PSC06262020 - Page 4

BY KEVIN DUGGAN The Department of Transportation cast blame on one of its staffers Monday, claiming the offi cial “misspoke” when she said the agency was in talks with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s offi ce about a potential bike lane on the Brooklyn Bridge’s roadway. “The DOT employee, who may not have had every detail on this available, misspoke,” said Scott Gastel in a statement on June 22. When asked about the staffer’s comments at the mayor’s daily press briefi ng earlier that day, the agency’s commissioner Polly Trottenberg spoke only in vague terms about having discussed in the past the troubles cyclists face when crossing the East River, without providing any specifi cs on further plans for more space to pedaling across the borough’s namesake bridge. “It’s been sort of a longstanding �� COURIER L 4 IFE, JUNE 26-JULY 2, 2020 question for the East River bridges which are certainly — particularly the Brooklyn and the Queensboro — you know, pinch points for cycling in and out of Manhattan, about whether we can take look at traffi c lanes, it’s something the agency’s looked at,” Trottenberg said at the press conference. However, DOT’s liaison for Downtown Brooklyn’s Community Board 2 previously told its Transportation Committee on June 18 that the agency was in talks with Hizzoner’s offi ce about turning one of the roadways on the iconic span into a bike lane, adding that more information was to come soon. “DOT is in talks with the mayor’s offi ce and City Hall for conducting a study about the feasibility of a bikeway on the mainline of the Brooklyn Bridge and you may hear about that in the coming weeks,” Emily Riquelme told the civic panel at a virtual hearing . The agency on June 22 declined to provide any further details beyond Trottenberg’s comments. “The Commissioner clarifi ed where things stand,” Gastel said in his statement. De Blasio said at the morning briefi ng that he had not heard of the plans, adding his concerns whether the scheme would work because of the heavy car traffi c crossing the bridge. “The Brooklyn Bridge, that one’s a sensitive one, because it’s such a crucial artery,” he said at a press briefi ng June 22. “I had not heard that, I’m not sure how workable that is.” Trottenberg also clarifi ed that offi cials had yet to discuss it with Hizzoner directly. “To be fair to the mayor, I The Brooklyn Bridge. Photo by Caroline Ourso don’t think the discussion has made it to his level yet,” she said. The agency’s blame on one of its staffers came after Trottenberg tried to discredit this paper’s reporting as inaccurate, despite a full recording of the virtual meeting being readily available online. “Somehow I think between maybe what the staffer said and what was in that article, it wasn’t quite accurate,” Trottenberg said. “It said that the DOT, we had completed our study of looking at whether the promenade on the bridge could accommodate more space for bikes, but we haven’t, so that part isn’t true.” But Riquelme had told the committee that the study for the pedestrian walkway was in fact fi nished and that it found the expansion to be unfeasible. In 2016, the agency hired consulting fi rm Aecom to do a seven-month, $370,000 engineering study to see how much weight the span can carry and look into ways to expand the existing promenade, by decking over parts of the girders that run above the car lanes, the Times reported at the time. DOT’s press offi ce declined to provide a more detailed update on the almost four-yearold study. PEDALING IT BACK City offi cial ‘misspoke’ about planned Brooklyn Bridge bike lane: DOT ��