The Adams administration is way behind on rolling out miles of mandated bus and bike lanes, and city transit officials’ excuses for why they’re consistently failing to comply with the law is trying the patience of the City Council, which has signaled it may sue the city to force its hand.
For the last three years the Department of Transportation has fallen short on achieving annual targets of 50 miles of protected bike lanes and 30 miles of protected bus lanes to speed up traffic and improve street safety. City Council members fed up with the agency dragging its feet have put forward legislation that would require DOT to create a public dashboard of projects with monthly updates on their progress and whether delays or cost overruns have occurred.
Queens Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers, who chairs the transit committee, scolded city officials during a tense hearing Tuesday about the Council’s lack of transparency and plans to catch up on the required street upgrades — efforts that are especially key to supporting some drivers switch to mass transit and biking with the launch of congestion pricing earlier this month.
“One part of it is that DOT is not meeting the mandates,” said Brooks-Powers, who is sponsoring the public dashboard bill along with eleven other city lawmakers. “But more so that DOT is not communicating with us or being transparent as to why they’re not meeting the mandates — where the bottlenecks are — so we have no real line of sight.”
DOT First Deputy Commissioner Margaret Forgione pushed back on the criticism, arguing that the agency, which has an annual operating budget of $1.4 billion and a 10-year capital project budget of $33 billion, has had its hands full with other initiatives. Those efforts include the city’s Dining Out NYC and Open Streets program — respectively signed into law in 2023 and 2021.
Forgione added that even merely publishing a list of projects that the city intends to pursue will engender community opposition, so it would prefer to keep those efforts close to the vest. It would also pull staffers focus away from projects and on to bureaucracy, she said.
An unimpressed Brooks-Powers pointed out that the city will face opposition on projects no matter what, and that DOT advocated to control both the dining out and open streets programs. It only has itself to blame if it now can not follow through on its legal responsibilities, she said.
Forgione’s explanation is far from the full picture. In fact, during a council hearing last May, Forgione conceded that DOT could likely roll out more bus and bike lane projects if the agency got the green light from Mayor Eric Adams to implement projects despite opposition from businesses and community groups. The Adams administration has frequently resisted going against the chorus of concerns raised by local businesses, residents and elected officials.
DOT has especially struggled with the roll out of new protected bike lanes. Under the streets master plan, the city is required to create 150 miles of dedicated bus lanes in five years — or about 30 miles per year. DOT claims it’s still working on the tally for 2024, but created 15.7 miles of bus lanes in 2023 and 11.9 miles in 2022.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams last year backed the Streets Master Plan tracker to prod City Hall into stepping up its efforts on new bus and bike lanes — and said her office would be open to taking the mayor to court to get him to comply with the law.
The Council Speaker’s office bristled at the city’s lack of urgency in a Wednesday statement.
“It is both disappointing and unacceptable that this administration’s DOT has failed to comply with this law, falling far short of goals year over year, and now doesn’t want to be held accountable through greater transparency,” Council spokeswoman Mara Davis told Crain’s. “We will continue to consider and pursue various ways to ensure compliance with this important law.”
