The City Council’s top transportation official is demanding that Mayor Adams remove a protected bike lane in her district because “no one uses it” — which is true … because rule-breaking drivers constantly fill it with their cars.
Instead of demanding that the city properly enforce the raised bike lane on Beach 20th Street, Council Transportation Chair Selvena Brooks-Powers called for the city to restore the roadway to its previous dangerous condition.
“We’ve been trying to get [the bike lane] removed for three years,” Brooks-Powers told the mayor at the “community conversation” in Arverne, Queens on Wednesday. “It wasn’t supported by the community. … In effect it’s not a bike lane quite honestly; no one uses it, they [drivers] park there. We would like to see the hard infrastructure removed.”
Ironically, hours earlier, in the friendly confines of the Council chamber 17 miles from her district, it was Brooks-Powers who hectored DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez over the Adams administration’s failure to construct enough protected bike lanes to comply with the Streets Master Plan law.
“The report noted that the DOT installed roughly 29 miles of protected bike lanes in 2024, which is an improvement but still less than the 50-mile benchmark required,” Brooks-Powers told Rodriguez after a heated back-and-forth over the department’s report (which was late).
Rodriguez, perhaps recalling how many times Brooks-Powers has supported bike lanes in general, but not in her district, said his department can only reach its goals with buy-in from communities and their Council members.
“Fifty miles of bike lanes is not realistic unless everyone is on board, unless every Council member comes and says, ‘I want bike lanes in my district,’” said Rodriguez.
Indeed, later at the “community conversation,” Brooks-Powers did ask for a bike lane to be removed in her district, which would obviously reduce the DOT’s mileage count towards the 50 required miles.
Cyclists in Queens were shocked to hear that the Transportation Committee chair would want a bike lane removed.
“I cannot believe that was even entertained by the head of the Transportation Committee, who earlier in the day noted how backed up the city is in implementing their bus and bike lanes across the city precisely, according to the commissioner, because of local meddling,” said Jim Burke, best known for his work with the 34th Avenue open street in Jackson Heights.
The bike lane in question was installed under the de Blasio administration, the plan for the lanes was finalized in 2019. The raised two-way bike lane is on Beach 20th Street between Mott and Cornaga avenues and serves as a connection to the beach. Parking was always barred from the lane that is now one of the DOT’s “mountable” bike lanes, which is designed to act as an emergency lane for vehicles. But whether for EMTs or cyclists, the bike path is almost always impassible due to drivers using it for illegal parking.
Since the lane went in, it has been used by residents as free parking, causing bottlenecks and creating danger for cyclists who have to go in and out of the raised lane, often against traffic, as journalist Liam Quigley showed.
But politicians, including in this case, Brooks-Powers, blame the bike lane for what’s really a parking enforcement problem. And no one at the community conversation meaningfully defended the transportation infrastructure, which is only rendered useless because drivers use it as their personal parking lot.
“If the issue is that cars are illegally parking on it, then that has to be addressed,” said Burke. “Why should the illegal parkers, the people who are breaking the law, get to dictate the safety of everybody else? The last thing she should be doing is advocating for removal of protected bike lane.”
Rodriguez did not specifically defend the Beach 20th Street lane — and even agreed to do a walk-through with the community member and Brooks-Powers, but DOT spokesperson Will Livingston later told Streetsblog that the DOT remains committed to safety on Beach 20th Street.
“We will be exploring ways to harden this bike lane in the future and working with NYPD to increase enforcement efforts to help prevent illegal parking,” said Livingston.
Since former Mayor Bill de Blasio ushered in the “Vision Zero” era in 2014, the DOT has removed just one protected bike lane due to community backlash. In 2018, then-Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and Rep Adriano Espaillat were able to lobby for removal of protected lanes on Dykman Street in Manhattan, returning danger to the corridor. (The bike lane was eventually restored.)
At the meeting on Wednesday night, Mayor Adams reiterated his flailing philosophy on bike lanes.
“There needs to be a balance,” Adams said, referring to bike lane construction. “That’s the conversation I have with the commissioner all the time, you’ve got to have a balance.”
That “balance” has resulted in a massive shortfall in legally required bike and bus lane construction. And the current administration has watered-down planned street safety improvements due to political pressure, including along McGuinness Boulevard and on Ashland Place.
On Ashland Place, the mayor has the support of the community, which he has said is so important. Last week, the full community board voted to demand that he finish the protected bike lane that currently ends abruptly, putting cyclists in danger:
