On Friday Assemblymember Jim Brennan released the results (PDF) of a telephone poll he conducted that found most Brooklynites polled support the much argued– and sued-about two-way bike lane on Prospect Park West.
The survey polled 500 randomly selected residents of Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and Kensington on March 27 and 28. The survey’s biggest find is that 48 percent of respondents feel that the addition of the bike lanes to Prospect Park West are a change for the better, while 32 percent feel they’re a change for the worse and 20 percent didn’t feel strongly either way or had mixed feelings. In response to another important question, 44 percent of those polled said they’d like to keep the lane as it currently is, while 25 percent want alterations made and 28 percent want it completely removed (4 percent remained indifferent or uncertain).
Brownstoner notes that despite the generally positive responses to the lane, the lawyer representing the group of Prospect Park West-dwellers suing the city to have the lane removed released a statement claiming: “Pedestrians feel less safe crossing Prospect Park West, as this poll decisively shows.”
Clearly, though, the poll doesn’t show anything decisively, but rather suggests cautious support for the lane. And while the lane-haters will surely accuse bike activists of somehow rigging the numbers, only 30 percent of respondents said they ride a bike in Brooklyn regularly, while 66 percent said they drive in Brooklyn regularly, and 64 percent have driven a motor vehicle on Prospect Park West since the bike lane was installed. In other words, even a randomly selected set of non-cycling motorists like the lane.
See a nice bullet-point breakdown of the results here, or download a PDF of the survey results here. (Brownstoner, Streetsblog, Brooklyn Paper, Park Slope Patch, Photo)