In Bike Lane Q&A With DOT, Queens Locals Demand Answers

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS -- Months of pent up tension surrounding the Queens Boulevard bike lanes came to a head when Forest Hills and Rego Park residents on all sides of the debate met face to face with each other and the city's Department of Transportation representatives to voice their concerns.

Nicole Garcia, Queens borough commissioner for the DOT, took the stage at Precinct 112's community council meeting on Wednesday night and vowed not to leave until everyone's questions were answered and concerns heard. Residents were ready to deliver.

Dozens of people crowded the room - some arriving hours in advance to ensure a seat, while others were forced to stand. Each waited for their turn to ask questions, offer suggestions or just vent about the bike lanes that had been and would be installed in a Queens Boulevard safety project that was part of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Vision Zero initiative to eliminate traffic-related deaths in the city.

A handful of Rego Park business owners complained about the most recent phase of bike lanes that had already been installed in the summer on service road medians from Elliot Avenue to Yellowstone Boulevard. When nearly 200 parking spaces on that stretch were replaced with said bike lanes, the entrepreneurs claimed their businesses began to suffer.

Jay Parker, owner of Ben's Best Deli, claimed the 198 parking spaces he lost to the bike lanes during the day would lose him around $675,000 in revenue over the year from thousands of customers who want to come in but won't be able to find parking.

"My sales tax to NYC is going to be $10,000 less this year on the current pace, and this is a good time of year for me," Parker said.

Gary Taylor, owner of Tropixx Bar and Lounge, echoed Parker's concerns, saying he visited around 40 businesses within two blocks of his along Queens Boulevard and each owner complained about double-digit losses since the bike lanes went in.

"It's not one business here or one business there - It's everybody in that two-block area," Taylor said. "I'm not against bikers, but I put a lot of money into my business and I don't want to see it fail."

Garcia said the DOT had been meeting with local businesses and "didn't want to put anybody out of business," but noted the parking that was taken away had only been offered along the boulevard since 2001.

"It didn't always exist there," she said.

But the excuses didn't fly with Parker, who complained no economic impact study had been done on the bike lanes, and said he and other Rego Park citizens had a right to be upset when their parking services were taken away.

"You can't just take those services away from us without us being upset - I am upset," said Parker, whose comments were met with a round of applause. "It just seems the city has decided that bicycles are more important than people."

But Garcia noted the Vision Zero project wasn't just about bicycles, but making Queens Boulevard - once referred to as "the Boulevard of Death" - safer for everyone. Queens saw the fewest traffic deaths since 1910 last year and traffic-related pedestrian injuries dropped by 63 percent. Much of that was from the first two phases of the Queens Boulevard safety project, which began in 2015, she said.

"This is a complete treatment where we’re shortening crossing distances, retiming the lights, enhancing markings and making the streets safer for everybody," Garcia said.

As the DOT looks to begin work on its final phase of the project, which will add bike lanes through Forest Hills from Yellowstone Boulevard to Union Turnpike, they are looking to keep the community involved in that design, Garcia said. The department will host a workshop on Jan. 23 at the Queensborough Hall, where locals can give input on the on the project.

Amid protests that the DOT hadn't offered such opportunity for input on the designs of its last phase through Rego Park, Garcia noted the department did conduct a similar workshop with Community Board 6's transportation committee.

"We did present the full plans, made a couple minor tweaks based on community board feedback, and implemented them in the summer," she said.

Joe Hennessy, chair of the community board, said he was disappointed at how few Rego Park and Forest Hills locals participated in the workshop.

"I hope on the 23rd it's going to be residents who participate and not outsiders," he said.

But a handful of residents at the meeting claimed they'd attended similar workshops for the last phase and felt the questions and concerns they posed didn't make a difference. One woman in the audience who attended one of those workshops wanted to know what exactly the DOT did with that input.

"It appears that our concerns were not addressed, so I don’t know what was thought about," she said. "I'm pro bike lane but I’ve heard from many people in the area that they feel like their issues were not really thought about in the way the bike lanes were implemented."

Though most in the audience complained about the bike lanes, a few voiced their support, including one Forest Hills resident who said they'd been "life-changing" for her.

"I used to never want to walk or bike through Rego Park, and I hadn't even heard of most of these businesses even after living in Forest Hills for four years," she said. "Now I bike to them frequently."

Lead photo by Danielle Woodward/Patch

Caption: Jay Parker, owner of Ben's Best Deli on Queens Boulevard, complains business at his eatery has tanked since the bike lanes took over nearly 200 parking spots once used by paying customers.