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Video: Markowitz Says Activist Cyclists Distorted PPW Study
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 24, 2011
Modified Jan 24, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 24, 2011
Modified Jan 24, 2011
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Back in April, as the Prospect Park Bike Lane war raged in Park Slope, bike lane hating Borough President Marty Markowitz told WNYC that if the new bike lane "causes no bottlenecks, no inconvenience, and if it works, I’ll be the first to say I was wrong." A new report on the bike lane's impact proved just that, but instead of eating his shoe, Markowitz is getting conspiratorial. In an angry, unhinged interview with WCBS, Markowitz contends that cycling activists were secretly tipped off about which days the DOT contractor was counting bike riders, enabling them to flood the lane to skew the stats. Watch him expose what Streetsblog dubs a "vast biking conspiracy."
Markowitz told us he wants an independent agency to conduct a study of the lane's impact, adding that he doesn't believe a word that the DOT says. "The DOT has to justify the Prospect Park West bike lane, so I question the validity of any data coming from the very agency that installed the lane," Markowitz said in a statement. "As I have said all along, we need an outside study—not one conducted by the DOT but perhaps by the NYPD—to get an impartial analysis of the Prospect Park West reconfiguration.
"The DOT’s own numbers show increases in daytime travel times along another southbound thoroughfare, Seventh Avenue. Among the questions that could be answered by an independent study is whether the changes to Prospect Park West are negatively impacting Seventh Avenue and other thoroughfares in the neighborhood. Until there is an independent assessment of these changes, these biased DOT studies will continue to ‘prove’ what they want us to believe."
WAKE UP SHEEPLE! Ask yourself: Why won't Sadik-Khan step aside and let the NYPD conduct an impartial, objective study of the bike lane—one that will give Marty the results he wants? And why won't she simply release her birth certificate to prove that she was in fact born in the U.S.?!
Tagged
bicycling
bike lanes
cycling
marty markowitz
ppw
PPW bike lane
prospect park west
Prospect Park West bike lane
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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