The original plans for 44th Drive included a painted median instead of bike lanes. Image: NYC DOT

When DOT presented plans for traffic calming along Long Island City’s 44th Drive in March, the department chose to put the four lane street on a road diet, using some of the reallocated space for a painted median. That still left enough space in the extra-wide parking lanes for a bike lane, however, a fact which Queens Community Board 2 pointed out at the time.

DOT appears to have taken the community board’s argument to heart and revised the plan to include space for cyclists, according to reports in the Queens Gazette and the Long Island City/Astoria Journal. Painted bike lanes would run in both directions, according to the articles. The revised plan won overwhelming support from CB2, with only four board members voting against it.

The community board also discussed how to ensure that the truck traffic running down 44th would be able to make deliveries, given that double parking would now block an entire direction of traffic. DOT Queens Commissioner Maura McCarthy and CB 2 Chairman Joseph Conley recommended that businesses request that parking spaces be replaced with loading zones if necessary, according to the Gazette.

We have requests in with DOT about why the bike lanes were added to the plan and what the precise street layout will be in the final design.

Separately, the Journal article quotes a ringing endorsement of bike lanes from Council Member Julissa Ferreras, who represents Corona. “People are getting hurt in my district, both pedestrians and cyclists,” said Ferreras. “We need to find a solution that works, and if bike lanes are the answer then that is a plan we need to get behind.”

Ferreras’s district was singled out as a particularly strong candidate for more cycling infrastructure in the recent Hunter College report on increasing the equity of the bike network.

Update: CB 2 transportation committee member Evan O’Neil writes in with the inside perspective on the addition of the bike lane:

In response to my request for a bike lane on 44th Dr. Commissioner McCarthy confirmed with Joe Conley that we did indeed want one. He said yes, she said great, happy to do it. Then she came back to the full board a week later to present the updated plan including the bike lane and the board voted yes.

DOT plans to create four parking lanes along 48th Avenue in a novel design presented last night. Image: NYCDOT.

DOT presented plans for two Long Island City street redesigns to Queens Community Board 2′s transportation committee last night. One, a standard road diet, would calm traffic on 44th Drive by replacing one moving lane in each direction with a painted median and left turn bays [PDF]. The other, a novel design for a single block of 48th Avenue, manages to make four of six lanes into on-street parking [PDF].

The traffic calming plan for 44th Drive is part of DOT’s commitment, laid out in last year’s pedestrian safety action plan, to install safety improvements along 60 miles of the city’s most dangerous corridors. This short stretch of 44th, from Vernon Boulevard to Thomson Avenue, is in the 92nd percentile for pedestrian crashes according to DOT and intersects with multiple subway stations.

“Right now, 44th Drive the volume is so much lower than what it could handle which is why there’s so much speeding and scary driving,” explained transportation committee member Emilia Crotty.

Under DOT’s proposal, 44th would have one parking lane and one travel lane in each direction, with a painted median and left turn bays in the middle. Currently, 44th has two travel lanes and one parking lane in each direction.

DOT compares its design for 44th to a similar redesign of Brooklyn’s Gerritsen Avenue. There, they say, all crashes causing injury decreased by 46 percent and crashes involving pedestrian decreased by 57 percent after the redesign.

The transportation committee raised the question of whether bike lanes should have been included in the road diet, according to Crotty. Talking with DOT, they reached the conclusion that one wasn’t necessary. “The wide parking lane is going to serve just like Bedford Avenue, where they took out the bike lane but it’s really still a bike lane,” she explained.

Another debate ensued over whether two moving lanes were necessary to accommodate the large amounts of double-parking in front of the Citigroup building. Many board members argued that such an accommodation was necessary, said Crotty, but ultimately the committee decided to stick with the DOT plan and push for more enforcement of double-parking.

On 48th Avenue, the goal appears to be adding more parking. Currently, the block of 48th between Vernon Boulevard and 5th Street has two moving lanes and one parking lane in each direction, with a painted median in between. The redesign would take away one moving lane in each direction and replace it with a second parking lane adjacent to the median. A similar design, though with a concrete median and bike lanes, can be found on this stretch of Carlton Avenue.

This would create 40 new parking spaces, a popular move in the neighborhood. “It’s a real concern for many residents in that neighborhood, both that residents need longer-term parking and that businesses need metered parking for more turnover,” said Crotty.

