complaint on the spot. It’s a daily ritual he said he wishes he didn’t have to do, but hoped it alerts police to come by and clear the bike lanes.
“I just do whatever I could, it seems like it does help. Not significantly, but at least every little bit counts, right?”
The driver of that Jeep, Shawn Casilla, 35, from Bensorhurst made no apologies for blocking the bike lane. He said his wife grabbed a coffee after attending his niece’s school performance nearby. He said he’s not a fan of adding a parking protected bike lane, because it would make it hard for him to park in the bike lane.
“This is a highly populated area so if I need to get coffee or something like that, I can't just park somewhere,” he said. “If I could just go in real quick, three to five minutes to get something, that'd be fine.”
During the five minutes he parked in the bike lane a father and a small child on bikes swerved into a lane of traffic to go around his Jeep.
Cars that illegally park in downtown Brooklyn regularly feature placards that claim to be issued by the federal government or courts sytem.
City Councilmember Lincoln Restler has griped about illegal parking in downtown Brooklyn for years. Last year, a survey by his office estimated 500 vehicles park illegally in the area each day, 60 of them on Adams Street.
“ With this new redesign, there's no space for illegal parking,” Restler said. “The court officers and the judicial staff and everybody going into the courthouses that just park wherever they want, whenever they want, with no regard for the safety of our community will finally have to follow the rules.”
Still, the redesign was bad news for paralegal Oliva Smith, 54, who drives to work in the area and said parking is nearly impossible to find.
“It's going to be bad for people living in the area and can't find parking as it is, and people that work in this area,” she said. “Maybe they should do some type of poll of how many bikers do they have, as opposed to drivers with parking.”
The changes are the latest move to help improve cycling connections to the Brooklyn Bridge. The Department of Transportation redesigned the Manhattan side of the bridge’s bike lane to reduce conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians ahead of the summer, when tourism is booming due to the World Cup games held in New Jersey.
Transportation department spokesperson Vin Barone said cycling over the Brooklyn Bridge has nearly tripled since the city added a protected bike lane on the crossing’s roadway in 2021, putting an end to an era when bikes and tourists had to share space on its promenade.
“When we added dedicated bike lanes to the Brooklyn Bridge, we saw a massive increase in bike ridership without any dips in cycling volumes on nearby East River bridges. That’s because when you build safe cycling infrastructure, more New Yorkers feel comfortable getting on a bike,” Barone wrote in a statement.
“This project would bring significant safety upgrades for the growing number of New Yorkers riding over the bridge, better connecting them through Downtown Brooklyn, and builds on the recent bike and pedestrian upgrade we just completed on the bridge’s Manhattan side.”
