Lawmaker Pushes FDNY To Get On Board With Protected Bike Lanes

The Fire Department must speed up its reviews of protected bike lane projects, in order to prevent firefighters and litigious opponents of cycle paths from undermining Mayor Mamdani’s agenda to make New York City’s streets the “envy of the world,” a Brooklyn lawmaker demanded.

Council Member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) penned a letter to Mamdani’s Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore on Monday, asking her to ensure New York’s Bravest are on board with the life-saving street redesigns by their supposed partners at the Department of Transportation. Restler’s letter came less than a week after FDNY brass bad-mouthed protected bike lanes, without any evidence, at a wacky council hearing in February.

“Mayor Mamdani has made clear that he is committed to delivering transformational street safety improvements, including achieving a network of protected bike lanes across the city. I hope we can count on you to help create a culture at FDNY of working productively with colleagues in city government to advance critical life saving improvements – like protected bike lanes,” wrote the progressive pol.

Kevin Woods, the department’s chief of fire operations, told lawmakers at a Council oversight meeting last Wednesday that the agency opposes protected bike paths. Woods walked back his comments later in the same hearing after Streetsblog asked his superiors about the comments, but he and his colleagues’ dislike for the redesigns was impossible to ignore, Restler noted.

“While they later attempted to correct their testimony, their message and apparent disdain for the work of the Department of Transportation was evident,” wrote Restler. “FDNY personnel testified that they could produce no examples of effective collaboration with DOT — despite written testimony to the contrary.”

The council’s Committee on Fire and Emergency Management billed the Feb. 25 hearing as a public assessment of a 2025 law that requires nearly all street redesigns — including open streets longer than three blocks — obtain approval from nearby firehouses.

The legislation added yet another layer of paperwork to the “major transportation projects” law passed in 2009. That law codified that street revamps needed the sign-off from the Fire Department’s headquarters, the Police Department, the Department of Small Business Services, and the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities — and provide a certification of those consultations.

Advocates and at least one former fire commissioner have slammed the law as enabling bike lane opponents to pit FDNY and DOT against each other. The cross-agency interference is a one-way street; after all, DOT doesn’t require that FDNY employ smaller and safer fire trucks.

Opponents of bike lanes have used the law to sue the city and stop street redesign projects, most notably on 31st Street in Astoria. Restler said that establishing a clear timeline would help reduce the risk of drawn-out legal battles.

“We’ve seen with multiple bike lane projects that this local law has been used in litigation to try to slow down implementation of life saving projects,” he said at last week’s hearing.

The Brooklyn pol grilled Woods and fellow FDNY brass about how long it takes them to review DOT projects. Fewer than half, or around 40 percent, get feedback from the agency, officials told the Council, but Woods declined to set a deadline for future reviews.

“We don’t want to put a timeframe on it, because all the projects are different,” Woods told the Council. “Some are more complicated than others.”

Woods explained that the overarching chain of command — not just local firehouses — take a look at the plans. He said the prolonged process is justified by fires that require multiple units to extinguish.

“You can have many people, many units, coming from outside that area,” said Woods, who is not a traffic engineer. “So that’s why the division and the battalion have to see where these, say, protected bike lanes are, where there’s going to be future bottleneck.”

The comment reflects the senior fire official’s car-centric perspective. Traffic engineers have known for decades that building more space for cars — not bike lanes — increases congestion, due to the phenomenon of induced demand. Protected bike paths actually provide a clear emergency lane, as can be seen here:

Firefighters are in no rush to provide feedback, Woods added, since they’re primarily focused on their job of responding to emergencies, inspecting buildings, and during the recent snowstorm, shoveling out hydrants.

“We don’t want to rush this, we want it perfect, we want it right,” said Woods. “It’s endless what we do, besides responding to fires and emergencies, so we can’t put a timeframe on that.”

FDNY is staffing up its team with engineers, urban planners and administrative workers to “streamline” that process, Woods added. But Restler said that, without a hard schedule, projects will gather dust as they wait for the agency’s feedback.

“If there are no timeframes … then projects can just linger forever and we don’t want a situation where DOT is getting zero feedback on a project,” Restler said.

City Hall spokesperson Sam Raskin said in a statement that the “FDNY will continue partnering with DOT to protect public safety and to make sure first responders can respond to fires and life-threatening emergencies quickly and reliably.”