Metro

Pols bid to slow down bike lanes

Bike lanes are no longer on a roll.

The Department of Transportation will soon have to ask neighborhood community boards for their blessing before installing bike lanes under a new proposal in the City Council.

The bill — which is expected to become law — is designed to stop the DOT’s current practice of simply slapping bikes lanes wherever it pleases, without oversight.

At a heated Transportation Committee hearing on Councilman Lew Fidler’s bill yesterday, screeching bike advocates clashed with proponents of the measure.

Under the bill, a community board wouldn’t be able to actually block a bike lane’s installation.

But the city would be in an awkward position to move forward with bike-lane installation without a the community board’s endorsement.

Those who backed Fidler’s plan at the hearing said it would bring accountability to the DOT. The proposal has 28 sponsors and is likely to pass.

But bike-lane supporters cried foul, saying it would build unnecessary bureaucratic roadblocks.

“This bill prescribes mandatory hearings and months of delay for the city’s most minor, routine and boring bike lanes,’’ said Juan Martinez, lawyer for bike-friendly Transportation Alternatives.

“This delay will not accomplish the legislation’s stated aims but will instead keep New Yorkers less safe.”

Committee Chairman James Vacca (D-Bronx), his voice in high gear, asked critics why they opposed grass-root views on neighborhood issues.

“You consider community input to be government obstructionist behavior?” Vacca shot back. “If you have nothing to fear because everybody loves bike lanes, why not have more public hearings?”

Martinez’s testimony was mild compared with other bike-lane advocates, who charged that council members were putting the brakes on bike riding in New York. “When it comes to governmental obstructionist behavior, I know it when I see it, and that’s how I see [this bill] … an attempt to obstruct the process of developing safe streets and attempt to tie it in knots,” said Gene Aronowitz of Brooklyn.

Fidler (D-Brooklyn) insisted that because bike lanes so fundamentally change the look of a neighborhood, public hearings are a must.

In 2010, the city installed a bike lane outside Prospect Park, touching off a bitter, yearlong court fight that the city won.

“Obviously, bike lanes have created much dialogue and much more divisive points of view,” Fidler said.

“Bike lanes change the street’s grid.”

DOT reps said the agency supports Fidler’s plan and wants only minor language tweaks.

Deputy Commissioner David Woloch said the DOT already goes to neighborhood leaders before installing bike lanes.

Additional reporting by David K. Li

CASE STUDY #1: HELL ON WHEELS

Brooklyn resident Steve Greenfield said bicyclists are spinning out of control.

“I’ve been hit several times,” said the 67-year-old retiree who lives near Prospect Park.

He described a scary 2007 incident when he was knocked down by an out-of-control biker.

Greenfield said he was crossing Union Street and Grand Army Plaza near Prospect Park when he was clobbered.

“I waited for the light to change. A bike came down the street the wrong way,” he said.

“It hit me in the bag I was carrying and it spun me around and I fell on the ice. He didn’t even stop.”

— Hannah Rappleye

CASE STUDY #2: PSYCHO CYCLIST

East Village resident Cynthia Wright is still looking for the name of the cyclist who rammed into her almost two weeks ago.

Wright, an actress who teaches at NYU, was blindsided as she crossed Avenue A at East Third Street. She’s still feeling pain as she walks and is undergoing physical therapy.

Despite her experience, Wright, 60, said she favors bike lanes and believes pedestrians and bikers both need to do a better job looking out for the other.

“I understand some bicyclists lose their minds when some pedestrians are lost checking their e-mails on their phones.”

— David K. Li