Sitting Brooklyn borough president and mayoral hopeful Eric Adams is planning the buildout of 300 miles of protected bike lanes in the city over the first four years of his potential first term.
Adams acknowledged the variety of ways New Yorkers use roadways throughout the city on Saturday during an event in which he called for municipal investments in safer infrastructure, which would add to the progress made by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration in adding 28 miles in 2020.
“As mayor I will work to protect all our communities with the same passion and purpose I’ve had for more than three decades of my public life, including from the dangers of traffic violence.” Adams said. “We are a city of pedestrians, cyclists, skaters, drivers, and mass transit riders. The use of our streets must reflect all of those uses safely while encouraging forms of movement that reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.”
Among Adams’ goals for if he wins in the June 22 Democratic primary are:
- Ensuring that bike lanes will be prioritized for street cleaning and snow removal during the winter months, ensuring that delivery workers have safe ways to do their work at a time when many New Yorkers are ordering in;
- Expanding Citi Bike well beyond more affluent communities by committing City funding;
- Establishing minimum allotments for parklets and bike corrals in each community district, providing much needed resources while also daylighting corners to improve sight lines for all users of the roadway;
- Expanding secure bike parking;
- Supporting NYC 25×25, a challenge to reallocate 25% of the city’s streetscape by 2025 from car-centric uses to people-focused uses, not just protected bike lanes but also wider sidewalks, dedicated bus lanes, plazas, Open Streets, and green spaces.
Adams appears to be pushing hard to win over the city’s transportation advocates as well as those working in mass transit . On April 29, the Transport Workers Union Local 100 endorsed Adams, a former NYPD officer who patrolled the subways prior to his political career.
Local 100 sports a member base of over 40,000 working the trains, stations and buses for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
“Our members and officer have known Eric for a long time,” TWU Local 100 President Tony Utano said. “He’s stood with us in many battles and has always been there for us. He’s earned this endorsement and richly deserves it.”
At the end of 2020, the city Department of Transportation announced that there was officially 1,375 with over 500 of them being protected miles.
