Autocratic? There were like TWO YEARS of community meetings and hearings about this bike lane. I personally flyered all over the Hasidic community about the meetings. They had every opportunity to speak their piece.

It is a shame that Vinny Abate, David Yassky, Diana Reyna, Evan Thies, Gerry Esposito and pretty much every other political person in the area immediately capitulated to the (small) minority viewpoint from the Hasidic activists and reversed themselves on this bike lane. They should be ashamed! And to then try to force out Teresa Toro - double shame!

There are several issues at play here.

1- The bike lane route was proposed by Brooklyn Greenway Initiative after extensive review at CB1, well-attended breakout community planning sessions and coordination with DOT, DCP, DPR and others, and taking into account best-practices for traffic planning. The unanimity of support for the route can be seen in the lopsided vites in favor from both the Transportation Committee and the board as a whole. DOT only designated and striped these lanes after literally years of local community review of the route and two overwhelming endorsements from the Community Board.

2- The Hasidic issue is on the south side, past the Navy Yard, up to Broadway or so.

The existing roadway up to Division is quite wide, so plenty of space for a bike lane, parking and a traffic lane. North of Division, the road is narrower, but much less residential (except for Schaeffer's Landing, which has a fair bit of onsite parking). In the stretch, the vast majority of on-street parking is neither residential nor commercial traffic, no loading/unloading of deliveries, but is long-term parking of empty tractor-trailers and school buses for the yeshivas in the area. Overnight and other extended (empty) parking of semis and buses does not need to be done in this area. It does not support the residential, industrial or commercial activities.

3- The IBZ between Calyer and North 9th is some distance away from the Hasidic neighborhood on the southside. I belive that DOT has already announced changes to the "No Standing" regulations to allow for deliveries. And employee parking can most likely occur on the side streets.

This is not only affecting the Jewish community this affects the community as a whole. I was born and raised in Greenpoint and have seen this community go through so many changes, some good and some bad. I am for Bike Lanes and a dear friend of mine was killed on Roebling Street about 9 years ago and I am adamant to the need of building a safer and greener community but the Bike Lane on Kent Avenue is hurting the businesses and residents. There are well over 30 businesses with over 400 employees along Kent Avenue strip alone. These businesses can no longer load and unload their goods and employees can not find parking. Within the Industrial Businesses Zone which runs from Calyer Street to North 9th there are close to 2,000 employees that have been adversely affected by the installation of the bike lane. A huge chunk of employees ride their bike to work but if it stays as is they may not have a job to bike to. Nobody wants the bike lanes to disappear; DOT just needs to come up with a better solution that will meet everyone’s needs (and do it quickly). We have lost so many jobs in our community due to the rezoning we can not afford to lose anymore. They need to design the bike lanes where they can have both parking on one side and bike lanes on the other. This should not be about residents and motorists against cyclists we should have sympathy for both sides and come up with solutions and not bash each other as if we are back in grade school! We need a plan that will work for all!

This is not only affecting the Jewish community this affects the community as a whole. I was born and raised in Greenpoint and have seen this community go through so many changes, some good and some bad. I am for Bike Lanes and a dear friend of mine was killed on Roebling Street about 9 years ago and I am adamant to the need of building a safer and greener community but the Bike Lane on Kent Avenue is hurting the businesses and residents. There are well over 30 businesses with over 400 employees along Kent Avenue strip alone. These businesses can no longer load and unload their goods and employees can not find parking. Within the Industrial Businesses Zone which runs from Calyer Street to North 9th there are close to 2,000 employees that have been adversely affected by the installation of the bike lane. A huge chunk of employees ride their bike to work but if it stays as is they may not have a job to bike to. Nobody wants the bike lanes to disappear; DOT just needs to come up with a better solution that will meet everyone’s needs (and do it quickly). We have lost so many jobs in our community due to the rezoning we can not afford to lose anymore. They need to design the bike lanes where they can have both parking on one side and bike lanes on the other. This should not be about residents and motorists against cyclists we should have sympathy for both sides and come up with solutions and not bash each other as if we are back in grade school! We need a plan that will work for all!

This is not only affecting the Jewish community this affects the community as a whole. I was born and raised in Greenpoint and have seen this community go through so many changes, some good and some bad. I am for Bike Lanes and a dear friend of mine was killed on Roebling Street about 9 years ago and I am adamant to the need of building a safer and greener community but the Bike Lane on Kent Avenue is hurting the businesses and residents. There are well over 30 businesses with over 400 employees along Kent Avenue strip alone. These businesses can no longer load and unload their goods and employees can not find parking. Within the Industrial Businesses Zone which runs from Calyer Street to North 9th there are close to 2,000 employees that have been adversely affected by the installation of the bike lane. A huge chunk of employees ride their bike to work but if it stays as is they may not have a job to bike to. Nobody wants the bike lanes to disappear; DOT just needs to come up with a better solution that will meet everyone’s needs (and do it quickly). We have lost so many jobs in our community due to the rezoning we can not afford to lose anymore. They need to design the bike lanes where they can have both parking on one side and bike lanes on the other. This should not be about residents and motorists against cyclists we should have sympathy for both sides and come up with solutions and not bash each other as if we are back in grade school! We need a plan that will work for all!

The Hasids indeed do have a right to freedom of religion, in that Congress shall abridge no law restricting its practice. However, that viewpoint has been colored by over 200+ years of American jurisprudence, so it's a little more complicated than that. They absolutely do NOT have the right to impose religious cultural and social mores upon people living in the SHARED space in which they live.

