Community Corner

Bike Lane Makes Debut On Washington Avenue... Though Not In Fort Greene

Right of way through Crown and Prospect Heights ends at Dean Street.

Just weeks after the city Department of Transportation proposed a dedicated bike lane for Washington Avenue, cyclists in Prospect Heights have reason to celebrate.

Workers painted in the new right of way on the busy thoroughfare from Eastern Parkway to Dean Street this week.

And while the new bikeway provides a vital link to an expanding network of dedicated lanes for cyclists, riders looking to travel between Prospect Heights and Flushing Avenue are left with only one option — Vanderbilt Avenue. 

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“It could have been another link towards Williamsburg,” said Cassidy Vare, owner of  on Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene, shortly after the bike lane was announced at a Community Board 8 meeting in March. “Bike lanes are all well and good, but a network of lanes will be used even more.”

A spokesman for Transportation Alternatives praised the new lanes as providing much-needed access to bikeways on Bergen and Dean streets.

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As for the prospects of an extension of the new lane north through Atlantic Avenue, it seemed that no plan was in the works, just yet.

"This bike lane is part of a broader traffic calming project in the area and will connect to the existing network at Dean and at Bergen," said a DOT spokesman. "There are no additional proposals at this time to extend it further north."

Washington Avenue through Fort Greene wasn't the only thoroughfare facing an uphill battle for a bike lane of its own. Earlier this year, a plan to install a bike lane along Lafayette Avenue after a contentious Community Board 2 meeting.


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