Interestingly, the parking adjacent to the curb would be metered in the new set-up while the mid-street parking lanes would not be. According to Crotty, DOT’s current plan is to make the median parking lanes truly long-term parking, with neither meters nor alternate side regulations. The committee worried that would cause people, including many from outside the neighborhood, to simply store their cars there forever without some reason to move them, so will join DOT in asking the Sanitation Department to implement alternate side parking along that lane.

That section of 48th Avenue is marked as a planned route on the city’s bike map, a point which was raised in the committee meeting. “It didn’t sound like something DOT was going to make arrangements for,” said Crotty.

The redesign could have a traffic calming effect, as it does narrow the space for moving traffic. DOT also plans to paint new or expanded pedestrian refuges on either end of the block and improve the crosswalks in both redesigns. Crotty said that the community board will ask the Parks Department to make those painted refuges into planted Greenstreets in the future.

The generally supportive committee did not formally vote on the two projects, said Crotty, but rather asked questions of DOT and tried to figure out the next steps for the streets.

Hunter's Point South will have good bike infrastructure, as shown here. But will it be transit-accessible or swamped by parking? Image: NYC Mayor's Office via Flickr.

This morning, the Bloomberg Administration announced the developer for the first phase of Hunter’s Point South, a Long Island City project the city is billing as the largest middle-class housing project since Co-Op City and Starrett City went up in the 1970s. A team led by the Related Companies will be developing the first 900 units at what will eventually be a 5,000-unit complex along the East River.

Whether Hunter’s Point South turns out to be the most recent in a line of auto-oriented projects along New York City’s deindustrialized waterfront, or a project in line with the city’s sustainability goals, will depend on whether developers choose to build all the parking they are entitled to, whether the MTA extends bus service into the complex, and whether the city’s attempts to foster ferry transit across the East River are successful.

The nearest subway station to Hunter’s Point South is the Vernon-Jackson Ave stop on the 7. The northeastern corner of the site is only two blocks away from the station. Those are long blocks, however, making the walk about three-tenths of a mile. That’s not right on top of the subway, but it is walkable. The far end of the 30 acre site, however, will be 0.6 or 0.7 miles from the subway, more than the half-mile rule of thumb for transit-oriented development.

Over the course of the project, the city has been in talks with the MTA to extend bus service, most likely the Q103, into Hunter’s Point South. There is no concrete promise to provide transit to the heart of the project, however, nor have funds to pay for more buses been publicly identified.

But the city’s new subsidized ferry service will stop at the site. Midtown will be only one stop and $3 away, though downtown will be a longer and more expensive ride. If ferry service is popular, many Hunter’s Point residents could use it to get to work. However, since the ferries will cost more than transit, leave only every 20 minutes during rush hour, and shut down after 8 p.m., it remains to be seen how popular they will be. The costly ferry program could even be canceled before Hunter’s Point South is completed.

Hunter’s Point South is planned to include laudable bike and pedestrian infrastructure. The city’s RFP calls for a two-way bike lane protected by a landscaped median to run the length of both 2nd Street and Center Boulevard, the two main north-south corridors through the project. In addition, bike lanes are planned for a pair of cross streets. The RFP also calls for bulb-outs at Borden Avenue and 2nd street to ease crossings.

As with so much of the recent waterfront development in New York City, large amounts of parking could push Hunter’s Point South residents to drive. According to the RFP, the project has no parking minimums, but developers are allowed to build a space for up to 40 percent of the residential units. The project’s environmental impact statement puts that number at 2,660 parking spaces — and therefore 2,660 more cars — if built to the maximum.

The Queens Plaza North bike lane will run in a center median. Image: NYCEDC

Protected bike paths are coming to Queens Plaza as part of a major redesign of the area by the city's Economic Development Corporation. Construction work to transform the dangerous, overwide streets and surface parking at "the gateway to Queens" has been underway for about a year. In a project update presented to the board of the Long Island City BID last month, EDC detailed the substantial bike and pedestrian improvements that are in the works [PDF].

Currently, Queens Plaza is a snarl of traffic around three surface parking lots, hardly a fitting entrance to Queens. EDC plans to turn the plaza into a one acre park while putting in place a major street redesign. Construction started last summer and will be finished in 2012, thanks partly to a boost from federal stimulus dollars.

