New York Post Serving as Stenographers for Bike-Share Litigants [Updated]

Update: Streetsblog had a call in to FDNY about the Post story. After this post went up, we talked with spokesperson Frank Dwyer, who said: “We had no operational or response issues to this call. Period.”

If you believe the story in today’s New York Post, it took an EMT crew over an hour to get a 92-year-old man past an empty bike-share station and into an ambulance on Sunday. But the piece cites no EMTs to back up its claim.

Reporters Julia Marsh and Amber Sutherland quoted no sources other than residents of 175 W. 13th Street and their lawyer, who are suing the city to have the bike-share station removed.

“It’s exactly what this building feared would happen,” said Steven Shore, the building’s attorney, who filed a lawsuit over the bike racks last week. “The good news is the guy’s not dead.”

Parking spots for 39 bicycles create a barricade that runs the length of the 20-story co-op. The ambulance was forced to park three doors down along West 13th Street for the emergency call, the co-op board’s vice president, Dave Marcus, told The Post.

It took EMS workers more than an hour before Liss was taken to Beth Israel Hospital.

“With great difficulty they managed to get the guy out,” said Marcus. He called the kiosk, which was installed in the dead of night last month, an “impregnable wall.”

“The ambulance was forced to pull in at the eastern-most portion of the bike rack, where they had a clear shot to the sidewalk,” Marcus added.

It’s specious at best to claim that EMTs who must constantly work around any number of obstacles, like automobile traffic, could be foiled by a bike rack — particularly since the bike-share station in question replaced car parking. But clearly the Post has no qualms with printing straight-up propaganda from anyone who opposes Citi Bike.

Bonus: The Post put up a video with this story. What it shows is an FDNY vehicle stuck behind motorists, followed by footage of sanitation workers easily loading a truck from the sidewalk in front of 175 W. 13th.

Better luck next time, New York Post.