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Brigid Bergen: It's the Brian Lair show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, sitting in for Brian this week. Welcome back, everybody. Now we're going to talk about a couple transportation-related issues. For those of you who are currently on your morning commute, sit tight, enjoy the ride. First, we're going to talk about the contentious legal battle over the removal of a bike lane in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, which has really become an issue in Mayor Adams' reelection campaign.

Then we're going to turn to a heated exchange during a congressional hearing last week where Manhattan Congressman Jerry Nadler and the US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy accused one another of lying about the current state of safety on New York City subways. The clash was the latest public display of friction between New York officials and the Trump administration over the state of the MTA. Joining us now to talk about all of this is, of course, your friendly neighborhood transportation reporter, Stephen Nessen.

Stephen Nessen: Hello.

Brigid Bergen: Stephen, so great to have you. Listeners, we can take a few calls. What do you think of the state of transit safety in New York City? Cyclists, if you've ridden through the Bedford Avenue bike lane on the border of South Williamsburg and Bed Stuy, what's your experience been like? Maybe you're someone who wants to see that bike lane removed. We want to hear from you too. Give us a call. The number 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692. For you strap hangers, we'll get to this later in the conversation. How safe do you feel on the subways? Do you agree with Duffy, who says crime is out of control, or Nadler, who points out statistics that say major crimes are down in the subways.

The number again, 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Call or text. Stephen, let's start with the current battle over this Brooklyn bike lane. What's going on here?

Stephen Nessen: Let me take you back to May when this blew up again. There's a little girl, there's video of this. She hopped out of a car heading toward the curb, and there's this protected bike lane. For those that don't know, protected bike lane means basically parked cars. There's parked cars between the curb, the sidewalk, and the street. Cyclists are supposed to ride in there, but if someone wants to cross in the middle of one of these, there's not a Pedestrian crossing. In this video, you see this little girl hop out of a car on Bedford Avenue, and she darts to the sidewalk. Because there's so many big parked cars there, this giant SUV, you can't see what's coming in the bike lane.

She gets clipped by an e-bike rider. You can see it looks bad. She's flung to the ground. Her adult there quickly picks her up, and police say she had minor injuries. This renewed this call from a lot of members of the community to remove this bike lane. They say it's dangerous for kids. Mayor Adams goes out there shortly thereafter and announces, yes, he's going to remove the bike lane. You may wonder, "How long has this been there?" Less than a year.

Brigid Bergen: Oh, wow.

Stephen Nessen: The DOT had just installed this protected bike lane, so it hadn't been there for that long, and he's going to remove it. Cycling advocates sued to stop them from doing it, and a judge said, "Okay, wait, wait, pause. Hold on a second. You're not going to do this." The city appealed. Another judge said, "Actually, okay, you can tear it up." Last Monday, the DOT was ready to remove this bike lane, put the parked cars back next to the curb, and the judge said, "Wait, hold on a second. Don't do it just yet." Right now, the bike lane is in place, and we're waiting for the judge to make a move in this lawsuit. I can go on if you'd like, just a little bit more history, or if you have a question.

Brigid Bergen: Let me jump and say, you've taken us right up to this present moment, and I want to rewind just a little bit because I want to play some tape from what the mayor said about why he wanted to remove that bike lane. Here's a clip of that.

Mayor Adams: I heard from these residents on how this bike lane was endangering their safety. We're making a slight modification to make sure we can continue to have bike lanes, but to do it the right way and safe way.

Brigid Bergen: Stephen, we're talking about this bike lane where the paint is barely dry, and the mayor's talking about doing this in the right way, the safe way. What is the right safe way here?

Stephen Nessen: Cycling advocates will say, "It is safe. Don't touch it. It's perfect." Just for a little bit of more background, I don't know if I mentioned it, but we're only talking about three blocks. This is Bedford Avenue between Flushing and Willoughby avenues. This is a very busy roadway. There've been a lot of accidents. One thing that does not bode well for the mayor's efforts is in court filings, the Department of Transportation literally says this road will be more dangerous without this bike lane and could cause injuries, and cycling advocates are threatening, if anyone's injured in this bike lane, they're going to sue the city.

Brigid Bergen: Wow. You will not be surprised to note that we have a lot of people who have called in to talk about this topic. I wanna bring in two different perspectives so that you can respond to both of them. We're going to start with Alex in Brooklyn. Alex, as I understand, you are co-chair of Transportation Alternatives. That is a group that advocates for things like bike lanes. We know where you're coming from, Alex. What would you like to say about this ongoing fight over the Bedford bike lane?

