This struggle is getting wheelie intense.
A decide pumped the brakes Wednesday on Mayor Adams’ plan to tear out a problem-plagued protected bike lane alongside Brooklyn’s Bedford Avenue — a transfer Hizzoner made after an e-biker on the trail slammed right into a toddler.
Brooklyn Supreme Court docket Choose Carolyn Walker-Diallo dominated that Metropolis Corridor officers had “abused their discretion” by ordering the 1.5-mile stretch of the foremost thoroughfare be returned to its pre-protected state.
The bike lane will stay in place till a courtroom listening to in August.
“We’re ecstatic {that a} decide is at present blocking town from ripping up avenue security enhancements,” Ben Furnas, the Govt Director of Transportation Alternate options, mentioned in a press release.
“We all know that Metropolis Corridor’s plans aren’t simply wrongheaded, they’re unlawful — and we are going to preserve preventing for secure streets each step of the way in which. We received’t let anybody make our streets extra harmful. Mayor Adams, we’ll see you in courtroom.”
The ruling comes simply someday after a biking activist group, Transportation Alternate options, filed a lawsuit asking a decide to dam the sudden elimination plans — a transfer the group argued would make the roadway “extra harmful.”
Walker-Diallo dominated that the Adams administration had violated metropolis code and “acted arbitrarily, capriciously, and illegally, and so they abused their discretion” by not consulting native elected officers or the group earlier than making the announcement final week.
Metropolis Corridor, nevertheless, contended they took under consideration suggestions from Williamsburg locals when deciding to revamp the trail.
“After a number of harmful incidents — lots of which concerned youngsters getting critically harm — the Adams administration listened to the group’s considerations and determined to reconfigure the bike lane to its unique mannequin whereas nonetheless sustaining security measures,” Metropolis Corridor advised The Publish in a press release.
“It’s unlucky that elected leaders are deliberately disregarding the wants and security of the very group who elected them to be their consultant. We are going to tackle this matter in courtroom the place we’re assured we are going to prevail.”
Adams revealed in an X publish final Friday that the protected bike lane, which sits between the curb and parked automobiles between Willoughby and Flushing avenues, can be eliminated following “a number of incidents — together with some involving youngsters.”
It additionally comes on the heels of his plan to introduce a 15 mph pace restrict for e-bikers, who’re infamous for dashing and weaving via metropolis visitors.
Activists declare town was planning to start building as early as Wednesday.
Adams is looking for to revive the bike lane again to its unique location on the street, alongside transferring visitors with out protecting bollards or boundaries.
The choice was seemingly impressed by the surprising Might 28 crash that despatched a 3-year-old woman flying throughout the pavement after an e-biker utilizing the bike lane slammed into her — an incident that exploded right into a political firefight between mayor and Williamsburg Metropolis Councilmember Lincoln Restler, who signed a letter of assist for the lawsuit.
Video of the accident confirmed the small woman speeding out from the parked automotive and instantly into the biker’s path, leaving him little room to hit the brakes.
Fortuitously, the woman was merely sideswiped and was left with minor accidents to her decrease abdomen.
Simply two weeks earlier, nevertheless, one other little one was hospitalized after being struck by a bike owner whereas exiting a faculty bus on the intersection of Bedford Avenue and Myrtle Avenue.
Greater than 53 accidents associated to bicycles, e-bikes, and scooters have been reported on Bedford Avenue since 2024, public data present.
