Bicycling

Chuck Schumer’s Office Has No Comment on Prospect Park West

Streetsblog has contacted Senator Chuck Schumer's press office twice asking for comment on the Prospect Park West bike lane and received no reply.

By Noah Kazis

12:41 PM EST on February 16, 2011

Streetsblog has contacted Senator Chuck Schumer’s press office twice asking for comment on the Prospect Park West bike lane and received no reply.

Reports have recently surfaced personally tying Schumer to efforts to reverse the Prospect Park West redesign, which enjoys broad popular support according to a web survey of nearly 3,000 Brooklynites.

Schumer’s wife, Iris Weinshall, is a former DOT commissioner and prominent ally of a group looking to remove the bike lane.

David Seifman at the Post reported earlier this month that Schumer has spoken to City Council members about his displeasure with the bike lane.

Jim Walden, an attorney with the high-powered law firm Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher, has given his services free of charge to bike lane opponents, who have been threatening to sue the city to remove the lane. Walden is a top Schumer contributor and was on the Senator’s shortlist for a U.S. Attorney nomination in 2009. The anti-bike lane group he’s representing pro bono is based out of 9 Prospect Park West, one of the most exclusive properties in Brooklyn and the same building where Schumer and Weinshall reside.

Schumer, however, has not taken any public position on the redesign and his office has remained silent on the issue.

Noah Kazis

Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox. Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.

Bicycling | Charles Schumer | Park Slope | Protected Bike Lanes

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