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DOT Says It Will Study City Hall Bike Path for Injuries
The city’s Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told a closed-door meeting of residents and elected officials, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, state Sen. Martin Connor, and Assemblywoman Deborah Glick that the DOT will conduct a 30-day study of the new bike path to determine how many people are injured as a result of run-ins with cyclists. In response to questions from the Trib, a spokesman for the department would not elaborate on the specifics of the study, such as how many injuries the city will deem to be “too many.” “We met with the community and will closely monitor how cyclists and pedestrians interact in City Hall Park during the next month, and we also welcome continuing community input in the process,” the spokesman said. Skip Blumberg, whose Friends of City Hall Park was instrumental in getting the park path reopened in 2007 and who was at the meeting with Sadik-Khan, said the department hadn’t come “anywhere near enough in addressing the community’s concerns about this bike path.” “Their action has been strong-arming and stonewalling,” Blumberg said. “Their theory is that the path will work, but they’re testing that theory with human beings. We feel this falls well short.” Blumberg said he had hoped the DOT would consider alternate routes around the park for bike traffic, but that Sadik-Khan told him the department would not discuss it. He also wants the city to require cyclists to dismount and walk their bikes through the park. Last month, department officials seemed to entertain that possibility when they appeared before the board’s Seaport/Civic Center Committee, but have since said that a dismount rule will not be implemented in the park. “One of their premises for this is that the path doesn’t lend itself to fast or speedy biking, that New Yorkers won’t tear through the park on their commute to or from work,” Blumberg said. “Their understanding of the average New Yorker is suspiciously weak.” CB1 members and neighbors of the Lower Manhatten park were stunned June 30 to find that the DOT had installed a bike path through the heart of the park’s quiet northern walkway, despite the board’s overwhelming rejection of the plan less than two weeks earlier. Members of the board lashed out at the city, and in particular, the Bloomberg administration, after discovering their vote had apparently fallen on deaf ears. “Typical Bloomberg,” said CB1 member Paul Hovitz. “He’s really not interested in community input unless it supports his position.” In June, the DOT unveiled plans for a bike path connecting Hudson River Park to the Brooklyn Bridge. The proposed path was to run the length of Warren Street from the river to the bridge, with a short, connecting jaunt through the north end of City Hall Park, between City Hall and the Tweed Courthouse. After seeing the plans, CB1 voted not to support the plan. Two weeks later, the path—indicated by markers set in the pavement and several small signs—was installed anyway. Julie Menin, CB1’s chairwoman, said she was shocked. “We couldn’t have been more emphatic in that we strongly objected to the [path],” Menin said. “To do this in, really, our only open space in that area doesn’t make any sense at all.” When the DOT first presented the idea of a bike path in the park, many worried about the possibility of injuries, both to pedestrians and cyclists. Now that the path is in place, frequent users of the park say injuries are no longer a possibility; they’re inevitable. “Bloomberg is going to look very silly when someone is seriously hurt on that path, and that clock is ticking,” said CB1 member Roger Byrom, a Warren Street resident. “It’s going to happen.” According to the DOT, Chambers Street has the most bike accidents of any Downtown cross street between Worth and Barclay. Most cyclists crossing Lower Manhattan from Hudson River Park use Chambers Street, which is too challenging for the average rider, DOT officials said. With the park path in place and the Warren Street leg of the bike route slated to be completed sometime in the next few weeks, DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow said the department is counting on success in other parts of the city to replicate itself in City Hall Park. “Shared spaces like this are found elsewhere in the city and in public areas around the country and the world,” Solomonow said. “We will monitor the changes and make any necessary adjustments, with feedback from the community."
Despite assurances of safety, the consensus among park users seemed to be that the path could only result in one thing. “I think it’s a bad mistake, and I think they’re going to have a lot of accidents on their hands,” daily parkgoer and nearby Broadway resident Norma Fontane said. “A lot of kids are going to get hurt, and the elderly, they can’t get out of the way fast enough. This is not the right avenue for them. They’re going to have a lot of problems, and maybe a lot of lawsuits for the city.” Fontane was even more incensed when told the department had ignored her local community board’s recommendation. “How could [the DOT] do that,” she wondered as she fed a small flock of pigeons against the southern fence of the walkway. “That’s not right. It’s like the President. He just does whatever he wants, and we don’t have a choice, do we?”
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