CB6 gets a crowd who want to be hear

A large group of Brooklynites pressed the community board on transportation issues at Brooklyn Community Board 6’s June general meeting, some of which the board passed the buck on.

Angela, a Third Place resident, said an elderly neighbor, actually the mother of the owner of Le Petit Cafe, was struck by a bike on Court Street in May, prompting her to file a complaint with the 76th Precinct about bike safety enforcement.

“They say they don’t have enough staff, so who do we talk to to get this concern done so that we can make bikes accountable just like the way cars are accountable?” Angela asked the board.

The response was to talk to the local politicians, as there there is nothing CB6 could do.

“They control the purse strings,” said CB6 Public Safety Chair Jerry Armer (who is also President of the 76th Precinct Community Council). “If they increase the budget and they get the commissioner and the mayor to allocate more officers, we’ll get more. They don’t have the personnel they need.”

While community boards are advisory, they can advocate for safer streets, as CB6 frequently does. In 2023, the board wrote a letter to former NYC Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez supporting and recommending additional safety improvements on Ninth Street, following a cyclist fatality. The letter was signed by Armer himself, CB6 Chair Eric McClure, Transportation Chair Doug Gordon, and District Manager Mike Racioppo.

Throughout the meeting, residents raised concerns about the Flatbush Avenue redesign and a planned bike boulevard (a road fine-tuned for cycling) on Bergen Street, saying they felt “blindsided” by these projects. One Bergen Street resident, Peter Grant, said that when he searched for “Bergen Street” on the board website, nothing appeared.

Grant’s comment prompted Racioppo to interrupt, saying, “I don’t know where you’re talking about—there’s only zoning maps. There’s not a search engine on the website.”

Racioppo misspoke
Contrary to this denial, a search engine does exist on the CB6 website, identified by a magnifying glass icon in the top-right corner. As of July 2, a search for “Bergen Street” on the site shows a June 17, 2026, Transportation Committee meeting addressing traffic concerns and archived information unrelated to traffic on Bergen Street.

“We’re asking for your help and consideration to just tell us what’s going on because no one has talked to us about the B63, the B65 or the bike boulevard—we learned that on TV,” said Bergen Street resident Angelica Radacinski, addressing the board and NYC Council Member Shahana Hanif, who appeared on Zoom.

The NYC Department of Transportation is currently seeking community feedback on the bike boulevard, which would run from Court Street to East New York Avenue. The B63 was partially rerouted in CB6 as part of the Flatbush Avenue redesign and the B65 bus currently runs along Dean and Bergen streets, the same corridors slated for the bike boulevard treatment. While there are no official plans to reroute the B65, the current Brooklyn Bus Redesign proposes moving the route to Atlantic Avenue.

“We will continue to be involved and be a conduit for the community between the Department of Transportation and the MTA,” McClure told the concerned Bergen Street neighbors.

Nora Kaiser of Bergen Street then asked how residents would be notified about street changes, prompting Racioppo to plug his weekly newsletter as a source of information. Despite the “weekly” moniker, the last CB6 newsletter before the June meeting went out on Feb. 17. Racioppo said he would resume sending it “at least two to three times a week” and has increased it’s frequency, with the latest one sent June 2.

Traffic calming measure could cause gridlock
As transportation dominated the meeting, Carroll Gardens residents waited patiently for a vote on traffic calming measures in their neighborhood, including reversing the direction of traffic on Woodhull and Rapelye streets between Columbia Street and Hicks Street. While the Transportation Committee supported the changes at its May meeting, some Woodhull Street residents weren’t fond of them.

“It’ll be very difficult for us to move where this intersection now becomes a gridlock space,” said board member and Woodhull resident Josh Pacheco, adding that it’d cause chaos from vehicles turning off of Hamilton Avenue and Hicks Street. “The amount of traffic on our block would just triple.”

After hearing the concerns noted by Pacheco, the board amended the motion to accept the DOT’s traffic calming measures in the Woodhull Street vicinity (which include reducing lanes on Hamilton Avenue and adding crosswalks and curb extensions), without further study of the proposed street direction changes.

“I hope we can really compromise on this and make our city safer with our residents being happy,” said Woodhull Street resident Felicia Formisano, breathing a sigh of relief after the motion passed.

The board also celebrated the long-awaited reopening of the Carroll Street Bridge, now restricted to pedestrians, bikes and emergency vehicles.

The car ban on the 19th-century bridge was supported by CB6 for several years, with board member Mandi Spishak-Thomas, who was interviewed by Streetsblog, expressing support for its pedestrianization.

“I think it’s largely a very popular decision for the community,” said Eric McClure. “Limiting the truck and car traffic to only emergency vehicles will help sustain the life of the bridge.”

With the community board on recess for the summer, meetings will resume in September, with the next general meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 6:30 p.m.