Katz
May 12, 2016 By Michael Florio
Queens Borough President Melinda Katz strongly opposes Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to override a local community board vote and put bike lanes on Queens Boulevard.
Community Board 4 voted Tuesday night to approve a DOT safety proposal for Queens Boulevard, with the exception of planned bicycle lanes, which Chair Louis Walker described as inappropriate for the roadway. Although community boards officially play only an advisory role, it is the DOT’s standard practice to follow their decisions.
However, de Blasio announced Wednesday afternoon that he is overruling CB 4’s vote.
“I have instructed the Department of Transportation to move forward on the next phase of safety enhancements to Queens Boulevard, including a protected lane for cyclists,” de Blasio said in a statement.
Katz, however, believes that the Mayor has wrongly defied local opinion on the issue.
“Any action to install bike lanes along this stretch at this time, regardless of merit, would therefore and understandably be perceived as an imposition by the administration, running directly counter to and overriding the Community Board’s explicitly stated wishes,” she said in a statement.
Katz also criticized the DOT’s process of addressing safety on Queens Boulevard, which runs through several community boards. The agency is tackling its redesign across a three-phase project; CB 4’s vote covered Phase Two, which will run along Queens Boulevard from 74th Street to Eliot Avenue.
“Instead of approaching bike lanes in a vacuum and in piece-meal, segmented fashion, the plan should be postponed for now until the agency can produce a truly community-driven, community-generated, borough-wide plan for the future of bike lanes not only along Queens Boulevard but throughout the borough,” Katz said. “Safety is a shared priority, and there must be a better way to involve communities in expanding bike lanes.”
The Phase Two portion of Queens Boulevard has been excessively dangerous, as 47 people, including 21 pedestrians, were killed or severely injured between 2010 and 2014, according to DOT data. There were 777 total injuries during that stretch.
CB 4 agreed on Tuesday night that safety needs to be addressed on Queens Boulevard, but decided that adding bicycle lanes is not the best way to do so.
Board Chair Louis Walker made the controversial motion to approve the DOT’s proposal without the inclusion of the bicycle lanes.
Although some Board members spoke in favor of the bike lanes – including an ambulance corps volunteer who said injured cyclists are picked up “every other night” on Queens Boulevard – Walker’s motion ultimately carried with only one vote against it and two abstentions.
While Katz may be in agreement with the Community Board, other elected officials believe de Blasio did the right thing.
Council Member Daniel Dromm, who represents this portion of Queens Boulevard, said that the bike lanes need to be included as part of this plan.
“We can’t risking having another death on Queens Boulevard,” Dromm said. “Bike lanes are an essential part of this safety plan.”
“The Mayor was right in moving forward on this plan,” he added.
Dromm was not alone.
Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer stands by de Blasio’s decision as well. Last year the first phase of this project was implemented in his district.
“With these improvements, we can make Queens Boulevard safer for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. I applaud Mayor de Blasio for fighting to protect everyone who uses Queens Boulevard,” Van Bramer said in a statement.
Phase three of the Queens Boulevard redesign is set to take place next year in Council Member Karen Koslowitz’s district.
“Bike lanes are, in my opinion, an integral part of a forward looking grand plan to create a safer Queens Boulevard,” she said.
Local advocacy groups Make Queens Safer and the Queens Bike Initiative also support de Blasio’s decision.
Not only does Dromm agree with de Blasio’s decision, but he also believes the community had ample time to make its voice heard on the issue.
According to the DOT, outreach on this project included making 3,400 contacts with local community residents, fielding 1,105 surveys via the agency website, garnering 705 feedback comments from people on the street, speaking with 92 businesses and holding more than 10 public forums.
“That is a lot of community input,” Dromm said. “That is more than I’ve seen in any project I have worked with the DOT on.”
Dromm also questioned the vote itself, as Walker put the motion forward. Dromm has never seen a motion made by the chairman and even questioned if that was allowed.
“I think that there are a lot of politics going on,” Dromm said. “The community board’s Chairman [Walker] and District Manager [Christian Cassagnol] are being influenced by local politics.”
He declined to elaborate further. CB 4 has not immediately responded to a request for comment, and the Board does not post its bylaws online.
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52 Comments
Bike lanes, might work, if the Bicyclists obeyed “Traffic Regulations” and had at the minimum “Liability Insurance”. I’ve seen three pedestrians hit by bicyclists that avoided stopping for stoplights and several accidents where cars making legal right turns, were hit by cyclists overtaking them on the right. I’m not a fan of Bike Lanes, in Manhattan they have crippled traffic flow on all major Avenues and many cross streets like Grand Street. it is an experiment that has failed. Bicyclists need “liability Insurance”, at the very least.
