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Group Demands Citywide Bike Lane Moratorium
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 23, 2011
Modified Feb 23, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 23, 2011
Modified Feb 23, 2011
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The well-connected Park Slope group Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes—whose members include former NYC DOT commissioner (and wife of Chuck Schumer) Iris Weinshall and former Sanitation Commissioner Norman Steisel—are calling for a moratorium on new bike lane construction throughout NYC. In a recent press release, the group, which formed to abolish the controversial bike lane on Prospect Park West, applauded City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Councilman James Vacca for backing a moratorium. There's just one problem: neither politician has taken that position at all.
City Council spokesman Jamie McShane tells Transportation Nation, "Neither Speaker Quinn nor Councilman Vacca support a moratorium on bike lane construction." In fact, McShane said that after the traffic safety bill was passed, the council explicitly rejected the idea of a moratorium on bike lane construction. It would appear that Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes, which has blasted the DOT for fudging numbers on the PPW lane's success, is simply making shit up, and not for the first time. A spokesman for the group says it had based their press release on their understanding of a news report.
Despite NBBL's obvious propagandizing, the group has waged a successful media campaign against the two-way separated bike lane. Most recently, NBBL got attention with this surveillance video showing an ambulance detouring around traffic on Prospect Park West by driving in the bike lane. Louise Hainline, the group's president, tells the Brooklyn Paper the incident is just one of three in which a motor vehicles used the lane in the past three months. She didn't provide any documentation on the other incidents, but BP followed up and spoke to ambulance drivers who admitted to using the bike lane. “Using the lane is better than losing a life,” one driver explained.
Tagged
bicyclists
bike lanes
cycling
cyclists
nbbl
park slope
ppw
PPW bike lane
prospect park west
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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