The new Chick-fil-A hopes to build a bike corral on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Avenue.
Photo: Courtesy Chick-fil-A
What do you do when the only Chick-fil-A in Brooklyn routinely causes traffic chaos on one of the busiest corners in the borough? You build another Chick-fil-A less than a mile away, this time with a dedicated bike zone for delivery workers. “This location is really to kind of help offset the demand,” says Brandon Hurst, the owner-operator of both spots.
The second location, set to open on November 14 at 809 Atlantic Avenue (the former home of Hot Bird, now the site of the Axel), will include a bike corral designed in partnership with the Department of Transportation. The collaboration between the department and the franchise is a little like a peace offering for, well, everyone: At the Flatbush location, which sits just across the street from Barclays Center and next to an equally busy Shake Shack, neighbors have complained about delivery drivers riding on the sidewalk, while delivery drivers have complained about cars double parking and pulling other unsafe maneuvers that force them onto the sidewalk. In an effort to address this particular traffic knot, the DOT created a bike corral in the turning lane on Flatbush to help control some of the chaos — a process that Hurst says took three years of back-and-forth with community stakeholders. This time, it is planning ahead.
The DOT says the corral, which would sit on the corner of Clinton Avenue and Atlantic, is scheduled to open in spring 2025. The specific design that Chick-fil-A submitted, though, is still awaiting approval. “We don’t want just your typical bike area,” Hurst says. “It was more like, could we install a permanent structure that takes into consideration all seasonal weather and that gives the drivers protection.” Hurst says they’re still working out the design with the DOT and are flexible on what the thing will look like, but he’s hoping to have a roof overhead and hard barriers, like planters, to keep cars out. (The DOT would pay for the initial basic installation of street paint and planters, but anything above and beyond would have to be approved and then paid for by Chick-fil-A.) There will also be a pickup window on the Clinton Avenue side of the store, something they had to retrofit at the Flatbush location. “The hope is that drivers will naturally dismount their bikes, leave them there, come up to the pickup window, and get their food,” Hurst says.
The city’s car-centric infrastructure has created a real crisis as it increasingly embraces e-bikes, mopeds, and e-scooters. Add that to the Wild West of app delivery, and you’ve got a real mess. So the corral, even though it’s not exactly huge news, still feels important. Restaurants and other businesses probably should have to think about how their businesses shape the built environment around them, both for the customers and the workers involved.
“Across the city, we have been working to incorporate these spaces into street redesigns with high volumes of delivery cyclists, and we will continue to work with local stakeholders to explore potential new locations,” says Will Livingston, a spokesperson for the DOT. Hurst says he hopes the corral will be a model, a little like streeteries, for restaurants to work with the city on these public-private hybrid spaces. (The bike corral would be maintained by Chick-fil-A but open for public use.) I guess we’ll see how it all ends up looking in the spring.
