Letter to the Editor

Bike Lane

Dear Editor,

The Ellis neighborhood received notice that Berkeley St. is soon to have a bike lane. This over reach by City Hall takes place without sufficient prior community input, or exhaustive consideration of impacts.

Berkeley St. has heavy vehicle traffic during the morning and evening rush hours, when Berkeley functions as an across town highway filling all available lanes. Taking away a lane will constrain traffic, backup cars, add to driver frustration and promote road rage, already in marked evidence.

Further, Ellis Neighborhood pre-School parents double park on Berkeley for drop offs and pick-ups between Appleton and Chandler creating an unusable lane every morning and evening. Complicating traffic on that block are large, double-parked, delivery trucks across from the school taking yet an additional lane in the morning. At that time, the three Berkeley lanes would become one.

Berkeley does not have any bike traffic to speak of. The project is equivalent to a “bridge to nowhere”, and an instance of a heavy handed plan to promote bike usage with the consequence, among others, of erecting unsightly white posts throughout the city.

The project needs to be put on hold until the neighborhood meets with BTD to explore the rationale of the project, its impact, desirability and will of the community at large, and not the skewed view of the bike advocate minority, or misguided green initiative embraced by City Hall .

Barry Zaltman

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