Brooklyn Community District 1’s board meeting on Tuesday, September 10, was an opportunity for the Department of Transportation (DOT), local activists, businesses and residents to participate in a thorough discussion about the future of McGuinness Boulevard and Bedford Slip Plaza.
The McGuinness Boulevard redesign project has been a back-and-forth between residents, activists, politicians and the DOT. Ahead of the Community Board meeting, Make McGuinness Safe, a community-led activism group lobbying for a redesign of McGuinness Boulevard, led a rally outside of the Swinging Sixties Senior Center on Ainslie Street. Minutes later, the DOT presented its latest plan for McGuinness.
“We organized advocates here today to come and speak out against the DOT’s recent announcement that they broke their promise again to our community and are going to make the choice to not make McGuinness safe,” Bronwyn Breitner, a founding member of Make McGuinness Safe, said. “They’re planning to install the flawed, dangerous bike lane that they’ve already installed north of Calyer, all the way along the boulevard, and it’s exactly the opposite of what our community has asked for. We’re here to hear from the DOT and understand what changed and why they have decided to abandon this community for the umpteenth time.”
For Breitner, street safety is a personal issue, especially on McGuinness Boulevard.
“My children were taught by Matt Jensen. I live a block from where he was killed. Some parents and parents came together and started asking, ‘Why is McGuinness like this?’” said Breitner. “Everyone has a story. Everyone’s afraid to cross it. Everyone tells their children they are not allowed to cross it by themselves…It’s our children who suffered the greatest loss, and all of us will continue to suffer those losses until somebody makes a major change and stands up to people that are afraid of change.”
The DOT presented a summary of its work on McGuinness between the Pulaski Bridge and Calyer Street.
“We just finished the work a couple months ago, with a new crosswalk at Freeman Street, a bike lane, rush hour lane from seven to seven on weekdays, overnight parking for the rest of the corridor, and additional upgrades for pedestrians,” a DOT representative said. “During that time, we looked at collected data on how that project was working, and we saw that it improved.”
The DOT announced that based on the completed work and its data, and “with continuing dialogue with the community, we’re here today to discuss the next phase, which would be a continuation of the same profile that we installed north of Calyer Street.”
Several community and board members responded to the DOT’s presentation with questions that highlighted concern over the bike lanes, noting that though the lanes are “protected,” cars often drive in them or use them for parking. Other concerns were raised about e-bikes, scooters and motorcycles using the bike lanes and endangering cyclists and pedestrians.
The DOT representatives responded with an emphasis on NYPD enforcement of the protected lanes and said they will “continue to work with NYPD and we’re going to be working on some additional signage and notifications.”
Several Make McGuinness Safe members, standing with signs throughout the meeting room, raised points about the publicly accessible data on the completed portion of the project.
“You said that you officially don’t look at data unless something’s been installed for a year. I looked at the data that’s available to the public on CrashMapper and found that since the bike lane has been installed last year, in the end of the winter through August of this year, the corridor is more dangerous in the north, where you put these exact changes that you’re now proposing for the south,” Breitner said. “There are zero safety improvements for pedestrians, and that’s who our community has come to you and asked to protect. We are the people who have suffered the consequences and the deaths of our people. It is not okay for you to come to this community and present a plan that you know is no safer than it is today. I reject this plan.”
The DOT repeatedly responded to questions about its data sources by saying that the project must be completed for a year before the data can determine any adjustments to the project.
“Let’s say this plan does go through, and then you have that year of traffic data and you realize that it’s not as good as you anticipated. What is the plan for amending that plan in the future with a lane closure and permanent parking?” one community member asked.
“I can’t speculate, right now, what would happen,” a DOT representative responded. “The data will provide our actions so we have to see what it says.”
After the DOT presentation and discussion with board and community members, Greenpoint’s city council member, Lincoln Restler, took the stand.
“This was decided by Mayor Adams. This was his decision, to ignore the 10,000 people in our community who demanded, finally, that we make McGuinness safe,” Restler said. “Every single elected official who represents the Greenpoint community, in one unified voice, has demanded that we finally make McGuinness safe.”
Several elected officials have called out Mayor Eric Adams, noting that prominent campaign donor Broadway Stages and influential advisors played a role in Adams’ decision to reevaluate the plan multiple times. Some community members opposed the redesign, fearing that eradicating lanes on the major road would affect businesses, drivers and safety, according to the Keep McGuinness Moving website.
“When [the mayor] changed his mind for the seventh time last year and promised us that in the spring, this would move forward, his most senior staff at City Hall called me and said, ‘Lincoln, the data is going to make the decision. We’re going to look at the data, we’re going to look at congestion, we’re going to look at safety,’” said Restler. “I heard from those same senior staff members at City Hall throughout the year, and the data looked really good. The data on congestion and the data on safety showed that a reduction of the land of traffic was the necessary and right decision. Data had nothing to do with this decision. This was just about politics, and the mayor made the decision that he made.”
Later in the meeting, the board’s Transportation Committee passed a resolution in support of making Bedford Slip a full-time open street on the weekends; the final decision remains up to the DOT. The decision came after a thorough hearing from community members and local businesses. Many of the organizers from Make McGuinness Safe were also involved in petitioning for making Bedford Slip closed to traffic, and local business Billy’s Locksmith led the oppositional petition to preserve Bedford Slip as an active street. The former has amassed 3,393 signatures, Billy’s has 570.
Lisa from Billy’s Locksmith said the business is located in the proposed closed area, and opposed the closure because it would drive away business. Three representatives from the business and some community members spoke out against the open street.
“We are 100% against it,” Lisa said. “It will be detrimental to community safety. Closing the street on such short notice caused a lot of stress. Our customers, most of whom are local, are very upset. The closure caused a huge drop in our revenue which was alarming.”
The owner of Billy’s said the revenue dropped by 45-50% during the six weeks that Bedford Slip was closed to traffic, although those numbers might also be explained by the overall G-train shutdown and its potential impact on businesses.
Other community members noted the positive aspects of the Bedford Slip, such as having a place to sit and an inland open space.
“We don’t have lots of lots to create another McCarren Park. We have to seek out in little spaces the green space and parks that we can,” said Ryan, who is also involved in Make McGuinness Safe. “Inland needs plazas. It’s not just the rich people in the towers that need plazas and fresh space.”
Last Friday, McGuinness saw another serious incident; a driver hit and injured a pedestrian. Make McGuinness Safe is hosting a rally this Thursday at 6pm.