Markowitz Files Affidavit Claiming DOT Called PPW Bike Lane a 'Trial'

It’s not news that Borough President Marty Markowitz is a fervent hater of the Prospect Park West bike lane—his lane loathing was even fodder for his 2010 Christmas card. 

But today Markowitz took his lane pain to the courts, filing an affidavit which puts a legal stamp on what Markowitz has long claimed—that Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan told him the lane was a “trial” project, and would be removed if it had an adverse affect on Prospect Park West safety.

In the affidavit, Markowitz claims that Sadik-Khan made the statement in front of two members of his staff, as well as other DOT officials.

Part of the city’s defense in the over the lanes hinges on the fact that the bike lane was not a trial project, and therefore any suit concerning the lane is beyond the statute of limitations (in the city’s response to the lawsuit filed last month, it also contended the lane couldn’t have been located anywhere else in Park Slope, that it was installed based on industry guidelines and that all analysis of the lanes has been correct and sound).

If the city could prove that it never called the lane a “trial” project, Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes and Seniors for Safety, the two groups suing the city over the lanes, would have no case.

NBBL and SFS therefore saw Markowitz’s affidavit as a big development in favor of their case.

“The Law Department has filed false papers and affidavits, saying the bike lane was not a trial,” said Jim Walden, the Gibson Dunn & Crutcher partner who is handling the case pro bono, in a statement.  “DOT has lied to its own lawyers and to the court.  Someone must be held to account for this pernicious attempt to obstruct the court proceeding and mislead Justice Bunyan.”

The bike lane opponents filed a in March calling for the removal of the lanes.The groups have argued that the lanes are not only dangerous and “arbitrary,” but that the Department of Transportation skewed statistics in the bike path’s favor.

Markowitz the lane long before it was ever installed in June 2010.

In a FOIL request of Markowitz, Streetsblog discovered that, in fact, rather than call for the bike lane project to be shelved all together, in a February 2010 E-mail, Markowitz’s transportation policy aide Luke DePalma urged Markowitz to request for DOT to make the lanes a “pilot” or “trial” project.

And in an E-mail to NBBL frontwoman Louis Hainline, DePalma remarked that “it is almost certain that DOT will make this bike lane permanent and that this’'trial’ is intended to placate opposition,” repeatedly referring to the lane as a “trial” or “temporary” in quotation marks.

DePalma, who Markowitz claims was in the fateful meeting where Sadik-Khan called the lane a trial, did not immediately return a call questioning whether he recalls Sadik-Khan calling the lane a trial.

Thus far, NBBL and SFS have produced no specific, documented instances where any DOT official has called the lanes a trial or pilot project.

Mark Zustovich, a spokesperson for Markowitz, said that the affidavit “speaks for itself.”