The following is an article in today’s NY Post: The city’s decision to strip away 14 blocks of bike lanes in Brooklyn is turning into an international crisis.
When Mayor Bloomberg arrives at the climate-change meetings in Copenhagen Monday he’ll be confronted by a group of activists from the borough, demanding to know how an environmentalist can take an anti-cycling stance.
“How can he fly all the way there to talk about being a green mayor when at home he is yanking bike lanes off the streets?” said Baruch Herzfeld, an unofficial spokesman for the groups of riders who repainted sections of Bedford Avenue bike lanes in protest at the removal.
“Mayor Bloomberg is a hypocrite, and we will actively try to find and confront him in Copenhagen about this issue,” Herzfeld said.
The Brooklyn contingent was already in the Danish capital for the summit when the bike- lane brouhaha began.
The lanes were removed following outrage from Williamsburg’s Hasidic community, which complained the cyclists were endangering residents’ lives and souls.
The riders were not only reckless, but their various states of undress were an undue hardship on their faith, which dictates they not stare at members of the opposite gender, residents said.
After a group of cyclists repainted several sections of bike lanes early Monday morning, and posted their exploits on YouTube, police arrested two of the alleged perpetrators.
Quinn Hechtropf, 26, and Katherine Piccochi, 24, were issued desk appearance tickets on charges of criminal mischief, but it’s unclear how prosecutors will proceed with the case.
The pair will plead not guilty, lawyer Gideon Oliver said.
Cyclists say they have nothing against the Hasidic community, in fact, Hechtopf recently donated a tandem bicycle to a blind Hasidic man so he could exercise, Herzfeld said.
This Sunday, the bike group Time’s Up plans to stage a “funeral procession,” to perform the last rites for the lanes, which ran from Flushing Avenue and Division Street.
At 2 p.m., cyclists dressed as clowns will lead the “New Orleans-style procession” and will hold a “vigil with a mock ceremony to resurrect a section of the missing bike lane,” spokesman Benjamin Shepard said.
But just because the group is holding a funeral for the lanes does not mean they are resigned to life without them, Shepard said.
“We are still hopeful for a resurrection,” he said.
If that doesn’t work, Herzfeld says, some cyclists have begun “building stockpiles of white paint.”
As for the repainted bike lanes, Department of Transportation officials said crews will remove whatever yesterday’s rain did not.
(Source: NY Post)
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7 Responses
That Jewish anti-semite Baruch Herzfeld can hang himself with his missing undershirt.
How terrible it is that these Chasidim come into this neighborhood and cause the city to tear up the long-standing established bike lanes!
Oh, the bike lanes were added relatively recently, despite neighborhood objection? And the neighborhood patiently waited for this correction back to the way things were?
Funny that the article didn’t mention that.
Joseph- if Baruch Herzfeld is a Jewish anti-semite, wouldn’t you be one as well, hoping that he hang himself? Way to take the high road.
Moderators, why would you allow a comment calling someone a Jewish anti-semite and hoping that they hang themself?
With full respect for the values of this community, the cyclists have their rights and are allowed to ride their bicycles. Removing the lines does not stop cyclists; it only endangers their safety. It would be nice to arrange the secular world to help us as much as possible, but there are some battles we have to take on internally and not put others at risk.
Maybe the Williamsburgers who object should get along with, and move together with their Kriat Yoel cousins. That’s a much more isolated community. Ditto New Square.
While I totally hear where the community is coming from, and from my perspective it’s traffic that’s a much bigger issue, since Bedford is already quite miserable to traverse; the bottom line is that they can’t totally control the city. After all, what’s next, outlawing buses and subways because there are a lot of inappropriately dressed people traveling on them?
This country does not belong to any one group.It is a free country that allows Jews to practice their religion and the goyim to live the way they want. If you don’t like the cultural standards,then you have to move to a private little town. As long as you live in a public place,you have to tolerate other kinds of people,just as they tolerate us. You do not have to stare at anyone;dressed nicely or hardly dressed. They are not forcing you to look at them. They have the same right to use the street as we . The bike lanes,I agree,are a nuisance all over the city because they make the roadway narrower and tie up traffic and make parking and shopping with a car much harder.
All you babies just now came out crying. First of all environment doesn’t just mean phuysical. A true environmentalist realizes that the physical environment is only a medium to achieve a good spiritual environment. You babies sound like teenagers complaining that the music is not loud enough for their aesthetic appreciation when the adults in charge realized that it was making them deaf. You’ve got to see the bigger picture. In the early part of the twentieth century this free country did not allow people to dress this way in public. So what changed? What good was the beautiful physical environment in Sedom if the city was destroyed.