If you’re interested in bicycling, or bringing more fame to central Queens nabes, or both, I highly recommend checking out the Transportation Alternatives Queens Committee. It’s been around for about a year, and I just went to my first meeting earlier this month.
The TAQC meets the 2nd Monday from 6:30p-8p each month (unless otherwise noted) at the Greater Astoria Historical Society located at 35-20 Broadway, 4th floor - the Quinn Funeral Home building. The next TAQC meeting is April 14th.
The committee is full of very nice people working on some great projects, most notably the very first Tour de Queens! There are already bicycling events in two other outer-bees: Tour de Brooklyn (which I did last year) and a Tour de Bronx.
The Tour de Queens is scheduled for Sunday, June 8, 2008, and is still in the planning stages, so volunteers are welcome. You can register for it, too! The next planning meeting is March 26th at the location above. The route is approx 20 miles, beginning and ending at the Queens Museum, in front of the Unisphere in Flushing Meadow Park.
One area ripe for improvement in the TAQC, though, is its narrow focus on Western Queens. In fact, its original name was the Transportation Alternatives Western Queens Committee. The group is a lovely bunch of folk, but they need a little education about Queens east of Steinway Street.
For example, when, in the course of a discussion, I mentioned “the Union Turnpike station,” the general response was “where’s that?”
“Um, it’s at Union Turnpike at Queens Boulevard.”
Someone was helpful enough to “correct” me and add, “I believe that’s actually called the Kew Gardens station.”
Yeah, whatever. The point is that these Queenzies don’t know their 73rd Street from their 73rd Avenue. So, if you’re into bicycling, come to a meeting or two and make sure central Queens is on the map!
On the other hand, the Five Borough Bike Club offers lovely rides throughout Queens on a regular basis. Again, a nice bunch of people and their rides range from “smiley face” easy to “up with the roosters” competitive. Not to mention that most of their rides involve riding to FOOD! Our kind of people!
We rode with them alongside the abandoned Rockaway Branch Conrail Extension tracks from Rego Park to Ozone Park, which is ripe for a “rail-to-trail” conversion to a greenway, like the Highline in Manhattan. A fascinating ride.
You don’t have to be a member to join the rides, but membership allows you to get the newsletter, website access and other perqs.
By the way, I highly recommend bicycling around town! As you may know from reading my forum posts, my spouse and I enjoy bicycling around the city. We’re total amateurs, not the types with giant calves and bikes made out of aluminum foil. After 3 or 4 years of casual biking, we crossed a threshold in our confidence and endurance last summer, did 35 miles of the NY Century Ride, and spent many weekends biking to and from our place in FH through Queens into Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Queens presents a lot of challenges for the casual weekend cyclist, but we have found that so much of Queens opens up to you on the bike. Riding over the Queensborough Bridge or the Pulaski Bridge provide great views and new perspectives. And it’s much less crowded and cheaper than the gym!
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