BAYSIDE, NY – A plan to change bike lanes rolled out by the city in Bayside is the top priority for the neighborhood's community board, members said this week.

The Department of Transportation's new bike lanes along Northern Boulevard have been criticized by some locals who think they make the stretch of road dangerous. At its annual meeting on Monday, community board 11's budget committee voted unanimously to put funding its own replacement bike lane plan at the head of spending plans for 2018.

The DOT recently installed the lanes along the thoroughfare between 223rd Street and Douglaston Parkway, taking away a lane of westbound traffic and resurfacing it. Community board president Christine Haider called the new lanes unsafe and claimed a handful of accidents had happened along the road since they had been installed. "I've head from so many people that live in the community about how unhappy they are with this," said board member George Mihaltses at Monday's meeting. "This isn't against people who use bikes, but it's unsafe for cars and pedestrians."

The advisory board initially approved the DOT's lane proposal in June but rescinded that approval at its September meeting after board requests to review safety issues went unanswered. The board's alternative plan, which board member Bernard Haber posed to the department at the September meeting, would keep the roadway unchanged and instead expand the sidewalk along the north side of the boulevard into a wider pathway for pedestrians and bikers, QNS reported. "We felt when it was first brought to us it had flaws," Haider said at Monday's meeting. "We felt there was a safer way to do it, we found the safer way to do it, we presented the safer way to do it and they thumbed their nose at us. Now we've had five accidents that I'm aware of."

Much of the DOT bike route is separated from cars by a concrete barrier, but board members agreed the safety precautions are not enough. As an example, Haider pointed to an incident she witnessed on her way to Monday's meeting when she saw a car pull into the bike lane after being pulled over by the NYPD.

"The whole thing has created so many unsafe conditions in so many little spots," Mihaltses said.



Haber said in the board's September meeting that his plan would be safer for bikers and could be completed quickly for only around $600,000, QNS reported. But DOT officials at that meeting countered that the proposal could cost up to $10 million and take years to complete after factoring in the money and time it would take to reconstruct the Alley Creek Bridge along the boulevard and uproot trees to make room for a wider sidewalk. Community Board 11 will talk more about the project while reviewing the 2019 Capital and Expense Budget priorities at its next meeting Nov. 6.

