Mayor Puts Dyckman Street Bike Lane Removal on Hold

Cyclists cheer, business owners complain as Inwood awaits a verdict on bike lane’s fate.

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By Kristy Cappiello

An extended battle over a bike lane along a three-block strip of busy Dyckman Street in Inwood is continuing after Mayor Bill de Blasio halted plans to remove it.

In May, Community Board 12 voted to remove the protected bike lane bordering the south sidewalk, turning the northbound bike lane into a two-way corridor for bicyclists. Both lanes were installed along all .8 miles of Dyckman Street in December, but complaints from the fire department and local businesses persuaded the board that the lanes were unsafe and unnecessary.

Last month, the Department of Transportation announced via Twitter that it would remove one lane, following the community board’s action. But the mayor halted the removal last month. “This was not brought to my desk. It should have been brought to my desk,” de Blasio said in an interview with Streetsblog, a local transportation advocacy publication.

That came as a surprise to local officials.

“He stopped it?” asked Ebenezer Smith, district manager of Community Board 12, initially unaware of the mayor’s action. “Mayor de Blasio has been to Dyckman once for dinner while he was campaigning, but 

I don’t think it was enough for him to see the problem. I don’t think he’s been there at rush hour or when the fire department is there; that would be good for him to see.”

The transportation department installed bike lanes on Dyckman Street after nine years of cyclists petitioning for protection. For now, “Bike Lane” signs are posted along the street until Post Avenue, where a “Wrong Way” sign appeared in early September indicating that cyclists cannot proceed in a protected lane. There’s no indication that the lane on the other side of the street has become two-way, andno directions as to where cyclists should go.

“Please get rid of the bike lanes,” said firefighter Raul Ramirez. “First responders cannot respond adequately and we can’t respond on time.”

A cyclist himself, Ramirez encourages bike riders to use side streets instead of busy thoroughfares like Dyckman. He was happy to hear about the plans to make two lanes one, but frustrated with the mayor’s decision to hit pause. “He doesn’t have to respond in an emergency,” he grumbled.

Community Board 12 acted after business owners rallied and showed up at meetings to plead their case against the bike lanes.

Andy Linn, who owns Kobe’s World, an electronics store, went to meetings to explain how the lanes hurt his business. “Business went down 50 percent,” said Linn. In his 23 years of owning the store, he’d never lost so much business so quickly, he told the board. “Since they eliminated the lanes, business is back to usual. If they put them back, I don’t know how I’ll afford to stay.”

Andis Nornta, an employee at Dyckman Express, a restaurant on the corner of Dyckman and Nagle Avenue, said the lanes discourage customers from coming into stores and restaurants.

“It’s killed business here because there is no parking,” said Nornta, who said he’s seen a decline in sales since the lanes were installed in December. “Our customers won’t even bother ordering food to pick up because they have nowhere to park.”

But cyclists concerned about the safety agree with the mayor and hope he keeps the lanes.

“The issue comes in when cars do U-turns and think they have more room than they do because of the large bike lane,” said Judi Desire, founder of Uptown and Boogie, a cycling advocacy group. Desire remembers her near-accident while using a two-way bike lane in downtown Brooklyn and worries about less experienced cyclists. She was riding on Jay Street when an SUV started turning into the bike lane. “I almost got hit. I missed him by a meter and everyone who saw it gasped,” she recalled, “I’m not putting a group of new cyclists on Dyckman. No way.”

The plans to remove the lane have been postponed indefinitely, according to the community board, until the mayor and the Department of Transportation can reach an agreement. Neither the mayor’s office nor transportation officials responded to requests for further information. 

(Photos by Kristy Cappiello)

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