When the project is complete, cyclists will be able to travel safely between Vernon Boulevard and Northern Boulevard, at the foot of the Queensboro Bridge. Between Northern Boulevard and 23rd Street, said EDC VP Tracy Sayegh, cyclists will be able to ride along a ten-foot, two-way fully separated bike lane running in a landscaped median along Queens Plaza North. A pedestrian path will run adjacent to the bike lane.

Between 23rd Street and 21st Street, said Sayegh, less space is available, so the plan calls for a shared bike-ped path. That multipurpose path will then be extended to Vernon Boulevard in the second phase of construction, following the route of an existing, but inadequate, path. EDC worked closely with DOT to plan the street redesign, and the lane is designed to connect with the rest of the Queens bike network.

The redesign features ample pedestrian safety improvements, too, said Sayegh. Signal retiming will give people more time to cross the street while new medians will serve as pedestrian refuges on both Queens Plaza North and Queens Plaza South. Currently, she said, most pedestrians cross those streets using a subway station overpass rather than brave the at-grade crossing.

It's encouraging that this project removes three parking lots and doesn't replace the parking elsewhere. In a neighborhood with so much attractive transit, said Sayegh, the city should be supporting non-automotive modes of travel. If the market demands parking, she said, the market will build garages, as it does across the river in Midtown. That statement seems to be a major departure from the standard EDC position on parking, which includes vigorous public sector activism to ensure that parking is provided beyond what the market demands.

Clarence Eckerson sends these shots of DOT street safety improvements taken on a recent ride near the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. Above is the newly traffic-calmed intersection of Joralemon and Hicks -- part of the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project -- which now sports two sidewalk extensions. (According to the Post, a third corner was slated for a curb extension, but DOT changed plans after residents said they were worried about how fire trucks would negotiate the turn.) Says Clarence: "I am sure the speed reductions will be dramatic, the equivalent of a chicane."

Heading towards Queens, the city's stock of bi-directional, protected bike paths is on the rise. Williamsburg Street West now connects Kent Avenue to Flushing Avenue, allowing cyclists to ride contraflow to Kent safely and legally. This is also a segment along the future Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway.

More pics after the jump.

On Kent Avenue, cyclists entering the bike path from South 4th Street now have a high-visibility entry point, which should help remind drivers not to park here and block the way.

A new planted median calms traffic on Jackson Avenue in Long Island City. At some intersections these long median strips are equipped with pedestrian refuges, Clarence informs us, concluding his tour of stuff that, apparently, has some unnamed council members calling for the DOT commissioner's head.

It'd be nice to see this Euro design elsewhere -- though I wonder if it might be slippery when wet.

New lane markings split up an already-tiny space for pedestrians and cyclists on the Pulaski Bridge. Photo: New York Shitty

There's been some discussion recently on the issue of cyclists and pedestrians unhappily sharing the Brooklyn Bridge's crowded promenade. Similar ped-bike conflict is heating up on the Pulaski Bridge, linking Long Island City and Greenpoint.

The Pulaski's eight-foot wide greenway is about half the width of the Brooklyn Bridge promenade and accommodates cyclists and pedestrians traveling in both directions. With bike commuter rates soaring in North Brooklyn, the pedestrian vs. cyclist shouting has begun. Local Brooklyn bloggers Restless and New York Shitty both recently published posts on the issue.

As on the Brooklyn Bridge, DOT recently striped in some new markings but that doesn't really seem to be solving the fundamental problem: Plenty of space dedicated to cars and trucks while the cleanest, most efficient and environmentally-friendly modes of transportation -- biking and walking -- are largely squeezed into the margins.

Pulaski Bridge motorists, meanwhile, seem to be oblivious to the whole thing, content to speed along their free-flowing, six-lane right-of-way. 

Top to bottom: Deirdre Feerick, James Van Bramer, Brent O'Leary.

Gioia, after some wobbling, voted yes on congestion pricing last year. For good reason. Like District 33 in Brooklyn, the 26th is a doormat for traffic crossing the East River. All those car commuters enticed by the free pass are a curse for bus riders heading to the transit hub at Queens Plaza or crossing the Queensboro Bridge itself, which handles more bus routes than any other East River bridge. Combined with crammed subways and a boom in car-oriented development along the western Queens waterfront, the picture isn't pretty for transit.  

"The 7 train seems to be at capacity while large residential buildings are sprouting throughout Hunter's Point," said Emilia Crotty, a Woodside resident. "We want to encourage these new residents to use mass transit, of course, but there's very little room for them. Simultaneously, these buildings are being built with ample parking facilities for their new occupants. Our buses are not a viable alternative to the 7 when they sit in backed-up Queensboro Bridge traffic nearly all day long." 