Alex: Hi, Brigid. Thanks for taking my call. Just to clarify, I co-chair the Transportation Alternatives Brooklyn Activist Committee. We're a committee of volunteers that works towards making streets safer, more livable in New York City. I think the issue here is the advocates are very frustrated because it's clear that the mayor is taking this issue and making it a political issue. We know that the street is much safer now. Injuries are down 47% year over year. The mayor's own administration said if you make this change and change the bike lane back to the way it was, this will make the street less safe. The city could potentially face legal liability.

We know this isn't about safety. I think if we're going to have the discussion, and what I'd really love to see the mayor pressed on is what this is really about. I think it's very obvious the mayor is making a play for these Hasidic votes in South Williamsburg. This isn't about safety. Mayor Adams is happy to take New Yorkers' lives and put them on the line for these votes. We've seen just in the past week, there were four New Yorkers killed on dangerous corridors where the city had considered redesigns. On 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn and on Canal Street in Manhattan, and then didn't act, and people were killed.

Those of us who are truly on the side of safety, we don't want to be in this situation on Bedford Avenue in six months, where someone's dead.

Brigid Bergen: Alex, thank you for that call. Let's go to Janet in Little Italy. Janet, you're on WNYC.

Janet: Good Morning. Hang on. My concern is I'm all for bike lanes, but I think the bicyclists also have to obey the traffic rules. I see a lot of pedestrian-bicycle near misses and sometimes impacts because the bicyclists are blowing through a red light that is controlling the car traffic, and they pay no attention to that. That's my perspective.

Brigid Bergen: Janet, thank you for that call. We appreciate it. Stephen, both supporters of bike lanes, but with some slight difference in the issues that they're focusing on. I think you've probably heard some of these perspectives before.

Stephen Nessen: Absolutely. To the recent caller, Janet's point, I see a lot of dangerous cyclists, too. The mayor is very responsive to that constituent, those members of the public, and has really ramped up the crackdown on cyclists at the moment to the point where the police are issuing very expensive tickets that actually require people who are issued cycling violations to go to court. Which even a driver who violates the same law doesn't have to do. There's really. The mayor, as you know, has a major crackdown on cyclists that break traffic laws. This is all about the quality of life push that him and the police department are going for.

To Alex's point, he says it's more dangerous for cyclists. I would just add, yes, obviously, the data bears that out that he cited. There were crashes this weekend. There's always crashes in dangerous corridors until the DOT installs some traffic calming devices. What they call basically ways to slow cars down with medians and protected bike lanes. Those make it safer for cyclists. I was out in Williamsburg and Bedford Stuyvesant talking to members of the community who live on this stretch of bike lane that Adams wants to remove. They said the same thing. They said it's not safe for children.

I talked to a man who said he's seen children clipped by bikes, almost hit by bikes. I couldn't confirm this, but he said he saw a pregnant woman hit by a bike that had to go to the hospital and have an emergency C-section. This didn't take long. I was out there for a very short time, and almost everyone I spoke to that was Orthodox Jewish supported the mayor's effort to remove the bike lane.

Brigid Bergen: I'll share a text that we got from a listener that's probably similar to Alex's regarding the Bedford bike lane. The issue is that having a safe bike infrastructure means a connected network. Respectfully, one community cannot demand disconnection for the rest of people biking Brooklyn. There's no evidence that bike lanes make roads more dangerous, but there's lots of evidence that cars are the source of traffic violence citywide. Why does one or two kids who, by the way, ran out into a lane they shouldn't be in get to dictate transportation safety for everyone? This is classic Adams pandering.

Part of what Alex said, part of what that texture is raising, are the election issues related to this, you explored that in your story. What were people telling you, political analysts and otherwise, about why the mayor is seizing on this issue?

Stephen Nessen: I spoke with Chris Coffey with Tusk Strategies. He actually advised Cuomo during the primary, but is not involved in the election now. His company specifically, but he was saying, "Yes, sure, of course, this is a voter group that Adams does need and wants to win." Although he did say Cuomo did better in this community than Adams did. Maybe this is possibly one way to win these voters over. I would add Coffey said, "This is not going to be the sole issue they vote on, but it definitely doesn't hurt."

I spoke with Councilmember Lincoln Restler, who is very popular in this community. He's their city council member, and he was just apoplectic and was like, "This is so blatantly political and just pandering."

Brigid Bergen: You have looked at the crash data in this particular area after the lane was installed. What does the data actually tell us?

Stephen Nessen: I don't have the data, sorry, right in front of me, but crashes, I think Alex mentioned it was down 47% or 40%. It's a lot. This was a relatively dangerous corridor for crashes. In the last year, crashes have been down.

Brigid Bergen: We're in this holding pattern because of this lawsuit and this judge's decision. Has the city removed other bike lanes before? How unusual is what is happening to Bedford when it comes to the context of the rest of the city?

Stephen Nessen: Let's go back for a second, and then we'll go to the present.

