The Brooklyn Greenway Initiative is in the running for a grant from Green Mountain Coffee and needs your online support. To help out, click over to JustMeans to cast your vote and leave a comment in favor of the project. Says the Greenway team:

The funds will help sustain our work over the next five years when the design of the greenway will be completed and the first segments will go into construction. In the current financial environment coming up with the required match for our funding from the NYS Environmental Protection Fund is proving challenging. You can help by voting for the greenway as an innovative climate change solution.

Free registration with JustMeans is required. Watch the video above for a BGI primer.

As committee chair, Teresa was instrumental in winning New York City's first on-street bike parking, last summer's Williamsburg Walks event on Bedford Avenue and -- don't forget this -- a 39-2 Community Board vote in favor of the suddenly controversial Kent Ave. greenway plan.

It's also worth noting that the Kent Avenue bike lanes were the by-product of a decade of community-driven planning as part of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative. Williamsburg's politically-powerful Hasidic community, offended by the loss of parking space and the potential increase in short-sleeved, female goyim rolling through the neighborhood, has vowed to make life miserable for cyclists.

We'll try to get some more details in the new year. In the meantime, get some rest over the holidays, folks. The backlash is for real and it's gonna be a fight in 2009. You can fax a letter to Mayor Bloomberg to express your support for the Kent Avenue bike lane.

On Tuesday night, Community Board 1 in north Brooklyn voted 39-2 to support adding a separated bike path to Kent Avenue, a truck route through Williamsburg and Greenpoint. The path will be part of the Brooklyn Greenway, which is slated to follow the waterfront from Greenpoint to Red Hook when complete.

What makes the overwhelming "Yes" vote especially noteworthy is that the greenway section on Kent Avenue will displace hundreds of on-street parking spaces. "That was one of the biggest hurdles, getting a community to accept a loss of parking," says Milton Puryear, director of planning for the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative. "For people who have cars that’s a lightning rod issue."

...and how it would be allocated under the proposal approved by CB1 on Tuesday. (Rendering by the Regional Plan Association.)

Two other community boards had to vote on the greenway, but parking was only affected in the CB1 district. To defuse the expected opposition, the Greenway Initiative identified side streets -- usually former industrial blocks converted to residential use -- with areas where on-street parking could be "reclaimed," such as defunct loading zones. Offsetting the loss of 500 parking spots on Kent Avenue was seen as necessary to gain community approval.

"When it first started off a lot of people didn’t think it was doable from a political point of view," says Puryear, noting that it was already an unconventional idea to add a bike path and green space to a designated truck route. "But after years of engagement, it began to evolve as something that people really wanted."

A number of factors fueled that desire. For one, the 2005 rezoning of 175 blocks in north Brooklyn left many in the community feeling like they had been denied adequate green space. "We received no open space in return for density," says Teresa Toro, transportation chair of CB1.

When the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative and the Regional Plan Association organized a public workshop about the greenway last May, residents saw a way to make up for what they had lost before. "[The participants'] responses were, 'If we have to find some parking spaces elsewhere, we should do that,'" says Toro.

Improved waterfront access was another big draw. "Kent Avenue, since it was repaved, has become something of a speedway," says Toro. By narrowing the crossing distance on Kent, the path will make the street -- and the truck route -- less of a barrier to the water.

At the meeting on Tuesday, a broad coalition of bike advocates and open space advocates supported the plan. Only one person voiced displeasure at the loss of parking.

About $9 million has been secured for the Brooklyn Greenway so far, mostly from federal grants. With the final community board vote settled, the project is now in the hands of DOT. Before construction begins on the Kent Avenue section, Toro says, DOT has indicated they will "move" some of the on-street parking and stripe down the greenway footprint.

Coming so soon after the demise of congestion pricing, the community board vote was "a shot in the arm," says Toro. "It shows that communities here in the city can still do a lot to create livable streets."

Images courtesy of Milton Puryear / Brooklyn Greenway Initiative / Regional Plan Association

Congestion pricing may be dead for the moment, but livable streets advocates can't afford to let that sap our strength or motivation. There are plenty of changes to be made that need grassroots support -- and not one iota of approval from Albany -- to reach fruition. One of those measures will face a crucial test later today.

Brooklyn Community Board 1 is slated to vote tonight on plans for a separated bike path on Kent Avenue and West Street. To add the bike path, parking spaces will be shifted away from the street, and you can bet that even this modest proposal will gin up some opposition. The public is invited to speak (see details below), and the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative is urging bike path supporters to come out and show support:

The plan involves the transfer of parking from Kent Ave and West St to new spots we have found in areas that are changing from industrial to residential use. Despite the fact that we have identified enough spaces within two blocks of the route to avoid inconveniencing people who may park there, there is often strong resistance to what may be spun as a "loss of parking". So we really need a strong showing of support to make the board know the overwhelming desire for these improvements for Kent and West that will make them more inviting for both pedestrians and cyclists. The project will also add over 250 new street trees and other greening of the streetscape.

To speak, you must sign up by 6:15pm. The meeting is at the Swinging 60's Senior Citizens Center, 211 Ainslie Street (corner of Manhattan Avenue).

Image courtesy of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative

When I first met Brian McCormick, Milton Puryear and Meg Fellerath in the spring of 2002, they were picking up trash and planting tulips alongside a Brooklyn-Queens Expressway off-ramp in Cobble Hill. I asked them what they were up to and they told me they were working to create a waterfront greenway for Brooklyn -- a linear park running from Greenpoint to Red Hook. I didn't have the heart to tell them they looked like a gang of juvenile delinquents paying off 40 hours of community service for shop-lifting. Clearly, these people were either insane or visionary.

At the time, Brian, Milton and Meg had no serious funding, no office and no particularly powerful allies or sponsors. They just had a great idea and a ton of persistence. They kept picking up trash, planting flowers, organizing the community and pushing their idea. Today the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative is a professional non-profit organization with capital funding from the federal government, an office on Columbia Street and all kinds of high-powered allies and sponsors. They may or may not be insane, but they are definitely visionary.

Personally, I find the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative to be one of the most inspired and exciting community-driven development projects in all of New York City (take that, High Line). This Thursday evening, BGI is hosting a benefit event on the beach at East River State Park. There will be cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and music. If you are not already involved in the Greenway, this is a great chance to get in on the ground floor of shaping the future of Brooklyn’s waterfront and, in the process, creating a more livable city.

Thursday, June 28th, at 6:30 pm
East River State Park, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
RVSP: Buy tickets online
View the invitation (pdf)

Some excellent news just came across the transom in a press release from the Downtown Brooklyn Waterfront Local Development Corporation. The are announcing "the launch of a transportation study that will examine potential future means of providing access to Brooklyn Bridge Park, with an aim to reduce reliance on personal vehicles."

The study is being made possible through a $1 million grant from the US Department of Transportation secured by Congresswoman Nydia M. Velazquez. (Velazquez is becoming a real hero for Downtown Brooklyn. She also recently secured funding for the development of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway Initiative). The press release goes on to say:

The study will kick off with an open public meeting to be held at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 4 at the auditorium at St. Francis College. The meeting will be the first in a series of open public meetings to discuss access issues concerning the new park.

Sam Schwartz PLLC will be leading a multi-disciplinary team of traffic engineers, transportation planners and architects studying various transportation and access alternatives. The study will focus solely on an examination of how to improve transportation and access to-and-from the park. The study will explore a variety of topics including potential vertical connections from Brooklyn Heights, subway access, bike lanes, greenway connections, jitney buses, waterborne transportation and improved pedestrian accommodations on Old Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue.