Cool or Not Cool: Expanding Plaza Street's Bike Lane?

image via Brooklyn Spoke

After receiving a green light from Community Board 6 last week, a the much-discussed two-way bike lane on Plaza Street is finally becoming a reality. You may remember that CB6 pussied out on the proposal last year due to both the bitching and lawsuits against the Prospect Park Bike Lane. I don't need to link to that anymore, right? Alright, here's one. The Plaza Street lanes were reintroduced because a Department of Transportation study found that one third of cyclists where using the existing single lane in the the wrong direction. 

The Brooklyn Paper describes the changes:

The city’s on-street design calls for removing four feet of road space reserved for automotive traffic and giving it to cyclists, creating an eight-foot-wide patch of asphalt for two-wheelers heading to Prospect Park and bikes traveling toward Prospect Heights.

So you can guess where this is going, right? Some residents are claiming that the expansion will plug up the charming, yet narrow street. Dolly Williams, a former city planner, is one of these people. “No one will be able to get through," she told the Brooklyn Paper. "It’s going to become a nightmare.” Other local residents believe that the lanes will not only increase congestion but "create chaos, and even block ambulances."

Plaza Street / via www.brooklynspoke.com

Unlike the A-Holes from the Prospect Park West debacle, who want to do away with the entire lane, these naysayers don't want to chuck the whole thing all together. They just want the lane moved onto the sidewalk.  But the opponents to these opponents say that such a proposal an awful idea because bikers will have to fight for space with pedestrians. Also, Plaza Street's sidewalk borders an area of Grand Army Plaza's green space. Robert Minsky of the GAP Coalition says, "I think it's an incredibly foolish idea. It will take away from the park."

I'm giving the last word to my boy and big huge bike lover Eric McClure who says, "They're is plenty of room on the street."

What say you FIPS'ters? Cool or not cool? New bike lane on the street? New bike lane on the sidewalk? New bike lane up our asses?