Protected Central Park West Bike Lane Backed By CB7 Committee

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The Upper West Side's community board has taken up calls for a protected bike lane on Central Park West following the death of an Australian tourist.

Community Board 7's transportation committee unanimously passed a resolution asking the city Department of Transportation to explore implementing a protected bike lane on the two-way avenue bordering Central Park. The resolution does not endorse a specific design, and will be voted on during the next full board meeting on Oct. 2.

"I think virtually everyone in this room is aware of a recent incident were an Australian tourist was killed on Central Park West," CB 7 transportation committee co-chair Howard Yaruss said during Tuesday night's meeting. "The painted lane on Central Park West is not a protected lane, it's very unsafe."

Yaruss said that a proposal he made to the board months before 23-year-old Madison Jane Lyden was fatally struck after being forced to swerve from the bike lane would have saved Lyden's life, but was rejected by the city Department of Transportation.

The community board is re-visiting the creation of a protected bike lane on Central Park West following City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal call for a two-way protected lane following Lyden's death. Rosenthal called the death a "a profound tragedy, even more so because it was preventable," in a statement released the week after the collision.

"In many areas of our city, painted bike lanes are simply not enough to protect cyclists. We need a two-way protected bike lane on Central Park West. This should never happen again," Rosenthal's statement read.

During Tuesday night's discussion board members noted that simply swapping the painted bike lane with curbside parking on the West side of the avenue would create a protected lane. One downside of the potential plan would be that the lane would be narrower than other protected lanes in the city, and bikers would be susceptible to being hit by opening car doors, board members noted in their discussion.

Despite the challenges of implementing a protected lane on Central Park West, board members agreed that some protection is better than the current layout, which provides bikers no protection from cars. Since 2012, 113 cyclists have been injured while riding along the avenue, according to a presentation shown during Tuesday night's transportation committee meeting.

Captain Timothy J. Malin of the NYPD's 20th Precinct also endorsed the protected bike lane plan during Tuesday's meeting. In the month following Lyden's death, the 20th precinct issued 260 summonses to cars for bike lane infractions on the busy roadway, Malin said during a previous community board meeting in September.

Malin previously revealed that cab driver Jose Peralta — who was parked in the bike lane before Lyden's death, forcing her to swerve into the road — will not face criminal charges for his role in the deadly collision.

"We took it to the DA's office, everyone on scene wanted to arrest, the collision investigation squad wanted to arrest," Malin said during a September board meeting. "DA didn't want to prosecute."

A spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., said that the DA's office undertook its own analysis on whether Peralta could be criminally charged. That analysis found that charges could not be brought because Lyden never made contact with Peralta's vehicle.

The mothers of Lyden and Cooper Stock — a 9-year-old who was hit and killed by a driver in 2014 — criticized Vance in a joint statement for failing to prosecute drivers who's reckless actions lead to deaths. The statement was released Tuesday by the organization Transportation Alternatives.

“Four years ago, when District Attorney Cyrus Vance refused to prosecute the driver who killed Cooper Stock, he sent a message to all reckless drivers in Manhattan that deadly behavior will not have any consequences under his watch," the statement reads. "That absence of accountability has now taken another life. Madison Lyden was killed after a taxi driver veered into the bike lane she rode in on Central Park West, forcing her into traffic, and D.A. Vance has again to refused to prosecute -- even though the NYPD believed the driver committed a criminal act."

Community Board 7 posted video of the transportation committee meeting to its Youtube account. The committee begins the bike lane discussion about four minutes in.

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images