Queens Blvd Bike Lanes Divide Forest Hills Businesses, Residents

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS -- Depending on who you listen to, the bike lanes along Queens Boulevard are either safety-proof transportation of the future or one giant "fiasco" that will single-handedly put the roadway's shops and restaurants out of business.

Middle ground between the two sides was hard to find in the Rego Park Center community room on Monday night, where Community Board 6's economic development committee invited locals and business owners to share their thoughts on the economic impact of expanding the Queens Boulevard bike lanes through Forest Hills.

The NYC Department of Transportation is slated present plans for the final stretch of bike lanes in its Queens Boulevard safety redesign - from Yellowstone Boulevard to Union Turnpike - to Community Board 6 this spring.

"We want to hear from the businesses how in their opinion they’re affected," Heidi Chain, chair of the board's economic development committee, told Patch. "Everybody can come up and tell us what they feel is affecting them, and we’re going to put that together."

By and large, business owners who attended the meeting weren't happy with the bike lanes.

A handful of entrepreneurs along Queens Boulevard in Rego Park complain at the meeting about staggering losses they said the bike lanes are already costing them. They said business has plummeted since the roadway's last phase of bike lanes was installed between Eliot Avenue and Yellowstone Boulevard and wiped out nearly 200 parking spaces for paying customers.

Jay Parker, owner of Ben's Best Deli, said he's already had to lay off employees and cut back hours ever since the bike lanes went up in front of his Rego Park eatery last fall.

"People come in, drive for 20 minutes and can't find parking, so they go somewhere else," Parker said.

That, or customers who've been coming to his restaurant for years get slapped with a $95 ticket for unknowingly parking in the bike lanes or one of the roadway's new loading zones, he said.

"If you come into my store and get a $95 ticket, you're not coming back," Parker said.

Solomon Moses, owner of Stix Kosher restaurant, echoed Parker's concerns.

"I've had people circling around for 40 minutes trying to find parking," Solomon said. "They just leave."

Both owners said they weren't against bike lanes but argued there has to be a better design that takes up less parking than the current model.

But Leslie Brown, president of the Forest Hills Chamber of Commerce, questioned whether bike lanes should exist along Queens Boulevard at all. Brown, whose chamber represents more than 150 local businesses, launched a petition on Change.org against expanding the bike lanes into Forest Hills that has since garnered more than 900 signatures.

"I agree that bikes certainly have their place, but I don't necessarily think they have a place on Queens Boulevard," she said.

"There are jobs at stake - It's hundreds and hundreds of businesses. It's a serious thing that shouldn't be taken lightly."

But bike lane advocates argued the alternative put lives at stake and shamed business owners for not caring enough about the safety of their employees and customers.

Brian Howald, a volunteer with bike lane advocate group Transportation Alternatives, noted that in the years Queens Boulevard was referred to as "Boulevard of Death" for its high number of traffic fatalities, he couldn't find "a single statement" from the Chamber on how dangerous the roadway was.

"I’m curious why the business community didn’t come together to say, 'Let's make the street safer for customers,'" Howald said. "That you would ban together only when parking is at stake is just really shameful."

Laura Shepard, who chairs Transportation Alternatives' Queens Boulevard committee, said she rallied around 50 signatures of support for the bike lanes from local businesses on Queens Boulevard and Austin Street.

"They understand how their customers and employees get around," she said of the business owners and managers who signed the letter.

Bike lane advocate Sarah McRidge insisted that bike lanes weren't to blame for failing businesses along Queens Boulevard and instead called them the future of transportation. She pointed to the success of bike lanes in thriving Manhattan and Brooklyn neighborhoods.

"The idea that everybody's decline in business is somehow due to a bike lane is ridiculous," she said. "You're fighting changing times, and I feel for you, but it's not the bike lanes that are hurting you."

McRidge said as someone who's walked Queens Boulevard for 22 years, she's actually found the bike lanes calm traffic and made her feel safer.

"Give it a little while, and you might just fall in love," she said.

But local business owners and landlords weren't buying it.

A landlord to popular Austin Street chains Sephora and Shake Shack called the bike lanes a mess and vowed to keep them out of Forest Hills.

"You want to help Queens Boulevard? Take people who are out of work and put them into crossing guard jobs to help protect people," he said. "This is a fiasco and a joke, and it’s going to stop right here in Rego Park."

Lead photo by Danielle Woodward/Patch

Caption: Bike lane advocate Sarah McRidge speaks to the Community Board 6 Economic Development Committee at its meeting on Monday night.