Bike Lane Supporters Rally As Forest Hills Extension Nears

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS -- Supporters of controversial new bike lanes coming to Queens Boulevard gathered over beers to talk strategy for rallying behind the project's next phase in Forest Hills.

The safer streets nonprofit Transportation Alternatives hosted the meeting at a Forest Hills pub on Wednesday to garner support for the fourth phase in the Department of Transportation's "Vision Zero" project. The group says the bike lane will make the roadway safer for cyclists, pedestrians and motorists, its Queens organizer Juan Restrepo told Patch.

The project's first three phases have brought changes like protected bike lanes, stop signs and other safety features to four miles along Queens Boulevard – from Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside to Yellowstone Boulevard in Forest Hills. The latest phase would expand that revamp to Union Turnpike, which the DOT hopes to do in 2018.

Transportation Alternatives reserved three tables at the Queens Bully in hopes of bringing together those who supported the bike lanes to brainstorm ways of reaching out to local businesses and others in the community, Restrepo said.

"We have a list of people who have signed petitions or have come to events in support of the bike lanes," he said. "This was just a way of unearthing those people who live in our data sources and giving them an opportunity to play in."

Restrepo said around 20 people showed up to the meeting, where Transportation Alternatives representatives talked about the nonprofit's history with the bike lanes and what's going on now. The group has advocated for eight years for the Queens Boulevard redesign, which the DOT has been working on for three years now, he said.

"We talked about the previous phases, who the important stakeholders are, how the bike lane is being received by the community and what the next steps are," Restrepo said.

They also talked about the numerous ways advocates could garner community-wide support for the bike lanes.

"You can write an op-ed, you can share the petition for the project on your social media, you can write a letter to your city council representative," Restrepo said. " There are so many different ways you can do something."

But not everyone is a fan of the planned bike lanes – or the ones already installed.

The NYPD's 111th precinct has been inundated with complaints about the bike lane added to Queens Boulevard during the plan's third phase in July. Opponents claim the lane is unsafe, takes up valuable neighborhood parking space and makes it difficult for businesses to receive deliveries, Precinct Community Council President Heidi Chain told Patch.

The bike lane installed in Phase 3 of the project replaced 198 parking spots along service road medians of the 1.3-mile stretch of Queens Boulevard – from Elliot Avenue in Rego Park to Yellowstone Boulevard in Forest Hills, Patch previously reported. Chain said complaints haven't stopped since the bike lane arrived.

"The more it's there, the more people have been complaining about it," Chain said. "At our September meeting, there was a tremendous number of people complaining."

Restrepo said no bike lane opponents showed up to Wednesday's meeting, despite Facebook posts and press adverts.

"That’s always the huge irony about these things," Restrepo said. "There’s always this source of online chatter thats so negative and so against everything, but they never show their faces to us. That’s the frustrating thing for me."

Restrepo said he understood residents' safety concerns for adding bike lanes along Queens Boulevard, but he felt it was a necessary change to force drivers to slow down along the roadway.