The Grand Street bike lane. Photo: Suhail A. Khan

Reported on Aug. 22, 2009

On a sweltering Friday afternoon things heated up when 40 residents and business owners of downtown Manhattan assembled on the congested corner of Grand and Mott streets in Chinatown.

The Grand Street bike lane.

“We need bike lanes but definitely not on Grand Street,” said Justin C. Yu, the president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, speaking to the crowd. “It hurts businesses and it hurts traffic.”

Alan J. Gerson, the City Councilman who represents District 1, organized a rally on Aug. 21 to support local business owners and residents who say the Grand Street bike lane between Varick and Chrystie streets has created dangerous conditions.

The city Department of Transportation inaugurated the bike lane in 2006 as part of a three-year program to build 200 miles of bike lanes in the city.

Residents and business owners on Grand Street complained to Gerson on Friday that the bike lane promoted traffic congestion and accidents.

“We are not against bike lanes,” said Po-ling Ng, the director of Project Open Door Senior Citizens Center of the Chinese-American Planning Council Inc. She was accompanied by a dozen senior residents. “There are a lot of senior citizens, public schools and day cares in this area and children get hurt.”

Caroline Samponaro, director of bicycle advocacy for Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit organization, defended the bike lane at the rally. “The city did do studies before and after and there has been a 30 percent reduction in crashes and that includes pedestrians, bicycles and motors,” she said.

William Don, president of the advisory board of the Project Open Door Senior Citizens Center also addressed the crowd at the rally. “Since they set up this bicycle track I will say it’s a stupid idea, this idea they should reconsider,” he said.

Don questioned the need for a bike lane and pointed out that in the last hour only three bicycles had passed by.

“Right now it is lunch time and people are at work. When I am riding home on this bike lane, it’s bicycle traffic,” said Samponaro.

In New York City from 2007 to 2008 bicycle commuting increased 35 percent and there was an overall increase of 45 percent in the initial two years of the 200-mile program, according to the transportation department.

“There are people who are not happy with it,” said Jo Hamilton, the chair of Community Board 2 in Manhattan, in a telephone interview. “But in terms of the community board perspective the sort of the overall response to the bike lane I think has been that of a very successful project.”

Steven Tin, a member of the Better Chinatown Society and owner of a store on Grand Street, said,” The bike lanes creates a lot of traffic and forget about the delivery, it is almost impossible to get a delivery going smoothly at a normal time.”

Hamilton clarified that the transportation department created a curb lane opposite the bike lane for deliveries. “They got an entire curb lane along the length of this bike lane dedicated to commercial loading and unloading,” she said.

Gerson has drafted Intro 1063, a law that would create a process where the community would engage the transportation department before major street construction projects are implemented, according to a press release issued by his office.

“What we are asking for is a process and dialogue,” said Gerson. “The question is not whether or not there should be bike lanes but where and how to put the bike lanes.”