TRANSCRIPT
00:00 – 00:23
Some people are against bikes because they think it makes them look poor. Some people are against bikes because they don’t want to lose parking spaces. Some people are against bikes because it’s a change and they’re not used to it. But to be against bikes because of the way people dress who ride bikes, that was something we were unprepared to deal with.
00:25 – 1:01
We’re right underneath the Williamsburg Bridge. And it is true, we have all these people we’re working on in Williamsburg, all these, like, people who are riding these fix gear bikes but there’s like a little border line right in the middle and there’s a strong Hasidic community which doesn’t really ride bikes at all. So originally when we got here we tried to put a lot of language on the building and stars. And we even had like some Bibles, we were giving books out for free. And we were trying to outreach that community. A very tough community to outreach to and their kids we’re coming here a little bit. And we had a loaner bike program where they could borrow bikes just to get the feel of them for free. They were very honest, they brought them back. We’re still trying to work on that, to get more Hasidic community on bicycles.
1:06 – 1:21
They’re very tight with religion and it seems like the bikes have kind of stirred that up because the way people dressed when they rode a bike through their neighborhood was some type of fashion that was a little too sexy for their religion.
1:44 – 2:13
As an environmentalist, I’m not religious at all. So I think religion is a huge problem but I understand that people are religious. And you know, and I guess you have to work on that and if I want to get them to ride a bike to — so they can, so there can be cleaner air — I’m going to have to work with them I guess, but to work with religion and biking is something I’m a little unprepared for because that’s never been the case before that religion is stopping biking.

Bill DiPalo, an environmentalist, said he wanted to work to bring the two communities together, but “to work with religion and biking is something I’m a little unprepared for because that’s never been the case before that religion is stopping biking.”
The Hasidic community was concerned with the way people dressed when they rode their bikes through the neighborhood, and, in 2011, petitioned the city to remove the new bike lanes that had gone up, saying the increase in cyclists posed a “safety and religious hazard.” The city complied.
Before the city installed the bike lanes, DiPalo said he felt like he was making progress in the community. Hasidic men and their families who would stop by Time’s Up, DiPalo’s shop and environmental organization. Hasidic family members would come over to rent the bikes, and DiPalo said many children often spent time in the bicycle workshop.
DiPalo has been a lifelong environmentalist, and said that his goal was to save the planet, one carbon footprint at a time. He works to raise awareness about the benefits of riding a bicycle around the city, and says he is attempting to infiltrate every neighborhood to get people thinking about and riding bikes.

When bike lanes went up in a certain area of Williamsburg, Brooklyn two years ago, the Hasidic community called them a threat and petitioned for them to be removed.
Bill DiPalo, of Time’s Up, had already been working on fostering a community around bikes and said the city came in and added the bike lanes without doing the research on what the impact could be throughout the community.
“It went bad because the city went in front of us,” DiPalo said. “We understood what was going on there and the city just threw down a bike lane and that really upset them.”
DiPalo is behind Time’s Up, an environmental organization at 99 South 6th Street in Brooklyn, just underneath of Williamsburg bridge. There is a vending machine for bike parts outside the front of the building, as well as a Star of David. The star was painted on the building years ago, as a form of outreach. Though the Hasidic community was once more involved in Time’s Up, they are no longer. The paint on the building has peeled and the star is now barely visible from the street.