A scathing lawsuit filed against the city this week turns the Department of Transportation’s own data against the Bloomberg administration’s push for a bicycle lane along Brooklyn’s Prospect Park West — showing crashes and injuries actually increased after the two-way path was installed there last summer.
The suit, filed Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court by a group of well-heeled Park Slope residents, seeks the lanes’ immediate removal.
It accuses the city and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan of manipulating agency data to push an anti-automobile agenda to justify replacing one of three lanes along the busy roadway with a two-way protected bike lane.
It also contends DOT violated state and city law because the bike lane borders two national historic districts and, therefore, an environmental review was needed – but never conducted — before the project was completed in June 2010.
“This was a massive effort to distort the facts and force community support,” said Norman Steisel, a former deputy mayor in the Dinkins administration.
In January, DOT hailed the bike lanes as a huge success by reporting crashes and injuries were down since the lanes were installed. It came to the conclusion by taking a three-year average of the last six months for 2007 through 2009 — which showed 29.7 crashes and 6.3 injuries — and then comparing it with the 25 crashes and five injuries reported during the second half of last year, the suit says.
But Steisel’s group – which includes former DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall, the wife of U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer — obtained city DOT data through the Freedom of Information Law. They ran the numbers on a yearly basis and found crashes and injuries had been steadily declining — but then slightly increased in the second half of 2010 once the lanes were installed.
During a rally at City Hall yesterday, Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn), some Park Slope civic leaders and bicycle activists denounced the suit, saying there is strong community support for the lanes and that their own surveys show speeding has reduced and residents feel safer with the bike lanes.
Both sides are set to collide during a public hearing Thursday night at John Jay High School over plans to modify the bike lane with new signage and pedestrian friendly features.