Biking over the bridge instead? As in the neighboring 25th District, both Queens Boulevard and Northern Boulevard cut through here, traffic sewers that discourage cycling and strangle street life near and far. Local community boards have reacted to recent bike safety enhancements, like the buffered lane on Vernon Boulevard, with hostility.

Putting a stop to the free ride over the Queensboro is pretty much the sine qua non for fixing this district's traffic troubles and requires some degree of courage, so the answers to the road pricing question on the TA candidate survey are especially instructive. Candidate Deirdre Feerick, a lawyer who works for the City Council, ruled out bridge tolls and dodged the topic of congestion pricing. Feerick has the backing of Queens Democratic boss Joseph Crowley and former council member Walter McCaffrey of "Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free" fame.

James Van Bramer, a former reporter who now works for the Queens Public Library, acknowledged the effectiveness of congestion pricing but hedged by calling for "careful planning and mitigation" as a pre-condition, citing the belief that commuters from points east might drive to the district, park, then hop on a train or bus to complete their trips. Van Bramer has been endorsed by the New York League of Conservation Voters and has secured the Working Families Party ballot line in November.

The other candidate on the Democratic primary ballot next Tuesday, business lawyer Brent O'Leary, eschewed going on the record about congestion pricing, voicing support for a higher gas tax or VMT fees instead.

With two potential BRT routes identified by DOT running through the 26th, the question of how to prioritize surface transit is a big one here. While all three candidates said they support BRT, only Van Bramer mentioned the idea of giving buses exclusive space. "Creating bus lanes or giving buses the right of way makes a lot of sense," he observed in his survey response, though again he hedged, saying he'd like to see "a study of the impact it would have on traffic conditions."

Two other candidates, David Rosasco and Kwame Smalls, were kicked off the ballot after Feerick challenged the signatures on their petitions. Of the two, Rosasco is mounting a full-fledged write-in campaign. He didn't fill out a candidate survey, but a source who lives in the district tells us that the self-described conservative Democrat is an earnest worker who has admirably refrained from pandering to the anti-bike crowd during his campaign.

For more transportation stances from Feerick, Van Bramer, and O'Leary -- including one call for bike-only streets and one incorrect citation of the New York City speed limit -- check their responses at the TA candidate survey.

Photo: Daily News

The Daily News reports that on Saturday, a Range Rover driven by Martin Ocasio struck and killed cyclist Pablo Pasaras in Long Island City. Ocasio, who had nine prior arrests, was fleeing police after he was seen buying drugs. As cops in an unmarked car chased him on 21st Street, Ocasio was reportedly driving on the wrong side of the road. When he tried to get back in the right lane Ocasio hit a parked car and Pasaras, who was pronounced dead at Elmhurst Hospital Center.

Pasaras, 27, was on a food delivery run to a housing police precinct. He had three kids.

A witness said the police cruiser did not have its lights or sirens on. In April, several witnesses reported that police driving without lights and sirens were chasing the mini-van driver who hit and killed pedestrian Violetta Kryzak on Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn. The commanding officer of the precinct denies that a chase occurred.

In June, nine people, including five pedestrians, were injured when officers responding to a call in a marked NYPD squad car collided with another car and careened onto an East Village sidewalk. Witnesses said the cruiser's lights and sirens were off, though NYPD claims otherwise.

Last month, a pedestrian and motorcyclist were struck by a man fleeing the NYPD in Washington Heights following an armed mugging. Police opened fire after the car hit a line of parked vehicles on 188th Street, shooting the driver dead.

"I see no purpose to this [zoning] text change," said Community Board 1 chairperson Vinicio Donato. Board 1 voted down the zoning amendment, 25 to 8 (one abstention). The bicycle parking proposal is being voted on citywide by all community boards. After the boards' vote, DCP will hold a public hearing in January and the City Council has the final vote.

There you have it. Even after hearing a City Planning presentation explaining how better bike parking options would reduce congestion, improve air quality, and boost public health, Donato -- who has chaired CB1 since 1975 -- claims not to see the point of providing secure places for people to put their bikes. His stance may carry no binding authority, but Donato's board is assumed to speak for the community at large.

Note that CB1's zoning and variance committee did approve the bike parking measure. The whole situation is reminiscent of the Vernon Boulevard bike lane discussion last summer. Back then, CB1 refused to put the measure to a vote in a general meeting, opting instead to send a letter of opposition to DOT and local electeds.

