Williamsburg’s Bedford Ave. bike lane was granted a last-minute reprieve Tuesday, as an appellate decide dominated on an emergency restraining order simply hours earlier than metropolis work crews had been set to start eradicating the controversial piece of biking infrastructure.
Lourdes Ventura, an Affiliate Justice within the Kings County Appellate Division, dominated that the Adams Administration couldn’t go forward with its plans to take away the protected bike lane from the central Brooklyn thoroughfare Tuesday night, after Williamsburg resident Baruch Herzfeld and advocacy group Transportation Options appealed final week’s lower-court ruling that the elimination work may proceed.
The town is enjoined from any elimination work till a scheduled July 23 listening to, at which attorneys for the Adams administration will likely be anticipated to make their case for his or her plans to maneuver bicycle site visitors adjoining to motorcar site visitors alongside Bedford Ave.
“The bulldozers might be ready to destroy the Bedford Ave. safety improvements, but the Adams administration is going to have to spend their night preparing their legal case, not ripping out a critical safety project and central Brooklyn’s only protected bike lane,” Ben Furnas, head of Transportation Options, stated in a press release.
A Metropolis Corridor spokesperson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The most recent twist within the destiny of the Bedford Bike Lane got here as Transportation Division work crews had already posted “no parking” indicators alongside the route forward of deliberate roadwork to start eradicating the lane Tuesday evening.
The protected lane — by which bicyclists journey between the sidewalk and a row of parked automobiles — was first put in in October 2024.
Previous to that, bicycle site visitors on Bedford Ave. traveled in a painted lane alongside automotive and truck site visitors.
In pushing for a reversal, the Adams administration has cited opposition from some Williamsburg neighborhood leaders who say fast paced bikes and e-bikes within the protected lane pose a hazard to pedestrians and to kids exiting college buses mid-block. A video montage launched by the mayor’s workplace exhibits a number of kids getting hit by e-bikes as they run towards the sidewalk from between parked automobiles.
The DOT testified final month that the set up of the protected bike lane had pushed accidents on that part of Bedford Ave. down by 47%. However the company additionally acknowledged that Hatzalah, the personal ambulance service that usually responds to accidents within the Haredi communities of Williamsburg, doesn’t all the time report its calls to town.
