Tuesday’s Headlines: Cops Are Doing It Wrong Edition

Big news out of Hell Gate yesterday: A state judge has ruled that every red-light ticket written to a cyclist under the state’s vehicle and traffic law since 2019 is bogus.

See, in 2019, as Streetsblog readers well remember, the city legalized the practice of biking through a red light on a pedestrian “walk” signal — the so-called Leading Pedestrian Interval.

For the longest time, however, NYPD cops have been wrongly writing tickets for cyclists who go through the “red” on the walk signal. We’ve covered that, too. Last year, we even covered a case of woman who had wrongly gotten a red-light ticket event though she had legally crossed on the “walk” signal. That case featured the long-sought absolute admission by city lawyers: yes, it is legal under city law for cyclists to pass through red lights on a “walk” signal.

But police training being what it is, cops still wrongly write red-light tickets under the state vehicle and traffic law — which, as the Hell Gate story shows, isn’t right. Cops can write red light tickets under the city law, but they have to make it clear that the cyclist did not have the “walk” signal, a defect of most tickets.

Lawyer Gideon Oliver gets the credit in the latest case. So if you have received a red light ticket under the state VTL, fight it — you’ll win.

In other news from a slow day:

• Gothamist wrote up the latest medical study on the link between motorized transport and head injuries, but really downplayed two things: The study authors weren’t demonizing e-bikes, but rather calling for roadways to be made safer for them, and that rates of head injuries were more or less the same for e-bike riders and regular bike riders. The issue, of course, is we keep getting hit by car drivers, as The Guardian reported. We’ll have more coverage of the report later in the week.
• Let’s upgrade the MTA’s power systems! (NY Times)
• Another outlet has jumped on the state’s data center subsidy scam. (NY Focus)
• The Department of Sanitation has finally opened a new garage in Williamsburg (Williamsburg365). Now, maybe the agency can finally do something about the overcrowded garage on Second Avenue next to the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, where so many trucks overflow onto all the side streets that it’s visible from space.
• And you thought pot was legal? (Gothamist, Hell Gate)
• The MTA Inspector General caught another cheating LIRR employee. (NY Post)
• Noise complaints are up, the Post reports. OK, now do the Prospect Expressway, which every night at 1 a.m. sounds like the Mos Eisley spaceport.
• The Five Boro Bike Tour is on May 3. (amNY)