We've seen determined activism from the Inwood and Washington Heights Livable Streets Group gradually pay dividends in northern Manhattan's CB12. Transportation Alternatives' Queens Committee has been just as active in western Queens. Will persistent local support for livable streets start to sway CB1?

From Transportation Alternatives' Queens Committee Chair Mike Heffron:

At the Queens Community Board 2 general meeting on Thursday, May 1, with no vote by board members, Chair Joe Conley delayed the board's input on the Department of Transportation's planned pedestrian and cyclist improvements to Vernon Boulevard, an important link in the proposed Queens East River Greenway. DOT can move forward with the Greenway plan with or without CB 2's approval.

The DOT plan [PDF] calls for removal of the majority of parking along the East River side of Vernon from 45th Ave to its termination at Main St. In place of parking the DOT plans to put down a painted bike lane in both directions, with painted buffers between the lanes and auto traffic. Also proposed are additional traffic calming improvements along Vernon and a pedestrian relief Green Street to be installed at Queensbridge Park. Two weeks prior the proposal was unveiled to CB 2's Land Use Committee, which voted unanimously in favor.

Community board members had a lot of questions, and there was a lot of confusion about where parking would be removed. There also seemed to be confusion about the actual widths of streets, as well as thoughts that the bike lane be placed on 11th St., farther from the river. One member wondered if there was a need to provide anything for cyclists at all. There was also concern that the crossing along Jackson Ave. is "too dangerous" and that cyclists should instead be routed down to the river and back up Borden Ave. to access the Pulaski Bridge. Conley had issues with double parking in the Hunters Point commercial area -- an area where parking will not be removed and no bike lane is proposed. Because of the parking issue and "congestion" in the area Conley felt that it would be too dangerous to suggest cyclists ride with traffic there.

DOT's Ryan Russo pointed out that removing parking now, before zoning changes bring in new residential buildings, will encourage new residents to move to the area without their cars. He also noted that cyclists, like most commuters, will take the path that best serves them, that DOT can't dictate that riders take an out of the way route because it may or may not be safer, and that DOT can best serve everyone by improving safety on presently favored routes. He also repeated several times that parking will not be removed in the Hunters Point commercial district. But Russo had no one from the community to back him up, as the public input period was held at the beginning of the meeting, over an hour before his presentation.

With the hands of several community board members still in the air, Conley decided to table the proposal because "parking is an issue still in Hunters Point." And with no vote, he unilaterally ended discussion and requested that DOT come back with a revised plan. This despite the earlier unanimous vote by the Land Use Committee supporting the proposal and the fact that Community Boards only have "advisory" power over decisions such as these.

The first half of this project, which runs through CB 2's jurisdiction, was slated to begin in June. TA's Queens Committee will continue to fight to make sure it starts as close to June as possible. This is a speed bump, not a dead end, but it is another important lesson on the power community boards hold over livable streets initiatives.

2008 quickly bring good news for commuters in Downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City, Queens. Eric Chang of Transportation Alternatives' Queens Committee snapped these photos of the new covered bike shelter that was just installed at the Vernon Blvd /Jackson Avenue station on the 7 line in Long Island City.  The third photo is from Fort Greene where Gil Ronen (pictured) along with T.A. and Green Fort Greene & Clinton Hill were instrumental in bringing over 70 new CityRacks to the historic Brooklyn neighborhood.

Though reporters weren't invited, Streetsblog managed to get a stringer into this morning's On-and-Off-the-Record transportation policy talk with Congressman Anthony Weiner at Commerce Bank in Midtown.

During the hour-long Q&A hosted by Edward Isaac-Dovere of City Hall News, Weiner hit on familiar themes:

• Something needs to be done about traffic but the mayor's plan is too costly.
• Though low and middle income New Yorkers overwhelmingly travel into Manhattan via transit, Weiner pounded away at the idea that congestion pricing is unfair to the city's middle class and would hit city residents harder than suburban commuters.
• Rather than imposing a fee to drive into Manhattan's Central Business District, he would opt for improved transit and ferry service, higher truck tolls and better enforcement of blocking-the-box regulations.
• He says that he would pay for these improvements with a federal gas tax increase.
  

While Weiner believes, "The Mayor got the solution wrong," he praised Bloomberg for being "innovative" and appeared to back off a bit from total opposition to pricing.

