To the editor,
I’m not sure why some residents of Williamsburg think their neighborhood should be the only one in the city exempted from the creation of bike lanes (“Jews to city: Remove the bike lane,” Nov. 29).
I’m sure I’d like my extra neighborhood parking places back, but bike lanes are in general a good thing — and they are not going away.
The Williamsburg residents’ plan to block traffic is not going to make the lane go away; it will only inconvenience all their neighbors and be a petty nuisance.
If the people of Williamsburg want something worthwhile to protest — something that will improve public safety for everyone who shares the road — they should raise their voices against the users of the bike lanes rather than the lanes’ existence.
No one ever seems to enforce the fact that bikers are supposed to go the same direction as the vehicular traffic and obey traffic signals. When bikers go the wrong way in the lanes or go through red lights, they create confusion and increase the risk of an accident.
As a pedestrian I’ve almost been hit several times by bikers going the wrong way in a bike lane. And as a driver, I almost hit a biker who had no reflectors, no lights, and was where he shouldn’t be on a dark rainy night.
Meryl Groudan, Brooklyn Heights
• • •
To the editor,
I ride a bike everyday and appreciate the lanes and want more of them. I also like community organizing and direct action, so it is always encouraging when people get together to address their grievances.
But here is an idea for the all the people in Williamsburg involved in this fight over the bike lane.
Get your children off of those old yellow school buses–they are breathing toxins every day with those old fleets you have parked everywhere overnight on public streets.
You all should pool your resources and convert all the buses to bio-diesel, the kind that run on used cooking oil. That will save money on fuel and reduce pollution for all New Yorkers and get your children out of those polluting yellow toxic boxes.
I and other activists in the community will help with our skills.
Alex Berkman, Williamsburg
These cuts hurt
Ben Muessig’s piece last week, “MTA cuts would cut Brooklyn to pieces” (online, Nov. 24), reported that the “Metropolitan Transit Authority … is moving forward with a far-reaching plan to raise fares, eliminate train lines and bus routes, fire staff and lengthen wait times.”
So they have created a special subway line that will take New Yorkers (especially Brooklynites) back to the late 1980s? What other additions will the MTA add to this time tunnel: increased homelessness on the trains? Roving bands of disgruntled inner city youths? Packed trains even not during rush hour due to infrequent service? Perhaps an odor-du-jour from those wonderful days.
Ah, the good old days of a bygone era.
All kidding aside, perhaps the MTA can be less nostalgic and more realistic as it serves its riders over its budgetary woes. The two don’t seem to go hand-in-hand.
Aaron Brashear, Greenwood Heights
DUMB headline
To the editor,
I don’t know Jessica Lange, so I don’t speak for her, but with talents like Ms. Lange’s and The Brooklyn Paper’s, surely another catchy headline could have been found for the article about Lange’s appearance in DUMBO (“DUMBO blonde,” Nov. 29).
Such a headline not only insults all women, but the “dumb blonde” routine is just plain tiresome. Enough already.
Jo Anne Simon, Boerum Hill
The writer is Democratic District Leader from the 52nd Assembly District and a candidate for City Council.
Coney baloney
To the editor,
Can someone tell me how the city’s plan to buy Joe Sitt’s Coney Island is suppose to protect the amusement parks (“City has $200M to buy Coney land,” Nov. 29)?
Joe Sitt’s plan all along was to get the city to buy the land he needed to develop his condos on. He wanted the same sweet deal that Taconic Partners is getting. Let us not forget that Taconic has been promised permission to build condos on city-owned amusement-zoned land, namely the property between the old Child’s restaurant and Keyspan Park.
Is The Brooklyn Paper forgetting that five years ago, Joe Sitt said his project would include the aquarium parking lot, which is city owned parkland zoned for amusements?
I have a feeling that after the city spends $189 million to buy out Sitt, the next mayor will end up giving it all back to Sitt anyway.
Jane Moore, Bay Ridge
Rename Keyspan
To the editor,
It is an ongoing disgrace that such a world-renowned historic neighborhood such as Coney Island contains a baseball stadium called Keyspan Park. The Cyclones chintzy ballpark should be renamed Narriockh Field At Steeplechase Park.
Narriockh was the Canarsee Indians’ tribal name long before European colonization. This ancient and distinct designation doesn’t exist anywhere else, as Narriockh was never applied to the name of any street, store, building, apartment house, monument or structure of any kind. The word is usually translated as “place without shadows,” which would adequately serve as a welcome irony during those late-afternoon weekend games with thick clouds and overcast skies, where fly balls seemingly disappear over the horizon!
Irwin Gordon-Yashad,
Putnam Lake, NY
