Make Meeker Move is a six-year-old campaign led by North Brooklyn Transportation Alternatives. The initiative includes residents, elected officials, and neighborhood organizations dedicated to restoring the space under the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) in Greenpoint and Williamsburg between the Kosciuszko Bridge and Metropolitan Avenue, making the area safer, more environmentally-friendly, and more community-focused. The restoration will involve a comprehensive redesign of Meeker Avenue to add these elements in an effort to calm traffic and…
Make Meeker Move and DOT Prioritize Safety Under BQE
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Transportation alternatives is a lobbyist org for Lyft and citibike, revel, private cabs. This plan which installs 400 parking meters active from 7am to 10pm(!!!!) is going to push the few working class who are left out of Eastern Greenpoint.
This article glosses over the opposition to metering parking spots in a residential areas. It most likely is working class commuters/ long-term residents who will be pushed out of the neighborhood by this cash grab. DOT has not studied who parks in this area. There is alternate side parking for street sweeping and if a journalist were investigate you will see the cars move spots daily with the exception of a few wrecks that NYPD is staging there while ”impounds are full”. There are things that need to be fixed about the BQE and biker safety, but metered parking is not helping
and it is misleading to portray it as something the long term residents want
My husband and I will most likely have to move out of the apartment that we have lived in for over 15 + years, in the neighborhood we have been in for 20+ years. We need a car and rely on the spaces under the BQE for parking. We have to fight pool and park goers as well as lost spots to restaurants out door spaces (I’m ok with this I WANT TO SUPPORT MY COMMUNITY). I would gladly pay a fee for a residential only parking sticker which would solve more problems then parking meters would create (which are many!). Metered parking is not what “long term residents” want. This plan is STUPID, CLEARLY THEY HAVEN’T VETTED LONG TERMS RESIDENTS AND IT’S ALL A LIE.
As a resident of the neighborhood for 31 years, I am happy to see these improvements to quality of life. So long this neighborhood has beared so much truck and auto traffic, not only impacting the quality of life as much as the health of all.
Uber and Lyft masquerading as residents — are corporations are people too? Shame on any local politician who treats them like they are, and let’s vote anyone who takes their money out of office. To be clear – like many residents, I am in favor of solutions that make Meeker safer (a move that is long overdue) but this plan is ill-considered, in that it will make Greenpoint parking impossible, and will further aggravate crowded conditions on streets already impacted by re-routing systems like WAZE, which sends cars off McGuinness to clog the neighborhood as they honk and curse. It also does not reflect any input from long time Greenpointers. The voices of the people that live here matter. Corporations that seek to profit by pretending to be community focused and/or green should not matter at all. Not one bit. Elected officials who want to keep their jobs should show that they understand these simple truths.
Chris and Lisa, you are describing a problem for local car owners that should be solved with permitted local parking, not by prolonging the harm the Robert Moses BQE does to all non-car users (who are a majority in Greenpoint). The issue is local drivers and business deliveries must compete for parking with suburban drivers who can drive and park wherever they want at no cost. The DOT should introduce parking permit zones to prioritize curb space for locals instead.
Did this project actually include anyone who lives on Meeker Avenue? Nope. It resulted in the elimination of a bus stop at Meeker and Hausman, making eastern Greenpoint *LESS* accessible via mass transit. Good job, Transportation Alternatives! An organization with a colonialist attitude toward working class people and their neighborhoods.