Conversation, not Controversy

The Brooklyn Heights Blog calls out the Brooklyn Eagle for fomenting a bike share nontroversy:

This Brooklyn Daily Eagle story has the headline, “Brooklyn Bridge Park at odds with Heights over bike stations.” It implies some sort of Park-Heights conflict that doesn’t exist. The story quotes Nancy Webster of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy as welcoming a bike station near Atlantic Avenue and Furman Street, which is not on a residential street in Brooklyn Heights. It then notes that the Brooklyn Heights Association has expressed some concern over bike stations on residential streets in the Heights. This in no way conflicts with the BBPC’s desire for a station near the Park’s entrance, so the BBPC and the BHA are not “at odds.”

The Eagle has now written two stories trying to stir things up and is likely to write up a third, a recap of last night’s CB2 meeting.  While the meeting was far from a love-in, it was not the NIMBY fest one might have expected.  Unlike some of the main characters in the PPW fight, who didn’t want to see bike lanes anywhere unless they were inside the park and hidden by trees, most of the people who spoke last night were in favor of bike share, even if some disagreed on the precise placement of specific stations.  Even a few of the people who didn’t want stations right in front of their homes admitted to having used bike share in other cities and said that they looked forward to it coming to Brooklyn.

The DOT is traveling to each community board and listening to what people have to say in order to take these concerns into consideration and tweak the system map as the launch date approaches.  There is no controversy, only conversation, and anyone who reports otherwise or amplifies a few cranky voices is not being honest.  Many thanks to the Brooklyn Heights Blog for telling it like it is.