'To enter their neighborhoods and flagrently violate their sense of propriety is a fundamental breech of "do unto others'

Luckily, 'do unto others' has absolutely nothing to do with American jurisprudence.

Keep in mind that gay couples or other such 'sinners' entering their neighborhoods are violating their sense of propriety, as well as women who are dressed for physical activity, as well as another million permutations of 'offensive people'. Merely because a large percentage of religious people inhabit a place does not mean they get to determine the character or dress of people entering that community.

The fact of the matter is this: were these people attempting to parade around naked in their synagogue that would obviously be disruptive and unfair to their practice of religion. The Constitution protects that extent of exercise.

However, neighborhoods are places of PUBLIC accommodation and residence and the Hadsids' ability to sanction/encourage morality in any substantive way ends at that synagogue's threshold. For instance, the state cannot compel that Hasids admit women rabbis, or marry gays, or anything like that; the state has to avoid being entangled in the affairs of religion to that extent.

However, Hasids can no more forbid that 'scantily' dressed women can enter 'their' neighborhoods than Italian Catholics in Bensonhurst forbidding women dressed in hijab from entering theirs. (This is just an example, I'm not trying to suggest Italian Catholics in Bensonhurst are biased one way or the other.)

Painting all people critical of religious fundamentalists demanding that people adhere to their standards as Nazis is pretty insane and reductive. If Hasids AREN'T religious fundamentalists I'd like to see the groups that are more religiously fervent than they.

We do not want to see the schickster's and fellows

in those tite pantz in" our Brooklyn"...Oy!

Has anyone ever gotten a ticket for blocking the bike lane?

new yorkers just don't like bikes. its big cars and farm trucks, grease is the word!

The fundamental principals of the United States is the right of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Hassidim are by and large native born American citizens who are intitled to this right just as much as yourselves, and they elect to do so (in accordance with their first amendment right of freedom of religion) by living at arms length from the rest of society, generally in neighborhoods were they represent the majority. To enter their neighborhoods and flagrently violate their sense of propriety is a fundamental breech of "do unto others" and evidence than many Americans given the choice between consideration of others and excercizing thier "rights" will choose the latter.

After indications/claims that the Hasidim will use what effectively amounts to civil disobedience to protest an unwelcome addition to their neighborhood we have a report that such behaviour included actions which could be dangerous.

As a result we see that posters have little hesitation in painting the Hassidim with a broad brush, and not only the Hassidim but all "fundamentalists" (nevermind that most Hassidim don't give a rip about what non-Jews do when it doesn't impact them). On the one hand they are all border-line violent extremists who wish to impose their will on others and on the otherhand their all just a bunch of pervs who hang out in stripclubs and bars.

Regardless of how distasteful you may find their beliefs, nor how improper the acts are, the ability of so many commenters to use them, in addition to derogetory references to their physical appearence, to disparage the entire community is an alarming reminder the depths to which an average person can sink when everyone else is going along with such hatred. If you wonder how the Holocaust came out of a democratic Germany, here you go.

I just try to encourage myself that at least a number of commenters were able to draw distinction between individual acts and the community of those individuals.

=v= After looking over the various entries on this issue, I want to be clear on something. It does appear that the community has a legitimate gripe with the DOT for implementing parking restrictions on the Sabbath. Overall I think the innovations since Sadik-Kahn took over the DOT are fantastic.

The things posted about the DOT by the entity calling him/her/itself "thefacts" are getting increasingly unhinged.

They should just put a protected lane on Kent Ave. No provocative bikini protests, no violent cultural clashes, nothing.

People then could foam at the mouth all they like about bicycle lanes, but they wouldn't get to endanger other people's lives.

By the way, why do the bike lanes matter in this case? Riding in revealing Spandex (or hot pants or naked or whatever) down Kent Ave. would be just as unsettling for them if the bike lane didn't exist, wouldn't it?

Watch for caltrops.

One person is not all people. One biker does not represent all bikers. One Chasid does not represent all Chasids or all Jews.

They're not really fundamentalists. There's nothing about Spandex in the Torah. They're just a nutty sect that has decided to spend eternity in their idea of the moment history should have stopped, like the Amish. Polygamy aside, the Torah isn't nearly as anti-feminist as they are. (And let it be said that I am Jewish but now very very very very Reform.) When Cults want to have wacky rules they should buy property in places like Waco and move there.

Whose streets? EVERYONE's streets.

things change. Cyclists are, at the moment, getting a chance with the DOT that they haven't had for some time. In a huge,chaotic city like this a few ground rules add some clarity.

Bike lanes work in Amsterdam because the dutch decided it was a good idea to try them. The size of the city has nothing to do with the program's success. A dutch car hurts just as bad when it hits you as an american one does.

^ South America? Ha! You want NYC to emulate narcostates like Colombia as Sadik-Khan has attempted.

^Europe?

In Paris, bikes ride in the bus lanes on wide boulevanrds, not in separate lanes on narrow streets!

Copenhagen and Amsterdam?

You dare compare the Greatest City in the World to these two villages?

^Another suburban troll from streetsblog.

Sadik-Khan is ahead of the times (or about five years behind if you compare her approaches to Europe and South America).

You peasants will catch up soon enough.

=v= If the community (or just a vocal piece of it) has issues with the DOT, that's one thing. To vent frustrations with the DOT by endangering vulnerable bicyclists is quite another. That's totally unacceptable.

It's hard not to generalize groups of people. I've met a few very nice, pleasant, and genuinely good natured hasidic jews. But, just like any large group of religious people, they are quite the exception.

There was a group of hasids that would come into Duffs bar occasionally. They would buy one heineken, not drink it, and ask the bartender for sexual favors. It was like they were from another planet.