IN DEFENSE OF THE BIKE LANE HATERS, OR WHY FRANK BRUNI IS WRONG

On the front page of this weekend’s New York Times opinion section, columnist Frank Bruni wrote a love letter to the city’s transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn. In it, he refuted critics of protected bike lanes — without talking to a single one of them — and proceeded to lionize Sadik-Kahn as a kind of unheralded martyr for smart development.

Let me first say this: I like bike lanes, and I’m generally in favor of them being expanded. But the notion that the DOT has done a bang-up job of putting the lanes in, and that opponents are simply out of touch and car-crazy is ridiculous. Bruni accuses the opponents of bike lanes of “parochialism and selfishness.” But to anyone who went to the meetings about the Columbus Avenue bike lanes (not Frank Bruni!) and then watched Upper West Side leaders forced to do damage control as local businesses started freaking out, it’s hard to swallow the argument that the DOT has simply been misunderstood by a horde of selfish people.

The DOT changed the design of the lanes after the proposal was narrowly approved by the community board, adding more concrete islands and cutting more parking spaces. When businesses started to complain about the lanes, the DOT was totally unresponsive, they said. So local officials had to spend months going around to individual businesses and fixing the mess that the city created. Local businesses reported huge drops in sales — as much as 25% — at a time when most Columbus Avenue businesses are already on the edge, and the vast majority said they were against the lanes. At a meeting in November, Richie Zingone of Zingone Brothers had to be restrained from confronting a DOT employee. Just last month, the owner of the beloved store Maxilla & Mandible blamed the lanes in part for forcing him to close the business. When they were surveyed last year, 72% of local businesses said the lanes had had a negative impact, even after the city had indicated in meetings that local businesses were generally supportive.

To their credit, local biking advocates were involved in addressing the concerns of business owners. The city, not so much.

Bruni, I think, confuses the DOT’s intransigence and indifference with a kind of virtuous assertiveness (everyone likes it when the bullies are on their side). It’s a mistake the Times has made before, most notably when it praised Robert Moses tactics as he proceeded to bulldoze much of New York City and build highways.

Frank Bruni is one of the great food writers of our time. But he got caught taking a really nice bike ride with a controversial powerful person and forgetting she was a powerful person. Instead, he saw her as a victim. Puh-leeze!