Relations have been strained (to put it mildly) between DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz at least as far back as April 2010, when Marty called her a "zealot" on WNYC. And it doesn't look like those two will be taking a romantic paddle boat ride together in Prospect Park anytime soon, judging by sworn affidavits filed as part of the great Prospect Park West bike lane lawsuit. Markowitz recently swore under oath that a month before he called her a zealot, Sadik-Khan told him the contentious bike lane was just a trial. Now Sadik-Khan has filed her own affidavit essentially calling the Borough President a liar, liar pants on fire.
In her sworn affidavit, Sadik-Khan explicitly states that she never told Borough President Markowitz at the March 1 2010 meeting “that the PPW Project was a trial or pilot project.” Streetsblog obtained a copy; in it the Commissioner says:
The Borough President's recollection is mistaken; specifically, I never said at the meeting or at any other time that the PPW Project was a trial or pilot project... Nor did any of the others from the DOT make such a statement at that meeting. During that meeting I do recall that DOT stated that it would not initially install concrete pedestrian islands (although it will do so in the future), and that post-installation DOT would be monitering the performance of the PPW project as we do for all DOT projects. To the extent that the Borough President misinterpreted the discussion that the PPW was being installed on a trial or pilot basis, he is mistaken.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit (who are being represented pro-bono by a fancy lawyer whose firm is a big donor to PPW resident Senator Chuck Schumer—whose wife happens to be a former DOT commissioner and ardent bike lane foe) were insisting that the bike lane was a trial because if it wasn't, they would have missed the deadline to file their lawsuit. But in a surprise twist yesterday, lawyers for the city gave up arguing that the lawsuit had missed the deadline, telling the judge they would "not pursue the statute of limitations defense." In other words, the DOT is prepared to fight the lawsuit on its merits.
At issue now is whether the DOT fudged data in its study of the bike lane after it was installed; bike lane opponents argue that the department essentially lied about the safety improvements resulting from the bike lane. “Big lies are being told to cover up smaller lies,"Jim Walden told the Brooklyn Paper after yesterday's hearing. But the DOT seems confident that its analysis can withstand the legal onslaught. "We want to get to the merits of the case," says city lawyer Mark Muschenheim.
"By any reasonable measure, this charade is over,” Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives, said in a statement yesterday. “The City set hard data against fact-free grandstanding to defend commonsense street safety improvements that the vast majority of neighborhood residents love and asked for in the first place. Any concerns about these improvements have been exhaustively addressed and it’s time to move on. The people of Park Slope deserve better than to have their time wasted by a puffed-up PR stunt."
