BUSHWICK — A controversial bike parking proposal for a burgeoning Bushwick corner was officially struck down Wednesday night.
Bushwick Community Board 4 members voted to reject the Department of Transportation's plan to replace two parking spots with a bike rack on Wyckoff Avenue and Starr Street, where new cafes, bars and organic food stores have recently opened.
The 19-to-3 vote against the corral (which would have emulated the one on Williamsburg's Wythe Avenue) followed two monthly board meetings of heated debate. The board's vote is advisory, but city officials generally follow its lead.
Opponents of the proposal previously cited the importance of car parking spots, said the board had been excluded from the bike corral plan, and claimed that the city should focus attention on more pressing community needs, like installing more street lighting on Broadway.
But to Adam Brown, a barista at Wyckoff Starr, the area is in urgent need of more bike parking.
"Now is the time because the neighborhood is changing so fast there are going to be a lot more people biking as the young culture moves in," Brown said.
Brown compared the Bushwick neighborhood's future to the present popularity of Williamsburg's Bedford Avenue, which he said was packed with bike traffic.
"By the train stops there are bike corrals that are completely full with bikes," he said of the Williamsburg locale. "That’s where this neighborhood is headed in my view."
