Markowitz on PPW Data: It’s a Vast Biking Conspiracy

It’s hard to know what to say after viewing this CBS2/Marcia Kramer segment. Watch Marty Markowitz allege that bike counts on Prospect Park West were inflated because advocates got tipped off by DOT about when the counts would happen, then biked over to use the new lane on those days. Your jaw may drop.

Marty seems to have either lost the ability to distinguish truth from fiction, or his stubbornness is just all-consuming and he’s ceased to care about his public credibility.

Naparstek retrieved this Markowitz quote from an interview with WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein last April, which seemed to indicate that Marty would accept the PPW redesign if it panned out:

I think the two-way bicycle lanes will cause a great inconvenience to the residents of Prospect Park West… I hope that the commissioner and the department is right. If they’re right, and in fact it causes no bottlenecks, no inconvenience, and if it works, I’ll be the first to say I was wrong. I would.

The data shows that the project has met these criteria. So how far will Marty contort himself to defend his position? How long can he hold out, clinging to the notion that the street should go back to its prior incarnation as a three-lane speedway? The longer he does, the more he’ll be remembered as the Borough President who wanted Brooklyn to be plagued by dangerous streets.

Also, as Naparstek points out, how can Marcia Kramer and CBS2 broadcast this slander and not think to call up the advocates whom Markowitz accuses of collusion?