Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye.
Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Mayor Adams's senior adviser and top anti-bike lane confidant, is out under a cloud at City Hall, Politico reported on Sunday.
Streetsblog readers will remember Lewis-Martin for her steadfast, often behind-the-scenes, opposition to bike lanes and other policies designed to enhance transportation modes other than the automobile. Despite Adams's campaign commitments to build bus and bike lanes, projects have been stalled, canceled or made worse over and over again on his watch — thanks in large part to the interference of Lewis-Martin.
Lewis-Martin's somewhat abrupt departure — which went into effect the same day it was announced — comes a few months after the feds and Manhattan District Attorney's office raided her home in September as part of a bribery investigation into the city's commercial real estate contracts. Hizzoner's longtime adviser insisted after the raid that she had wanted to retire in January but now planned to stay on even longer "to be with my brother," meaning the mayor. However, the Daily News reported on Sunday that the two had not spoken in "weeks."
Other investigations into Lewis-Martin and her family may be underway, according to reporting in the Times, which also reported that Lewis-Martin could be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury "as soon as this week."
The Times also reported for the first time on Sunday that investigators seized the phone of Gina Argento as part of the bribery probe. Argento's company Broadway Stages was at the center of the opposition to the McGuinness Boulevard protected bike lanes. Lewis-Martin personally interfered to delay, then scale back, key traffic calming aspects of the project. But days after the raid, the Department of Transportation reversed its decision and said it would install the original plan. One could almost hear Lewis-Martin's defense: How could it possibly be a quid-pro-quo if the DOT ended up doing what it said it would do?
Except for a few facts: The Argento family frequently met with Lewis-Martin, according to scheduling records obtained by The Times. Argento's lawyer (also her husband) claimed on Sunday she had "absolutely not" done anything wrong, and that she was being investigated because of her opposition to the bike lane project. Why would a lawyer say the quiet part out loud?
Beyond McGuinness Boulevard, Lewis-Martin's influence essentially made her and the mayor's home borough of Brooklyn off-limits for streetscape changes, with DOT officials loathe to stray into territory where Lewis-Martin might intervene through City Hall apparatchik Richard Bearak to slow down or nix street redesigns. That dam only began to break this year as investigations swirled around Adams and Lewis-Martin, who once bragged about not having ridden the subway since the early 1980s.
Here's a short, and certainly incomplete, list of projects marked by Lewis-Martin's interference:
- The eye of the storm: Traffic calming on McGuinness Boulevard, which Lewis-Martin worked on behalf of the politically connected Broadway Stages film studio to convince the mayor to stall then scale back in 2023. Despite the support of every elected official in the district, Adams insisted on conducting more "analysis" right before the project was set to be installed. He then forced DOT to remove the traffic-calming aspects of the design to maintain more lanes for cars on the deadly Greenpoint strip. DOT in September said it would keep that original plan — only to reverse course and go with the original, more ambitious plan in the days after Adams's federal indictment and the police raid on Lewis-Martin's home.
- The opening salvo: Willoughby Avenue's open street, which Lewis-Martin tried unsuccessfully to kill entirely in the first months of Adams's tenure. The city significantly cut the open street's hours for 2024.
- The Crashland debacle: The protected bike lane on Ashland Place, which real estate developer Two Trees enlisted Lewis-Martin to cut by a block — leaving cyclists, drivers and pedestrians with a confusing and dangerous jumble at Lafayette Avenue, which the city still refuses to address. Lewis-Martin's interference thwarted the bike lane's potential safety impacts: Cyclists injuries at the corner remained flat while pedestrian injuries increased. All for a luxury building's parking garage.
- The ongoing drain on Brooklyn bus riders: Bus lanes on Flatbush Avenue, which remain a faint dream going into the last year of the mayor's term despite his very public commitments to install them when he took office. DOT has been reluctant to advance the long-awaited project because it runs right through Lewis-Martin's political and personal stomping grounds.
Here's hoping Lewis-Martin's exit means the mayor will finally follow through on his campaign commitments to build more bike lanes, bus lanes and plazas.
In other news:
- Task forces and enforcement surges haven't been enough to make a dent in the MTA's fare evasion problem, so the transportation authority is turning to behavioral psychology. (The City)
- Mayoral candidate Brad Lander says former DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan is the "type of" leader he wants in his administration. And he does not support the licensing of e-bikes. (New York Editorial Board via Substack)
- L'Industrie's pizza bus returned over the weekend. Turns out unlimited free curbside parking includes restaurants. (Kathy Park Price via BlueSky)
- Meet the MTA worker whose one-man dance party delights Prospect Park loop goers. (NY Times)
- Wait, there's federal grant money to try to figure out how to get inside the mind of someone who doesn't pay a transit fare? (The City)
- The Port Authority raised bridge and tunnel tolls, yet for some reason, we didn't hear a peep out of all those Jersey drivers and pols who are so offended by congestion pricing. (NorthJersey.com)
- Say goodbye to subway trains with orange and yellow "conversational" seating. (PIX11)
- Try shopping at the MTA's annual "garage sale" this Christmas (while supplies last). (NY Post)
- An MTA bus driver may be out of a job after stabbing a riders during a dispute on the B41. (NY Post)
- Reduced-fare senior OMNY cards are finally coming. (Daily News)
- Gothamist followed Streetsblog's story from Friday on the next round of Citi Bike expansion.
- And now it's time to thank the generous donors who contributed to Streetsblog over the weekend ... and, in doing so, hope you'll join the honor roll in an upcoming edition of our headlines: Thanks, David! Thanks, Clara! Thanks, Stephen! Thanks, Lenny! Thanks, Madeleine! Thanks, Dad! Thanks, Rachel! Thanks, Todd! Thanks, Michael! Thanks, Allegra! Thanks, Elizabeth!
