A state judge has put a project to add bike lanes through an industrial section of Long Island City on pause after businesses along the stretch claimed the process to redesign the roads went through illegally.
The judge said before the project can move forward, it’ll need to go through a city environmental review process — calling into question whether new bike lanes could be completed this year.
The plan — which in its first phase would add a two-way bike lane on Review Avenue and a protected bike lane on other roads in the area — seeks to fill in gaps in transit and improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists, according to the city Department of Transportation.
It’s part of the department’s bigger “Green Wave” initiative, which seeks to build 30 miles of protected bike lanes every year and improve street safety in all five boroughs.
But a complaint filed by Queens business LeNoble Lumber says the project would “severely narrow and restrict vehicular traffic lanes” on Review Avenue and would “ruin over 40 businesses, some of which have been in existence for over 100 years.”
LeNoble argues in the complaint the new bike lanes will have “catastrophic consequences” for the area’s industrial zone because they would affect businesses with “loading docks, tractor trailers constantly coming in and out of garages onto the street, and forklifts into the road.”
This bike lane project is just the latest in a series of street safety projects that have been hotly contested by neighbors or businesses. Orthodox Jewish leaders have rallied against new biking infrastructure in South Williamsburg for years. Neighbors and a film production company in Greenpoint have quarreled over a redesign of McGuinness Boulevard. Cyclists, residents and other stakeholders have called for a second upgrade to existing bike lanes on Kent Avenue near the waterfront in Williamsburg, saying the existing lane has become a dangerous mess.
In Justice Kevin J. Kerrigan’s…
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