Prospect Park West's Unplowed Bike Lane Mystery

There is one fact both sides of the Prospect Park West can agree on: unplowed bike lanes are a hazard.

Today snow fell again in Park Slope, but only yesterday did the city finally get around to fully plowing the controversial bike lanes after last Friday’s snowfall.

As of Sunday night, the lanes were exactly half plowed. From Bartel Prichard Square to Seventh Street the lanes were clear of snow, but appeared completely unplowed from Seventh Street to Grand Army Plaza. In the unplowed sections of the lane, the ground was covered in snow and slick ice.

“We all believe that streets for emergency vehicles and sidewalks should come first, but it’s been four days since the snow fell and Prospect Park West bike lane is not just covered in snow but a really slick bumpy sheet of ice,” said Aaron Naparstek, a co-founder of Park Slope Neighbors yesterday morning.

“It’s not just bad for cyclists. If you are pedestrian or elderly person trying to cross Prospect Park West, you now have to cross over a bumpy sheet of ice,” he continued. “This is not acceptable anymore.”

Though Naparstek has been a long-time advocate of the lanes, he is not the only one upset over the unplowed lanes.

Former Sanitation Commissioner Norman Steisel, an active member of the anti-lane group Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes, said his group was upset by the issue, too.

“One of my initial concerns for the bike lane was that in big snow storms, it is going to take time to plow,” said Steisel. “If it isn’t plowed quickly, it freezes. That’s not just a hazard to the riders. It is dangerous to people crossing the street.

The city charges that the Prospect Park West bike lane was actually serviced last week and salted several times afterwards, but that a drop in temperature over the
weekend caused a re-freeze of previously salted snow and ice in the bike lane.

Department of Sanitation spokesperson Matthew Lipani said that the agency would re-salt the bike lane, and yesterday afternoon the entire length of the lane appeared completely clear.

Lipani said that any lag time in plowing is due to a low-priority for bike lanes.

“Bike lanes are cleared after primary, secondary, and tertiary routes are
complete, and are cleared by the truck plow on the route where the bike
lane is,” said Lipani. “The Department also clears bike lanes when we clear crosswalks and bus stops.”

But for Naparstek, the unplowed lanes were not even the whole of the issue.

Naparstek charged that a city source had told him the Borough President’s office had interfered with the plowing of the lanes, though no city official could confirm this to Patch directly.

“Apparently Marty Markowitz has demanded that the Sanitation Department not plow the Prospect Park West bike lane,” said Naparstek. “Marty’s vendetta has just gone too far now.”

Markowitz denied the accusations, though he did stress that the bike lanes are a low priority for plowing.

“I want to see appropriate attention paid to all of our streets, pedestrian walkways and bike lanes,” Markowitz said. “These are functions of the Department of Sanitation and Department of Transportation, and my office had absolutely no involvement with the condition of the Prospect Park West bike lane following our most recent storm.”