Wednesday’s Headlines: Bedford Avenue Alert Edition

The Department of Transportation will begin ripping up three blocks of protected bike lane on Bedford Avenue shortly after 10 p.m. tonight — defying the very same agency that testified that the protected bike lane has made Bedford Avenue safer since its installation late last year.

Signs alerting the neighborhood of the impending work went up yesterday on Bedford Avenue one day after a panel of Appellate Division judges cleared the way for the DOT to reduce safety for cyclists between Willoughby and Flushing avenues.

No, there’s nothing anyone can do at this point, but we’re urging all street safety advocates to show up to witness Eric Adams’s perfidy firsthand. We’ll be there. And Jon Orcutt will likely be there, given his post:

And also on hand will likely be lawyers who will be very happy to take on the case of any cyclist injured on that stretch of roadway after the city, which installed the bike lane because the roadway was unsafe, removes said protections.

In fact, there is legal precedent that the city is liable should anyone be injured on a roadway whose danger is known to local officials. If you find yourself needing legal representation, we know plenty (Steve Vaccaro) of lawyers (Adam White) who specialize (Daniel Flanzig) in this (Peter Beadle) kind of thing.

In other news:

• How about a truly glorious Union Square? Where do we sign? (Curbed)
• Like Streetsblog, Crain’s also covered the latest way in which the Trump administration screwed Mayor Adams over his QueensWay park.
• Yesterday was an awful day on the subway thanks to a power outage. (NY Post)
• People really like car free streets! (Brooklyn Paper)
• Here’s an op-ed about cars from someone who really gets it. (Streets)
• Remember those elevators at the 72nd Street station on the West Side that we mentioned the other day? Well, they’ll be out for eight months! (West Side Rag)
• Andrew Cuomo really has no path to electoral victory in November. (X.com)

• And, finally, it was Intern Night at Maimonides Park, where Streetsblog’s Summer Specialists (from left) Jonah Schwarz, Matthew Sage and Yoshi Omi-Jarrett were feted by Deputy Editor David Meyer (far left) and your aging life-lesson-dropper. The Cyclones fell to the Blue Claws, 7-4, but a splendid time was had by all (except for starting pitcher Brendan Girton, who pitched a clean first inning, but then vomited repeatedly on his way back to the dugout in the thick 90-degree heat. Here’s hoping the hurler has a speedy recovery and can keep his pitches, and other things, down).