The city council is playing with fire.
The Mamdani administration is opening bike lanes in Queens that an angry Prévest says is blatantly ignoring safety concerns and putting residents at risk.
At a heated community board meeting Tuesday night, about 20 FDNY members filled the room to try to throw cold water on the Department of Transportation’s protected bike lane plan on 31st Street in Astoria.
The bike lanes will have a sidewalk on one side and a protective concrete median on the other. A row of parking spaces would then be adjacent to the central area, pushing fire trucks farther down the street if a fire broke out in the area.
Firefighters said the fire trucks will be so far from the sidewalk that their ladders will not be able to reach the windows of the third floor and above.
“Putting bike lanes in that area would put the lives of residents living along 31st Street at risk because our stairs won’t reach the third floor,” said Astoria Firefighter Mike Schreibner, who is also a cycling enthusiast.
“We won’t be able to raise our ladders to rescue the people above us.”
Despite firefighters’ anger, the board gave the project the green light, and the Department of Transportation insisted Thursday that it had approved the plan with New York Defense Forces headquarters, which consulted local fire stations as required by law.
“DOT worked in close collaboration with our partners at the FDNY, including all legally required consultations to advance this redesign,” a DOT representative said.
The Fire Department representative added: “The Fire Department reviewed and signed the Department of Transportation’s proposal for Route 31 in accordance with legal procedures.”
But union leaders said City Hall is using smoke and mirrors to create bike lanes.
“No fire officers at any of the affected firehouses have been notified by the Department of Transportation of the revised plan,” said Michael Tracy, vice president of the Unified Fire Officers Association.
FDNY leaders will do what City Hall wants since the commissioner is appointed by the mayor, said Bobby Eustace, legislative director of the Unified Firefighters Association.
“The commissioners are the mayor’s children — and they won’t disagree with him,” Eustace said. “They are no longer government employees. They are hired. So you don’t get an honest answer from them.”
He said the Department of Transportation’s blatant disregard for fire safety had gotten out of control.
“The Department of Transport is like the KGB. They are able to operate freely, no one can monitor them. They do what they want,” Eustace said.
“We have been pushed to the point where the Department of Transport will have blood on its hands if they continue with this,” he said.
Queens City Councilwoman Joan Arreola sponsored Local Law 6 which mandates that local fire stations must sign off on bike lanes.
“Local firefighters are the people who know the streets best,” she said. “It is baffling to me that the administration and DOT continue to put public safety aside in pursuit of their anti-car agenda.”
The fight echoes the aftermath of last year when Queens Supreme Court Justice Sheri Buggs burned down a previous redesign of 31st Street, in which the Department of Transportation acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” by moving forward with protected bike lanes without evidence that it had consulted with local fire stations.
The city is appealing this ruling.
“It’s absolutely baffling how the city can come back with the same plan and say it’s safe after a judge ruled against it,” fumed Joe Mirabella, president of the 31st Street Business Association, which filed a lawsuit over the Department of Transportation’s first bike lane plan on 31st Street.
He said his group of mom-and-pop stores and neighborhood residents can’t match the city’s legal muscle and finances in the ongoing dispute.
“We are not a group of corporations or huge property owners,” Mirabella said. “It cost us a lot of money to take this to court. We won and now the city is rebuilt. To override the ruling shows how little they care about the impact this is having on us.”