Challenging New York City's Bike Lane Expansion

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, a lot of people in New York are angry, not only because of the motorcycles. They’re congestion pricing the motorcycles. They’re going thirty miles an hour, forty miles an hour. I feel like they’re trying to kill some people with us today is Hartley Bernstein of the firm, a partner in the Bernstein and Churning, and he is angry as hell,

0:24 and he has a lot of people he is representing on this situation in Manhattan, the Bronx Queens. Well, mister Bernstein, tell us what the heck is going on?

0:39 Speaker 2 Well, thank you for having me today. What’s going on is that the city and the Department of Transportation are accelerating building these protected bike lanes all over the city and ignoring the needs of the communities, creating tremendous congestion, stopping deliveries from getting through, and creating safety hazards for people who just want to get across the street. And

1:05 with the proliferation of these vehicles, the e bikes and the e scooters and the motorbikes, people just are scared and they feel like they are trapped on their street because they can’t get anywhere, and deliveries, can’t get to stores, they can’t get to residents, and it’s impeding businesses, it’s endangering individuals, and it’s only getting worse. And every day

1:33 there’s a different story about somebody getting hit by any e bike. Woman last week gets hit in a coma because of it. Yesterday somebody else collided and was injured in Central Park. It’s a daily occurrence that the city seems to ignore.

1:52 Speaker 1 Well, I mean the city is ignoring it, even though the police Department is doing a great job and we asked them to. They’ve been asked to control the speed and the direction of the bicycles because these bicycles are going in the wrong direction. You don’t know if they’re coming or going. You have to look both ways. In

2:13 the fact is they’re not going to fifteen miles an hour that they’re supposed to go. They’re going twenty thirty forty miles an hour. I mean, it’s become a dangerous situation trying to cross the street in New York City.

2:26 Speaker 2 And they’re not just speeding, but they’re ignoring the traffic lights and the stop signs. And when you talk about the police department, one of the of the checks supposedly on the Department of Transportation is there’s a statute that requires them to run by any plan to put in a protective bikep lane and other changes in streets by

2:49 a number of city agencies, the police Department, the Fire Department, the Department of Protecting People with Disabilities, and the mayor has now proposed that the Arder Commission put a resolution on the ballot this November that eliminates that requirement. So the Department of Transportation, if it passes, we’ll be able to simply change every street at once without anybody’s approval.

3:16 Speaker 1 How can they do that? I mean, this is well, I’m very much concerned about our citizens. I’m very much concerned about our children, and I’m very much concerned about some of the things that are going on in the city.

3:31 What quarter are you in and what are you hoping to get?

3:36 Speaker 2 Well, we’re in the State Supreme Court in New York County and we’ve already got in order to show cause to stop them from starting to change West seventy second Street. We’re in federal court in Manhattan on behalf of a number of disabled people who are really obstructed from accessing rides, vehicles and getting across the street. Queens on behalf of

4:01 a group in thirty first Street in Astoria, where the judge originally last December issued in order telling DOT to stop trying to put these bike lanes on thirty first Street. DOT has managed to wangle its way around it. They now reconfigured their plan and we’re back in court in thirty first Street to stop them from doing that. So

4:26 it’s a fight in all of the boroughs on behalf of communities that are just being ignored by the city, by the Department of Transportation and by people who should care about what they need and want.

4:39 Speaker 1 Well, thank you so much for coming on this Sunday morning. And God bless you, God bless America. May we save our city. Thank you so much. Thank you,