What the heck is wrong with this BULIMIC PANDA??? YOU SHOULD SEE A PSYCHIATRIST FAST!! A perfect example of a nut, pray to God you get help you crazy nut job.
Great news
Bike lanes were a bad idea on the boulevard, whoever designed it screwed up, but no one incharge will admit it, it was a very expensive mistake. They are very rarely used, QB was made for traffic flow not the 25 bikes a day that use it. Half these bikes are giong the wrong way, they dont respect traffic laws ,all i can say is at least theres very rarely someone using them . it just proves what a waste it was, the lanes dont belong on QB. A lot of wasted money that could have went into other ways to slow the traffic down , but continue the const s nt flow it no longer has ,instead of an unused bike lane. ,ex:red light, speed cameras, occasional police presence, ect. The bike lane was a total financial fiasco.
4 months out of the year the bike lanes go unused, this is NOT Florida.
Why isn’t our corrupt Mayor in prison yet?
Three Crooks, Dromn , Van Brammer and Di Bollocks.
Johnny should be hit with a libel or slander charge.
Mac, you slip in the middle and be a good wee boy.
Divided city governments, taxpayer boondoggles, vehicles would have to stop and go more, thereby negating any perceived carbon offset…
Bikes + cars + trucks + peds + Queens Boulevard…
WHAT COULD GO WRONG?????
Most of the cars and trucks should be over on the expressway and both Queens and Northern blvds should be restricted to slow-moving LOCAL traffic. Anyone who exceeds 20 mph within the confines of our crowded and congested community is creating a dangerous condition and should get a ticket and be made to pay a hefty fine. Either slow down or gtfoh.
Only if you give the bikers speeding tickets and running red light ect. They are more dangerous to pedestrians money can’t be spent on better transportation not everybody can ride bikes
Even more effective would be giving tickets to cars, trucks, and motorcycles who drive too fast and disrespect the community by ignoring the rules of the road. They’re the ones responsible for 99% of all the injuries and deaths on the roads of Queens.
I conducted an undercover survey with all the cyclist men I slept with in Sunnyside. Most cyclist here are homosexual and smell like aged deer meat.
We will all pray for them and our cesspool little Sunnyside.
Amen.
I’ve driven down Queens Blvd numerous times. I’ve only ever seen two people using the bike lanes at any given time. I’m sorry, but this is going to create even more traffic all to benefit a handful of people who will actually use the bike lane. Cars aren’t going anywhere, bikers. Get used to it.
Bikes aren’t going anywhere; as a matter of fact, bike ridings has grown tremendously in NYC over the last 15 years. Fewer people are using cars because they’re running out of parking space. The majority of people who live around here do not have a car and will never have one. Communities with more bikes than cars are safer, happier, and healthier.
NO MORE BIKE LANES! Enough already. Skillman Avenue and 39th Avenue are RIDICULOUS!!!
Tell me more.
Skillman is ridiculous because of how fast the cars drive.
Clunk on top of clunk, that is Queens urban planning. It’s unfortunate the community boards do not have any power. The bike lanes are the classic example of short sighted planning. Easy to get a nice ribbon cut for them without any regard for the real problems they will cause. This plan reminds me of the McGuiness Blvd bike lane. Everyone knows how that turned out, NOT A PLACE FOR BIKES. But what are the other options?
I don’t think that it is possible to be more in the pocket of developers then JVB and Dromm. Maybe we should put together a fundraising group to bribe them to represent their constituents.
Hopefully they’ll all get together when the bike lanes open and take the inaugural ride in them… Then a truck or city bus hits a pothole on the neglected streets of Queens and veers off the road & into the bike lane & wipes out all of these crooked, in the pockets of developers, liberal idiots from existence!!!
Have a great weekend
-sick and tired You believe in myths fairy tales and invisible gods but it’s the liberals who are idiots. LOL
-sick What is the ‘conservative’ solution? You idiot.
Kudos to Melinda Katz for not being DeBlasio’s lap dog.
these tight spandex weaing old men look like theyre smuggling grapes! Its not appropriate for QB” Cover up or take side streets!
Always think out of the box. Mrs. Silva sees this as an excellent opportunity to be the “Un” Di Bazio either in the next election, or when/if he gets whacked prior.
