New York City’s Department of Transportation has scaled back proposed safety improvements for a treacherous Greenpoint thoroughfare, the agency confirmed Tuesday after officials from City Hall called local elected officials to inform them of the change.
The redrawn plans will extend a bike lane to the southern half of McGuinness Boulevard but not follow through with a prior scheme to reduce the number of traffic lanes on the four-lane roadway and create a protected bike bath, neighborhood reps who received the calls said.
Supporters of the long-proposed street redesign are charging that the Department of Transportation walked away from its own plan at the behest of City Hall.
It’s the second time DOT has walked back its own plan for McGuinness Boulevard in the year since opponents of the plan with ties to the Argento family, who are Adams donors and allies, launched a pressure campaign to block it.
A spokesperson for the DOT confirmed the agency intends to move ahead with a new version of a redesign for the street that would replicate the work it has already done on the northern half of the roadway, adding bike lanes and an off-hours parking lane.
“This redesign for McGuinness Boulevard will make this corridor much safer for everyone, including drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists,” said Vincent Barone, spokesperson for DOT.
“Based on community feedback, NYC DOT will be extending the protected bike lane from Calyer Street to Meeker Avenue while also delivering a new network of bike lanes, better connecting cyclists to Meeker Avenue and points south, and adding sidewalk extensions at streets intersecting McGuinness Boulevard.”
The rollback on the proposed street redesign caused uproar among North Brooklyn elected officials who overwhelmingly supported the DOT’s initial plan for the street, announced more than a year ago. The abandoned plan would have reduced the street by two lanes of traffic and added bike lanes shielded from traffic by rows of parked cars — an arrangement common on many busy streets in the city.
“This was not about a bike lane, this was about slowing traffic,” said State Assemblymember Emily Gallagher, a vocal proponent of the city’s initial redesign, which was released after months of public community meetings.
“This does nothing to reduce traffic,” she said. “It’s basically not accomplishing any of the goals. It’s just giving us a poorly planned bike lane, which is not what anybody was asking for.”
The Department of Transportation had said it was continuing to study the traffic patterns before finalizing the design for the southern half of the street. A spokesperson for the agency didn’t return a follow up request on Tuesday for the results of that study.
Meanwhile, Adams’ chief advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, pressed to walk back the initial plan, citing community concerns. The DOT then came out with a “compromise plan” that incorporated much of the initial design on the southern half of the street with a modified, less ambitious redesign of its northern part.
Lewis-Martin had opposed any reduction in traffic lanes on the street as early as last fall, according to an administration source familiar with the deliberations.
Now, both halves of the roadway will have minimal redesigns.
Ultimately, Mayor Eric Adams made the call to scale back the redesign, the source said.
‘Not a Compromise — A Failure’
Local transit safety advocates, under the banner of “Make McGuinness Safe,” blasted the latest reversal, calling the bike lane “flawed and dangerous.”
“Do not confuse some green paint on the street with a safety plan for McGuinness,” the group said in a statement.
“Let’s be perfectly clear, this is not a compromise. This is a failure.”
The group has rallied for years for safety upgrades to the Robert Moses-era street after the hit-and-run killing of beloved elementary school teacher Matthew Jensen in 2021. He was the third person to die on the street in a decade.
After the DOT announced its original, much more ambitious plan last spring, a new group of community members formed to oppose the plan. That group, Keep McGuinness Moving, has the support of the Argento family, which owns the sound stage company Broadway Stages, an influential Greenpoint business.
After the latest backpedal, the Make McGuinness Safe Coalition blamed the Argentos and Broadway Stages for the reversal.
“If it weren’t for Broadway Stages, we would have had a road diet by now, and this absurdity that has divided our neighborhood would be over and done with,” the group wrote.
Speaking on behalf of Broadway Stages, spokesperson Juda Engelmayer, who also assists in handling media requests for Keep McGuinness Moving, said the company agrees with flex parking lane that only reduces a lane of traffic on nights and weekends, but takes issue with the reduction of parking spots on the street.
“We always believe that civics requires compromise and that there are varying needs and wants within our community that may differ from one to another,” he said.
He declined to give an immediate comment on behalf of Keep McGuinness Moving.