"There is a version of congestion pricing that will work," Weiner said. "My plan has 'congestion pricing' by increasing tolls and increasing parking fees." Unfortunately, this is probably not a version of congestion pricing for which the federal government will grant $354.5 million in start-up funds.

About 75 people showed up to the breakfast event including Queens Civic Congress president Corey Bearak, Northern Manhattan Council member Robert Jackson, the Durst Organization's Jordan Barowitz and an assortment of advocacy people from Transportation Alternatives, Tri-State Transportation Campaign and the newly-formed SWIM Coalition.

The event started with "on-the-record" questions from Isaac-Dovere and "off-the-record" questions from audience members. Here, in reporter's notebook format, are a bunch of Weiner's responses to both sets of questions:

• When asked about his theory that the Bloomberg Administration has purposely ordered the NYPD not to enforce traffic regulations to aid the passage of its congestion pricing plan, he ducked the question.

• We need the Cross-Harbor Freight Tunnel.
• If we had as many cops enforcing the blocking-the-box rules as we did during the Koch years our congestion problems would be solved. Likewise, we need a mass education campaign to change people's behavior like the pooper scooper law.
  
• He said that he has offered the City $19 million in federal funds for ferries but the City has not taken it.
• Asked how he would fund his transit initiatives, Weiner proposed raising the national gas tax to fund transit.
• The asthma problem is not in Midtown. It is in East New York, Brownsville by the Belt Parkway. Why aren't we looking at reducing the traffic there with ferry transit?
• Asked about Long Island City turning into a parking lot because of congestion pricing, Weiner said that the City needs to provide ferry service. We need to provide parking in the boroughs, not in Manhattan. There should be park and rides close to highways. We need to reduce parking because it causes traffic.
• "Congestion pricing hits NYC residents harder that suburban ones." Weiner shared an anecdote in which a Connecticut congressman supports $8 charge because, he says, "My constituents would pay $80 to have the riff raff from your district off the streets." Is this $8 charge really going to deter behavior of the driving in with their SUVs, Weiner asks.
• "The Congestion Commission can't be a rubber stamp for the Mayor's proposal"
• He wants assurances that pricing revenue will benefit NYC. Joe Bruno will see that money and want some for Rensselaer county.
• New York City needs to push against Albany and the unelected authorities and agencies. "We should every day declare a declaration of independence from Albany."
• The SMART fund won't work. How will the Mayor know that the MTA will build what it promises to build?
• Congestion pricing will lead to the federal government to defund New York City because they'll see that we're getting the money from another source.
• He incorrectly stated that "Ninety percent of carbon emissions in NYC are from existing buildings." The real number is 79 percent according to the City's Long-Term Planning and Sustainability office.
• "Advocates for the Mayor's plan are buying into the Bush doctrine of governing: If you want something, then you should tax yourself to pay for it."
• Congestion pricing has divided the coalition around environmental activism. This plan pits people against each other, pits neighborhoods against each other.
• When asked about Spitzer's undocumented immigrant drivers license scheme, Weiner quickly said that he thinks we really need it but that it's politically unpopular. [Sounds like congestion pricing, no?]

Bike New York's Savvy Cyclist Class Would-be cyclists daunted by the challenges of riding in New York City can bolster their confidence and sharpen their skills in this FREE one-day class for adults courtesy of Bike New York. Ideal for beginning or re-beginning cyclists as well as riders accustomed to bike paths and back roads, this hands-on class teaches terminology, maintenance, repair, and how to ride in city traffic. Participants receive literature and accessories to ensure continued safe and enjoyable riding.

Free registration at www.bikenewyork.org or by contacting Bike New York's Bicycle Education Program Manager, Rich Conroy, at richc@bikenewyork.org or 212-932-2453 x 159.

Other times:
This one-day class will be offered three times in the coming months: August 12, September 9, or October 14 (all Saturdays) 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

# # #

Bike New York is a non-profit organization that promotes and encourages bicycling and bicycle safety education through education, public events, and collaboration with community and government organizations. Proceeds from Bike New York support the Five Boro Bike Tour, the Harlem Valley Rail Ride, the Twin Lights Ride, Bike New York's Bicycle Education Program, and other non-profit organizations such as Recycle-A-Bicycle and the New York City Department of Transportation's Traffic Safety Program. For more information on Bike New York's rides and programs, visit www.bikenewyork.org.