Oh, they all cooked this up to look as if someone is on the side of the people who live here. “You be the bad guy this time. I’ll be the good guy.” Please, it is all political theater. Don’t fall for their baloney, they mean to screw us no matter how much we scream. We were only useful until they got into office, now we are expendable.There is no curtain thick enough to hide the crimes of self-interest going on now.
I think community boards all over the city should be up in arms over the total disrespect they are given my our elected officials. The boards advise the people getting paid to serve us of how we want them to do it an/d those people would b-e wise to take the advice, not throw it out the window to please their other bosses the REBNY!
We did not elect them to patronize us and distract us with pretty pictures of things they should have been doing all along, like taking care of our parks, libraries and adequate modes of transportation. The recent contempt shown for the people who live in N?YC reveals a corrupt heart in city government. I pray the FBI arrests and prosecutes every single double dealer on the payroll. Betraying a public trust is a serious offense against humanity, whether the perpetrators are ever caught or not.
That CB meeting was a total travesty. The Chair refused to let his own board members move for up/down votes on the actual DOT proposal and then he rushed through a modified proposal that made no sense. Several Board members stormed out in disgust. And that was after the Chair and the DM – who shouldn’t have made any statement as he is not a member of the Board – both vilified cyclists. These people are not elected, but they chose to ignore the requests of the Elected representatives in the room, and the expert engineers and planners our tax money pays for, not to mention several dozen CB4 residents who were there in favor of the plan. It was ridiculous.
The three political stooges who are shills for developers
Bike lanes make pedestrians safer!
until the bikes slam into you. then you’re never safe.
Well then by your logic we need to get rid of car lanes above all else since they flat out kill you.
That rarely happens, except maybe to you.
I drive Queens Boulevard all the time. Please….no bike lanes! The ones on Skillman Avenue are bad enough. You go to make a right turn and have to stop to let the biker get past you first!
Seriously! The fact that you’ve got to stop your car is almost too much to bear!
No, the fact that the bike is traveling at a different speed than the rest of traffic makes it more difficult to choose the right move to keep everyone safe in the second-to-second changes of live action traveling. And, perhaps this has escaped your notice, bikers often make very surprising moves in order to avoid stopping with the rest of traffic. Because their mechanics are so different they want to ride in the most efficient way possible. I understand that. But traffic laws were designed around the automobile. The speed of lights, the stopping distances, etc. Until there is a separate system for bikes, unfortunately they must obey rules that are not suited to the way a person powers a bike and relates to the road conditions. So with two kinds of traffic operating under different conditions, bad things can happen. Bikers need to stop screaming at cars and adjust their behavior to protect themselves and others, not to protect the way they wish they could ride. They can suddenly appear in a different lane in a different position and fail to signal their intentions to other travelers on the road. This is a breach of the safety code for everyone that bikers don’t seem to get.
cars have to yield to bikes, it’s the law 🙂
The right speed is slower.
move if you dont like it
Ever think of the diplomatic corps, Don? No? Good. Not for you. Better join the war department.
Really? You are that impatient and selfish you can’t just calm down and wait the couple seconds that takes?
OMG!! You have to check your mirror and allow cyclists coming up the inside to pass before turning right! Next, they’ll be making us check for crossing pedestrians before making a left turn!
between danny dromm and JVB they are both useless for sure —
-Irish lassy. yes let’s vote Republicans into office so we could pass more legislation policing your reproductive organs and make sure you are paid less than a man for the same job.
If Katz wanted to present s borough-wide plan she has had ample opportunity to do so rather than to block this plan that would improve pedestrian safety and provide bike lanes.
Not only that, but the bizarre thing is that here DOT is doing a comprehensive plan along QB and her call for delay would chop it up in exactly the piecemeal way she says shouldn’t be done. There is no logic behind this at all. She has not come to any of the workshops that have been held on this plan and is basically clueless as to the sorry state of Queens bike infrastructure when compared to other boroughs.
More bikes, fewer cars, please.
By who’s authority – yours?
You want more bikes move to California
For 90 years no city official cared one whit how many people died on Queens Blvd. and if you asked for help crossing the atreet they said, “Get yourself a Boy Scout or stay home you blind slowpoke,” or something to that effect. Their efforts to protect the vulnerable have much more to do with development plans than any concern for citizens of NYC.
Wait, so first you complain that no one cared to help. Now you complain that now that they are helping it must be because they are doing it for developers. You can’t have it both ways. Either they should care to help because QB is so dangerous and needs to be made safer [which is true] or they should do nothing, but you can’t complain about both.