Mayor Zohran Mamdani is closing the book on one of the city’s most controversial bike lane projects.
Mamdani’s Department of Transportation is expected to announce Wednesday the redesign of McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn will be completed after years of delays. Transportation officials will extend the parking-protected bike lane from Calyer Street to the Pulaski Bridge, fully implementing a project that prosecutors allege had been watered down in exchange for bribes paid to a deputy of previous Mayor Eric Adams.
Construction is expected to begin this week, fulfilling a pledge Mamdani made on his first weekend in office.
When finished, McGuinness Boulevard will have a parking protected bike lane from Meeker Avenue to the Pulaski Bridge.
McGuinness Boulevard was at the center of a defining scandal of the Adams administration.
Adams and his Department of Transportation had planned to remove a lane of traffic in each direction on McGuinness and build a parking protected bike lane. Street safety advocates had pushed for years for such a redesign of the road with a reputation for dangerous driving. In 2021, a popular teacher was killed crossing the street by the driver of a Rolls Royce, energizing efforts to fix the road.
But local businesses protested Adams’ plan, saying it would reduce customers and interfere with their operations. Leading the charge were the sibling owners of Broadway Stages, a major film production company based nearby. Tony and Gina Argento argued the redesign would slow down their trucks hauling equipment to film sets around the city.
The administration abruptly halted the project, then installed a version that scaled back the overhaul of McGuinness, dividing it into two sections with different types of bike lanes. Advocates were furious.
Later, prosecutors offered an explanation of the administration’s about-face: Adams’ chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin accepted bribes from the Argentos in exchange for her opposition of the project. The payments included thousands of dollars in free catering and a cameo in the “Godfather of Harlem” TV series. Lewis-Martin has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Mayor Adams' former chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin is accused of taking bribes from opponents of the McGuinness bike lane project.
“Days into our administration, we made clear that this new era for New York City would be anchored in the well-being of working people, not the whims of the wealthy and well-connected,” Mamdani wrote in a statement.
Bronwyn Breitner, an advocate with the group Make McGuinness Safe, said that the project can’t be finished soon enough.
“The bike lane as it is in the north is always blocked. There's no loading zones for businesses there, and there are many businesses there, so they pull into the bike lane. It's not even their fault. It's just a bad design the way it is,” she said.
She said she hopes the transportation department will use the completed overhaul of McGuinness as a model for other streets. “It creates precedent for other similar corridors around the city,” Breitner said.
Construction is expected to be completed by the fall.
