City stalls bike lane near Manhattan court after pushback from judges

Court officials want their parking spots [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( [VIEW IN BROWSER]( [DONATE]( [WNYC Politics Brief] City stalls bike lane near Manhattan court after pushback from judges Plus: NJ Transit's service for riders with disabilities is chronically delayed. The LIRR is just running ghost trains in and out of Grand Central Madison. And 7 train service will be suspended for 6 upcoming weekends. --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- [a cyclist in traffic downtown] Jake Offenhartz/Gothamist A [long-promised bike lane in Lower Manhattan]( is being held up amid objections from a powerful force: New York’s judges and court officers. The five-block stretch of Centre Street between Worth and Canal streets currently has two lanes used for parking and through-traffic. But on many days, the strip is choked with traffic and double-parked cars — the bulk of them featuring government parking placards issued to judges, prosecutors, court officers and cops. Planning documents from the city show the bike lane — which is partially painted — would take up curbside space on the west side of the street. The rest of the road would be reframed to include two parking lanes and one narrower lane for traffic. It would fill in a key connection for the growing number of cyclists riding over the bike path on the Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 2021. Dennis Quirk, the president of the New York State Court Officers Association, said his association's members were "absolutely opposed" to the bike lane, pointing to the need to keep traffic moving on Centre Street as a security concern. He argued curbside parking spaces are important for criminal court judges who "don't like traveling on the train or public transportation and then bumping into people whose cases are in front of them." One court official even likened the potential traffic disruption to a notorious effort by France to deter invasion from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. "The last time such an intransigent, hubristic and ill-conceived misperception of vehicle movements occurred, the Maginot Line was involved," said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration. "If they really do enforce it, it's going to be a disaster." In a 2021 presentation, the Department of Transportation estimated the lane would remove approximately 15 parking spaces, and said the project was part of its effort at "expanding the protected bicycle lane network to the East River bridges." More than a year later, cycling advocates argue the lack of progress on the project is evidence of Mayor Eric Adams’ misplaced priorities. "The placard class is the core constituency of Mayor Adams, so when they complain about this stuff, he listens," said Jon Orcutt, policy director for the group Bike NY. "It’s the uniformed civil service and people who hugely abuse the limited parking privileges that are supposed to come with that with massive impunity." Though Adams has touted his major investment in street safety initiatives, he is on track to build [just a fraction]( of the 300 miles of protected bike lanes he promised on the campaign trail. — [Reporting by Jake Offenhartz]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- NJ riders with disabilities lament Access Link's delays, lost drivers. NJ Transit promises change [a person in a wheelchair waits to board an Access Link bus] NJ Transit NJ Transit has six months to [start improving its Access Link public ride service for people with disabilities]( after the U.S. attorney's office found a pattern of late trips and excessively long rides. The Access Link network is supposed to take people with disabilities anywhere within a three-quarter-mile radius of an NJ Transit bus or rail stop. It works much like an Uber Pool, except customers make requests days ahead of time and are given limited windows when drivers are available. But a one-month review by the U.S. attorney’s office found drivers arrived after the pickup window 13% of the time and dropped passengers off late during almost 40% of the trips. Gothamist also conducted multiple ride-alongs last summer that generally confirmed the U.S. attorney's findings. On a hot day in August, we commuted home with Matthew Gross, a 53-year-old ShopRite worker who uses Access Link to get to work because a gunshot wound years ago left him unable to drive. His driver, who arrived three hours after his shift ended, then picked up another passenger and got lost, turning Gross' 5-mile commute home into a 1 hour-and-6 minute journey. Javier Robles, a Rutgers professor and chair of the NJ Disability Action Committee, said that in addition to hiring more Access Link drivers, NJ Transit needs to do a better job promoting its conventional bus and train system to people with disabilities. He said the agency also needs to leverage new technology to better route the rides and give drivers the most up-to-date GPS systems that are connected to Google Maps. Under the settlement with the U.S. attorney's office, Access Link has until late June to meet certain benchmarks, such as ensuring 88% of pickups happen within a 30-minute window of their scheduled time every month, and no more than 2% of trips are missed every month. The agency must also meet one-and two-year milestones, such as making sure no more than 10% of trips are excessively long 24 months from now. If it fails to meet certain measures, prosecutors could file a civil action against the agency. — [Reporting by Karen Yi]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's what else is happening The Long Island Rail Road is running empty trains in and out of Grand Central Madison as a ventilation problem continues to delay the start of actual service. Gerard Bringmann, an MTA board member who represents LIRR riders, said it's at least good that crews are doing practice runs. ([Gothamist]( The New Jersey-bound side of the Holland Tunnel will close six nights a week through the end of 2025 to repair damage by Hurricane Sandy, Port Authority officials said. The partial closure will begin Feb. 4 and run every night from 11 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., except Saturdays and major holidays. ([Gothamist]( Activists say a cyclist's death in Gowanus last week could've been avoided if the city had installed safety measures after previous deaths. Sarah Schick, a 37-year-old mother of two, is the fourth person to have died within a half-mile of the intersection of 2nd Avenue and 9th Street since 2017, according to the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. ([Gothamist]( The MTA said it plans to suspend weekend 7 train service between Queens and Manhattan for six weekends beginning Feb. 4. The shutdowns are needed for crews to install new ADA-compliant elevators at the Queensboro Plaza station, impacting service on the line west of the station. ([AM New York]( From April through November of this year, the city Department of Transportation plans to study whether Canal Street could get a bike- and pedestrian-friendly renovation. City Council member Christopher Marte, who represents the area, said he hopes the city will widen sidewalks and install a new bike lane to better connect the East River bridges with the Hudson River Greenway. ([Streetsblog]( New Jersey has taken $2 billion out of its Clean Energy Fund over the past 10 years to cover NJ Transit operating costs, and other state expenses like utility bills. Environmental advocates fear the state won't be able to deliver on its promise of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 50% by 2030 if it keeps depleting the fund — even if some of that money is being diverted to support mass transit. ([New Jersey Monitor]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- And Finally: We've almost made it to another safe, beautiful, wonderful, uplifting Friday [a video of a subway conductor giving an uplifiting message]( [@doaalsaleh/Twitter]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Support WNYC + Gothamist Make a donation to support local, independent journalism. Your contributions are our largest source of funding and pays for essential election coverage and more. [DONATE]( [Facebook]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [Instagram]( [WNYC]( [WQXR]( [NJPR]( [GOTHAMIST]( [WNYC STUDIOS]( [THE GREENE SPACE]( Copyright © New York Public Radio. 160 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013 All rights reserved. [Terms of Use.]( Want to change how you receive these emails? 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