The city has carved out a big hole in its controversial bike-sharing program, ensuring that a bike-hating section of Hasidic Williamsburg doesn't have to participate.
CitiBike launches Monday with dozens of rental kiosks dotting the landscape throughout the gentrified sections of Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights and Clinton Hill — but nary a single location in the part of South Williamsburg dominated by Hasidic Jews, who have opposed at every turn the Bloomberg Administration's efforts to increase cycling.
"They put the racks where they are going to be used," said Community Board 1 member Simon Weiser, who hashed out kiosk locations with the Department of Transportation. "Look at the Hasidic community. No one rides a bike here."
It's not just low ridership that created the so-called "black hat black hole" in the bike share plan, but outright hostility to cyclists.
Hasidic community spokesman Isaac Abraham warned of "civil disobedience" if the kiosks are ever placed too close to where the Satmar Hasidim live.
"We will put baby carriages there," Abraham said. "We will make a baby carriage lane."
Satmars shopping recently on Lee Ave. chided CitiBike racks as threat.
"The bike racks are dangerous for pedestrians and children," said Yoeli Klein, owner of ice cream shop Chocolate Wise.
"I'm against the bike racks," added Avner Fried. "The installation of bike racks is crazy to me."
Ultra religious Jews have battled bikes for years.
Williamsburg's Satmars demanded in 2008 that officials nix the Hasidic Quarter portion of the Bedford Ave. cycling lane, complaining that scantily dressed women were pedaling past their kids.
A similar argument was made a decade ealier after the city proposed a bike lane in Borough Park.
A Department of Transportation spokesman said the Hasidic community's antipathy towards cycling did not influence the CitiBike locations.
"The (chosen) locations were the product of an extensive public outreach process," said Seth Solomonow, but added the locations "reflect the input of neighborhoods in the service area."
As a result, there are bike share points in the "hipster" section of the neighborhood to the north, plus dozens of share kiosks to the south and west. But the closest the kiosks come to the Hasidic Quarter of Williamsburg is the periphery at best: one is on Kent Ave. near S. 11th St. and the other on Flushing Ave. near Wallabout St.
And Phase II of the program also avoids Hasidic Williamsburg, even as it adds dozens of share points around the community.
Jewish cycling advocate Baruch Herzfeld, who led the charge to keep the Bedford Ave. bike lane, said keeping CitiBikes out of kosher Williamsburg was a way to keep the peace.
"The neighborhood would have been in all sorts of drama," Herzfeld said. "It is a way to avoid conflict."
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/hasidic-williamsburg-opts-bike-share-article-1.1351648
