CB8 Votes to Keep Franklin Avenue Bike Corral

Community Board 8's transportation committee voted to keep the on-street bike racks recently installed on Franklin Avenue.

The proposal Tuesday night also includes requests that the DOT report back in late spring on how the corral is working out, look at adding more meter parking on Franklin Avenue and look into putting more sidewalk bike racks on the avenue. 

The vote came less than two months after the DOT installed the four racks in place of a parking spot in front of Little Zelda between Park and Sterling places.

Soon after the racks were installed, two area residents launched a petition to get rid of the racks, saying proponents of the corral didn’t reach out to enough of the residents on the block and that the bike parking could go on the sidewalk. Then a counter-petition was launched in support of the corral, with both groups collecting more than 300 signatures.

At the community board transportation committee meeting Tuesday night considering the request to remove the corral, both sides spoke their piece.

Opponents said every parking spot is needed, especially for those with disabilities. Bike racks can go on the sidewalk. But their biggest complaint was that proponents of the bike racks never reached out to the people living on the block or the church near the corral. 

"All I’m saying is we wish some kind of communication that had been extended to us," said Karen Granville, who started the petition with Constance Nugent-Miller."

Proponents of the corral argued that there isn’t enough space on the sidewalk for enough bike parking on the strip and that it’s well worth the loss of one car parking spot to get space for eight bike racks.

"If we are serious as a community about improving accessibility for disabled I’m all for it. Then why don’t we have one handicapped parking spot per block? But that’s not what this is about. This is about one parking spot for a car, versus eight parking spots for bikes," said Ben Kintisch, who often bikes to Crown Height's Franklin Avenue from his home in Bed-Stuy.

See our live blog of Tuesday night's Transportation Committee Meeting for more arguments from each side.

Following the vote,  Nugent-Miller called the decision divisive.  

"I think it's going to polarize our community even more," she said. "They felt they were not notified for a reason—because they don't count. And this solidified it."