CHINATOWN — A handful of bike advocates joined officers from the 5th Precinct for a pedal-powered tour around the neighborhood Wednesday evening to discuss safety and enforcement issues in the area.
The group ride came out of a “Twitter spat” that took place earlier this month, said Brooklyn resident Doug Gordon, who runs the blog Brooklyn Spoke.
Gordon tweeted about a nearby traffic accident on Aug. 5, catching the attention of Sgt. Ka Kit Yip, who monitors the precinct’s Twitter account and acts as its traffic safety sergeant. He invited Gordon to stop by the precinct for a chat, which turned out to be more productive than Gordon expected, he said.
“I thought it was going to be a quick like, ‘Look we can talk about this, thank you for your help we’ll see what we can do,’ but it was just much bigger than that,” Gordon said.
Instead, they spent more than an hour talking about traffic and road conditions and came up with the idea to ride together, Gordon and Yip said.
The area sees a large number of bicyclists daily because of its access to the Manhattan Bridge, said Gordon, who pedals through the neighborhood each day as part of his commute from Park Slope to SoHo.
But traffic enforcement in the precinct — which covers Chinatown, Little Italy, Nolita and parts of SoHo — has been perceived as hostile towards bicyclists, who feel like they are disproportionately targeted and ticketed by the police, Gordon said.
The tour kicked off on Forsyth and Canal streets, following a route that went up major roadways like Allen, Chrystie and Lafayette streets, according to a map provided by Yip.
The cyclists stopped at certain intersections and pointed out issues like faded and blocked bike lanes, Gordon said.
“It was really relaxed and I think the police officers, Sgt. Yip and everybody really got a taste of what it was like to bike through the neighborhood,” he said.
