DOT and TA: “Bike Safety Task Force” Won’t Make Biking Safer

A proposed "bike safety task force" met with resistance from city officials and safe streets advocates at a City Council transportation committee meeting this morning. DOT joined Transportation Alternatives in opposing Intro 219, which would create a two-year bike safety task force that would ostensibly make proposals for the city's bike infrastructure.

DOT Deputy Commissioner Ryan Russo said a new task force devoted exclusively to bike safety would impede existing efforts.

“We believe focusing our resources on the bike network and bike-share expansion, as well as safety and public education campaigns, is the most effective way to make cycling a real transportation option for more New Yorkers,” Russo told the committee. “If Intro 219 were to pass, resources and staff would be diverted from crucial work... to focus on the mandates of the task force.”

Russo referred to the Jamaica Bay Greenway planning process -- where DOT conducted 12 workshops with six community boards over the course of a year -- as an example of the department’s efforts to build support for bike infrastructure development. As for bike safety education, Russo said that DOT has distributed over 145,000 free helmets and 600,000 Bike Smart guides, as well as thousands of bells and lights.

Speaking on behalf of the bill, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer did nothing to allay the perception that the hearings will mainly serve as a venue to kvetch about cyclists. "My office fields nearly daily complaints, many from seniors, who experience near misses with bikers, many of who are breaking the law in some fashion," she told the committee.

Later on, Jack Brown, an inveterate cyclist-basher who goes by the acronym "Coalition Against Rogue Riding," previewed the level of discourse New York City can expect from such hearings, when he likened people on bikes to terrorists.

Testifying against the bill, TA’s Paul Steely White said a task force devoted to addressing such complaints would hinder the efforts of DOT and City Hall's Vision Zero Task Force. "We believe [creating a new task force] would send the wrong message about cycling and Vision Zero," White said in written testimony. "The Vision Zero Task Force should already be considering bicycling infrastructure, and to separate them would detract from efforts to make the streets safer for cyclists."