Cyclists are chafing at what some say is a ticket blitz on bike riders in downtown Brooklyn, focusing on the heavy intersection of Tillary and Adams, by the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. "I have witnessed two sting operations set up at Tillary and Adams," Park Slope resident Paul White, a personal injury lawyer and cyclist, tells the Brooklyn Paper "They were ticketing slews of people who were riding [outside the bike lane] on Adams." New York law says cyclists "should" ride in a lane if one is available, except when making a turn or when the lane is blocked. But because of traffic congestion, the latter is often the case on Adams, and some cyclists say the NYPD is exploiting that.
"Frankly, the bike lane on Adams is atrocious," White adds. "It’s not only uneven, buy there are vehicles that park on it that make it almost unusable." Another cyclist, Summer Greenstein, says, "I’ve stopped depending on bike lanes as any sort of safe infrastructure because they double as parking spots." Sing it, sister! "I think the police respond vigilantly to complaints about reckless cyclists from pedestrians and drivers — but there is a much greater volume of reckless drivers," Greenstein added, to a chorus of Amens.
"We don’t specifically target one intersection," insists 84th Precinct Captain Mark DiPaolo. "I definitely wouldn’t say there is a crackdown on cyclists." But Sheepshead Bay resident and avid cyclist Sholom Brody believes the cops are "doing this out of frustration from the community." As Streetsblog notes, the Brooklyn precinct captains have publicly said that "as we get this [community] feedback, we direct specific resources to address these complaints." So maybe the solution's simple: Cyclists should start calling the 84th Precinct to complain about drivers blocking their bike lanes!
