LINKING DEATH TO BIKE BATTLE
As tragedies rise, advocates say Blaz bends to local pols and fails to build protected lanes
New York City officials know where car crashes regularly kill and injure people, and how to make those places safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists alike.
What’s stopping Politics.
In every corner of the city, street redesign proposals face pushback from locals who do not want to give up parking spaces or alter the look of their neighborhoods.
Advocates say Mayor de Blasio kowtows to community boards and neighborhood them? groups that view potentially lifesaving construction as a means for political horse trading.
“I think that de Blasio and his people have a hair-trigger political antenna, so they let this stuff get bogged down when people start complaining,” said Jon Orcutt, a former policy director at the Department of Transportation and the head of the advocacy program Bike New York.
“You need a rhinoceros hide if you’re going to govern this city,” Orcutt said.
A thicker hide might help de Blasio save lives. Data make it clear his muchvaunted Vision Zero camjuries paign to eliminate traffic inkilled and deaths isn’t working as well as it should.
Traffic deaths have plummeted — just 202 people died in car crashes across the city last year, the lowest mark in modern history. And when people are hurt, their injuries are less serious, city officials say.
But the total number of people injured by cars and trucks is up. Data show that 51,000 people were hurt in car crashes in 2014. Last year, that number was just shy of 62,000 — that’s 21% more than the 2014 figure.
The street safety crisis has drawn widespread attention recently as 15 cyclists were on city streets during the first half of 2019, already exceeding the 10 cyclists who were killed in New York in all of 2018.
Making streets safer isn’t rocket science. Protected bike lanes, narrower car lanes and curb extensions that deter dangerous turns require paint, plastic and sometimes concrete.
But de Blasio’s administration isn’t willing to push the issue hard, says Orcutt, who oversaw the rollout of Citi Bike during Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration.
“We didn’t ask anyone to approve it,” Orcutt said of new Citi Bike docks now ubiquitous in much of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. “We didn’t tell people that we were asking. We said, ‘Look we’re putting Citi Bike in this area.’
“It would be great if DOT would get away from asking permission,” Orcutt said.
Because the city defers to community groups, street safety improvements take a long time to implement.
Australian tourist Madison Jane Lyden, 23, was killed by a debris-carting truck while biking on Central Park West on Aug. 10, 2018. When a livery car pulled into the bike lane in front of her, Lyden swerved into the street and was run down by a
debris-carting truck.
Construction will finally start on the line in the next few weeks. Orcutt said the lane would be in operation by now if the city didn’t defer to Manhattan Community Board 7 to approve the plan.
“Community boards don’t have the power to veto street safety projects,” said Joe Cutrufo, spokesman for street safety advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. “As long as Mayor de Blasio allows them to stymie the DOT’s plans, we’re never going to achieve the goals of Vision Zero.”
Protected bike lanes are life savers, cyclists say. The DOT in 2014 added a proson tected bike lane along HudSt. between Houston and 14th Sts., and it’s become a game-changer for people riding through the West Village.
“This bike lane is good, it saves my life,” said bike delivery worker Shakil Hassan, 18.
“They’re a good idea,” added Andrew Zahn, 36. “It’s better than getting hit by cars.”
But DOT officials have let community opposition stall the installation of a protected bike lane on Queens Blvd., which was once dubbed the “Boulevard of Death.”
The department has installed a protected lane on a portion of the once-notorious street. But many in Queens don’t want to give up their parking spots for the bike lane to be expanded, and some business owners feel that it will cut into their bottom lines.
It’s hard to overcome businesses’ objections to bike lanes. Bittu Singh, 40, said he believes the protected bike lanes that the DOT carved out on Queens Blvd. near 69th St. in Elmhurst have hurt business at the Mobil station where he’s worked for 17 years.
Singh said he rarely sees cyclists using the lane. “If they close it, it’ll be better,” Singh said.
But even though the lane appears to be little used, Singh believes it’s partly to blame for sales decline at his gas station from roughly 100,000 gallons a month to about 65,000 gallons a month.
Transportation Department spokesman Scott Gastel said the city does not require permission from community boards to begin projects — but he noted that feedback from local groups sometimes leads it to adjust its plans.
“DOT’s Vision Zero work is guided largely by data – making street improvements where we see the most fatalities and serious injuries,” said Gastel.
But others in city government think a more compreis hensive approach to the issue needed — one that looks at the bigger picture, and not just at the views of local groups.
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson recently introduced a bill that would require DOT to make a “master plan” for street safety, including adding 250 new miles of protected bike lanes across the five-year span.
“We know data and smart design principles saves lives,” said Johnson. “But we’ve never done comprehensive street planning with a focus on the needs of all New Yorkers. So it’s no surprise we’re facing a street safety crisis.”