Monday’s Headlines: Adams’s Anti-Bike Legacy Edition

Mayor Adams’s history of canceling street redesign projects in response to politically connected opponents continued last week with his craven decision to rip up three blocks of the Bedford Avenue protected bike lane.

Those blocks — Willoughby to Flushing avenues — will revert to the unprotected bike lane design the strip had until last year, when the Department of Transportation upgraded it to a parking-protected bike lane. For safety.

Leaders and social media influencers from the local Hasidic community went absolutely nuts over the bike lane. They shared several caught-on-video close calls between two-wheelers and pedestrians, often featuring kids getting off the school bus mid-block then cutting through the parked cars to the sidewalk.

Many, if not most of the cars, in the videos are in fact illegally parked after DOT painted in pedestrian zones for bus drop-offs and pick-ups. But the parking rules and drop-off zones are routinely ignored, and enforcement is non-existent.

Now, with a mayoral election on the line, one community’s political power is outweighing the safety of the general public — with Mayor Adams the anti-safety champion. On Saturday, Hizzoner’s social media team posted its own compilation of the “near-miss” bike lane crashes, replete with illegal parking and trash disposal:

The question for Adams — and anyone who wants to be mayor — is why is any bike lane worth defending if one isn’t? Remember, this is a mayor who said the city has focused “solely” on cars for “far too long” — ignoring the magnitude more carnage caused by cars than bikes, including in South Williamsburg.

Supporters of the Bedford Avenue protected bike lane — who pushed for years for the safety upgrades — will rally on Wednesday at 6 p.m. outside John Hancock Playground.

Other outlets covered the news, including Gothamist, Brooklyn Paper and CBS New York.

In other news:

• It’s election week. (NY Times)
• Three people died in a string of fatal crashes on Friday — including a moped rider killed by a truck driver. (Daily News)
• A hit-and-run driver critically injured a cyclist in Ozone Park. (ABC 7 NY)
• The Post slandered Transportation Alternatives supporters in its latest attack on the 34th Street busway.
• A 73-year-old man struck by a driver in Harlem in May has succumbed to his injuries. (Patch)
• Gothamist tosses more skepticism at Zohran Mamdani’s free bus plan.
• … but TWU’s John Samuelsen is all aboard. (NY Post)
• And, finally, at a rally for Zohran Mamdani, AOC berated Mayor Adams for his criminal crackdown on cyclists. Watch here:

Correction: An earlier version said the truck driver who killed a moped rider worked for the city. In fact, the truck had not been delivered to the city agency yet.