Three blocks of protected bike lane will remain in place on Bedford Avenue for at least another week after a Brooklyn judge maintained a temporary restraining order on Mayor Adams's bid to rip it up.
Judge Carolyn Walker-Diallo heard arguments from the city Department of Transportation as well as supporters and opponents of the bike lane. Supporters have sued to keep the bike lane in place because ripping it up would make the street demonstrably less safe.
Still, the Brooklyn Democratic Party’s influence over the city’s street safety policies took center stage on Tuesday as an influential lawyer and former party boss — to whom Walker-Diallo has donated — argued that the lifesaving Bedford Avenue protected bike lane must go.
Former Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Frank Seddio, the pro-bono lawyer for the bike lane's opponents, told Streetsblog after the hearing that he took the case at the behest of "rabbis" in the "upper echelons of the city."
The lawyer claimed he understood that the bike lane was unsafe because of first hand experience.
"I rode this bike lane myself, not on a bike, I'm too fat," Seddio cracked while arguing his client’s position to the judge. He told Streetsblog after the hearing that his "ride" consisted solely of driving alongside the bike lanes.
Seddio also insisted that NYPD enforcement of double parking in the unprotected bike lane that ran alongside Bedford until last year would have prevented the need for a protected bike lane altogether.
“I think that if we were to make this change and if the police department does its job, we would make the road safe for everyone,” said Seddio.
When Streetsblog pointed out that illegally parked cars blocked the visibility of children getting off of school buses — as DOT noted in the city's court filings — Seddio grew angry. He insisted the cops shouldn't have to do more work, contradicting himself from moments prior.
“Perhaps [the NYPD] should do nothing else,” said a visibly upset Seddio. “Don’t go to the crime, they have to be here to make sure that I don’t park? Come on? What’s practical in New York City?”
“We should turn around and blow the car up right in this spot and let everyone see what’s appropriate,” Seddio added sarcastically. “Please. I have an enormous amount of respect, and we are short 5,000 police officers in this city… we don’t have that many police officers to do that kind of work.”
The arguments
Walker-Diallo will ultimately need to decide whether or not the change from parking protected bike lane (class 1) to painted, unprotected bike lane (class 2) constitutes a major change that warrants notification to the community before it happens.
DOT’s argument, articulated by counsel Kevin Rizzo, is that a bike lane is a bike lane, whether it is protected or not, so reverting back to the old, unprotected design does not require any notification.
“What the DOT is doing is not the actual removal of a bicycle lane,” said Rizzo. “The definition of a bike lane is satisfied before and after.”
But Peter Beadle, the lawyer for plaintiff Rafe Herzfeld, a 12-year-old who uses the protected lane to bike to school, argued that a class 2 bike lane without any protection from traffic is wholly different from the new design.
DOT’s own materials show that the protected bike lane brought injuries down by 47 percent between Dekalb Avenue and Flushing Avenue — proof that changing the design would constitute a major change, Beadle said.
“There is a rational basis to do something, to fix the design to protect the kids,” Beadle said. “What’s not rational and what’s being conflated is… a sudden announcement of the removal of the bike lane. [The DOT] is pretending that the class 1 protected bike lane is the same as the class 2 unprotected bike lane. They might serve the same purpose but they are different things qualitatively.”
DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, who once touted the bike lane's safety at a town hall with concerned Hasidic community residents, now refuses to defend it.
"As New Yorkers, there's always going to be some opinion," he told Streetsblog at an unrelated event on Tuesday when asked why DOT may rip out its own work.
DOT installed the protected bike lane last November after years of advocacy from Brooklyn cyclists. Most of the bike lane falls within the district of Council Member Chi Ossé’s (D-Bed-Stuy). Ossé pushed for the bike lane and remains a vocal supporter.
The rest of the lane — and the area contested by the Hasidic community — falls within the district of Council Member Lincoln Restler (D-Williamsburg). Restler is also a vocal supporter of the bike lane, and last week romped a primary challenger who said she would support its removal. Restler ran with endorsements from the same Hasidic leaders who sparred with him over Bedford Avenue.
In court Seddio brought up Restler, a frequent target of the mayor's, saying that he didn’t have “credibility.”
“Just look at Atlantic Avenue and the BQE and see what Lincoln Restler knows about traffic,” said Seddio. “His credibility in this is minimal as far as I’m concerned.” It's not clear what Seddio meant about the BQE and traffic.
Machine politics
Walker-Diallo was elected to the New York City Civil Court in 2015. Since 2018, she has given over $2,000 to the Brooklyn Democratic Party and its allies, including Seddio, who is now leading the legal case against the protected bike lane.
Seddio last week submitted affidavits from two residents of the area, Nathan Schwartz and Samuel Herskovitz, who say the bike lane has endangered them. Seddio’s involvement persuaded the judge to move up this hearing to Tuesday, instead of the originally scheduled Aug. 6 date.
And Seddio isn’t the only machine politician who has taken a personal interest in this three block stretch of life-saving infrastructure.
Before the Mayor announced that he would remove the three block segment from Willoughby Avenue to Flushing Avenue, former Adams Chief-of-Staff Frank Carone and current Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn took to X to express their disdain for the bike lane and Restler.
With Dave Colon.
