Group To Sue City Over Bike Lanes On Northern Boulevard

BAYSIDE, QUEENS -- After months of protesting Northern Boulevard's new bike lanes to no avail, one local Queens group hopes to catch the city's attention with something it can't ignore - A lawsuit.

The Douglaston Civic Association has for months vocally opposed bike lanes installed along Northern Boulevard that members say do more harm than good. But after their complaints to the city - including letters written, protests held and calls made to the mayor - were unsuccessful, the group is trying a new approach.

"We're going to sue the city," said Douglaston Civic Association President Sean Walsh.

Walsh, who made the announcement at Community Board 11's monthly meeting on Monday, said the association would petition Gov. Andrew Cuomo to take away the city's ability to manage state roadways like Northern Boulevard.

"You can see the problems we've had there from the number of accidents since the bike lanes have been installed," Walsh said.

He said the city had "failed in a number of ways on Northern Boulevard," and ignoring locals' complaints of flaws to its new bike lane system was the last straw.

The Department of Transportation installed the bike lanes along Northern Boulevard in September between 223rd Street and Douglaston Parkway, taking aways a lane of westbound traffic and resurfacing it. The initiative was part of a safety redesign of the roadway under Mayor de Blasio's "Vision Zero" initiative to eliminate pedestrian deaths and encourage alternative transportation citywide.

Community Board 11 initially approved the DOT's bike lane proposal in June, but the advisory board rescinded that approval in September after requests to review safety issues went unanswered. A handful of locals have since called for the bike lanes' removal, claiming they are unsafe for both drivers and cyclists.

Walsh said the bike lanes' removal is among a slew of requests from locals, like adding speed zones to the road and making its speed limit universal, that have gone unmet by the city over the years.

"We've asked time and time again for them to adjust the speed (on Northern Boulevard) and they never did," he said.

Walsh was unavailable to comment on specifics of the association's lawsuit immediately after the board meeting, and the DOT did not immediately return requests for comment. This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

His announcement was joined by a handful of complaints voiced on the bike lanes at the board's meeting, and speakers didn't mince words with their criticism.

Michael Feiner, president of the Bayside Hills Civic Association, called it "unbelievably insane" that the city hadn't yet installed signs along Northern Boulevard to warn drivers when a bike lane was ahead.

"If you try to drive on any highway in the city there’s all kinds of signs to slow down, but when you’re heading south on Queens Boulevard there are the most dangerous bike lanes you could imagine and no warning signs," Feiner complained to the board.

Another audience member at the board meeting said the DOT "did a terrible job" designing the bike lanes and introducing them into the community.

"Instead of... introducing the new bike lanes to the community, they put threats on all the bike lines," he said, referring to signs that threatened to ticket or tow cars parked in the new lanes. "Not much thought has gone into it."

But Ben Turner, co-chair of the CB 11 transportation committee, urged locals to give the bike lanes time to work, citing the mayor's announcement on Monday morning that traffic deaths in Queens were at an all-time low under Vision Zero. De Blasio said Queens saw traffic deaths drop by 9 percent in 2017 to just 59, surpassing the borough's previous record low of 63 deaths in 2011.

"People like to dump on Vision Zero, on the mayor's office, and the other safety improvements going in, but there has actually been a decrease in traffic fatalities across Northern Boulevard," he said.

If it seems the opposite, it's only because traffic incidents that occurred after the bike lanes were put in have been given more media attention and widely publicized on Facebook, Turner said.

"These measures are working," he said. "I just urge people to please give it a chance."

District Manager Joe Marziliano said Community Board 11 wouldn't take a position on any lawsuits brought against the city, but the board has opposed the Northern Boulevard bike lanes in the past.

Members made replacing the bike lanes the top priority on the board's 2018 budget in November, and worked on an alternative sidewalk plan with State Assemblyman Edward Braunstein (D-Bayside), who called for the bike lanes' removal in December.

Lead photo via Shutterstock.