The Kent Avenue bike lane in South Williamsburg has been a hotspot of debate over the last couple months, as Hasidic residents have fought to keep the scantily clad women-folk of North Williamsburg out.
That's one of a handful of reasons the community has lodged to complain about the proposed lane, and it looks like some frustrated residents are starting to resort to somewhat threatening manners. A reader of Gothamist wrote-in Monday with a tale of a "game of chicken" between her and an older Hasisic man.
She writes: "Things have gotten pretty terrible in the saga of the Kent Avenue bike lane, at least for me. Today I had to ride between North Williamsburg and Fort Greene. On my way there, an older Hasidic man stepped right off the empty sidewalk and into the bike lane right in front of me as I was riding by Shaffaer's Landing. He seriously tried to play a game of chicken with me and stepped in that lane when I was a good 10 yards back so I would have to swerve around him."
On her way back, she faced a delicate ballet of moving cars, vans, and swerving trucks until safety on the other side of the BQE. The bicyclist plans to take her complains after her dangerous jaunt through South Williamsburg to the next community meeting, for Community Board 1, which is scheduled for January 1st, 2009.
The bike lane has been causing flame-ups at meetings and in local newspaper comment sections since it's inception last summer.