Brigid Bergen: Sure.

Stephen Nessen: This bike lane has history. In 2009, shortly after Mayor Bloomberg secured his third term, that December, he announced, after complaints from the community, they had just put in a bike lane that ran through Bedford Avenue, the same street. It wasn't a protected bike lane, but from Flushing to Broadway. Mayor Bloomberg agreed to remove it. At that time, cycling advocates were also up in arms. This was the winter, and apparently they even said they were going to do a naked bike ride through this community just to send the message, I guess, and obviously to agitate people.

People came out in the middle of the night to repaint the bike lane after it was removed, and ultimately, Bloomberg did paint it over. We really hadn't seen any change to this neighborhood in the bike infrastructure ever since until last year. I think we see another election coming, and it's another issue that members of the Orthodox Jewish community, but we can't say all of them. That would be a gross generalization. In fact, some people like Baruch Herzfeld, who is a member of this community at least, is suing to stop the bike lane from going away. It's not everyone, but certainly a lot of folks.

Brigid Bergen: Stephen, a listener is texting and asking, "How many miles of protected bike lanes do exist in the city?"

Stephen Nessen: [chuckles] It's a great question. It's like Brian Lehrer putting me on the spot with a number I don't have handy.

Brigid Bergen: I try to do my best.

Stephen Nessen: It is a lot. It's obviously more than like ever before. Typically, I think like you were asking, do these get removed often? They don't get removed often. I was going to say with the Adams administration, it's more like projects that were planned that were ready to go, that are all set to go into effect, get halted or stopped at the last minute. Specifically, I'm thinking about McGuinness Boulevard. Eventually, the bike lanes did go into place, but it was this huge battle drawn out. There were donors to Adams that got involved and tried to halt it. These things get messy in the Adams administration.

Brigid Bergen: Absolutely. Before we move on, I will say this is WNYC FM HD in AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. This is New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org. Stephen, let's shift gears from the bike lane to the national debate over transportation and that scuffle between Congressman Nadler and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy last week. We have a little bit of tape that I want to play to bring people up to speed. Let's take a listen.

Jerry Nadler: First, are you aware that major crime in the transit system, including assaults, is down 3% since last year and down 8% since 2019? That's a yes or no question.

Sean Duffy: No, that's wrong. The assaults that we've seen are up 60% with MTA in the system since 2019.

Jerry Nadler: Why do you continue to ignore this and lie about this in your public comments?

Sean Duffy: My question, why do you continue to lie about people being lit on fire in subways or pushed in front of trains?

Brigid Bergen: Stephen, what's going on there?

Stephen Nessen: The amazing thing is they're both right. [chuckles] Nadler is correct. Major crime. When they say the word major crime, that means rape, murder, felony assault, all combined together, put all those buckets together, they are down 3% as of June compared to the same period last year, since before the pandemic, 2019. Put this whole bucket of crimes together, they are all down 8%. Secretary Duffy is also correct. As much as Nadler doesn't want to admit it, I don't know why he could say this, too. Through May of this year, there were 262 felony assaults. That's up 66% from the same period in 2019, and it's up 20% compared to the same time last year.

Sorry to get into the details here, but two people can be right. Overall, though, I think the MTA really was celebrating recently. I don't know if I have it in front of me. Crime is really way down. I think the first half of the year was the lowest in 27 years. Obviously, we've spoken about this. We've reported it many times. There's a major surge in police in the transit system. Hochul sent the National Guard, which, as we reported, doesn't actually really do much, but visibly it is to reassure riders and perhaps deter some crimes.

One interesting detail that gets lost in all this is that the type of felony assaults, which are the most troublesome and have increased quite a bit. 1/3 of them, 1/3 of those felony assaults are on transit workers and police officers.

Brigid Bergen: Wow.

Stephen Nessen: I'm not the criminologist to analyze exactly what's going on here, but certainly to a certain population, they become a target.

Brigid Bergen: Interesting. Strap hangers, MTA workers, MTA police, now is your moment. Give us a call. How safe do you feel underground on the city subway system, on the buses? The number 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692. Help us report this story. Do you agree with Secretary Duffy, who says crime is down, or with Congressman Nadler? Who points out statistics that says-- excuse me, who says crime is out of control, or Congressman Nadler, who says major crime on the subways is down, or with my colleague Stephen Essen, who says, in fact, both things can be true. We're interested in how you feel.

Again, the number 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692. Stephen, as you mentioned, there's information from Secretary Duffy that's true. There's information from Congressman Nadler that's true. What makes this topic so contentious between city officials and Trump's Transportation Department?

Stephen Nessen: I can't say it all boils down to President Trump's antagonism of New York, but when he was running for president, he threatened to kill congestion pricing. Then finally, he tried to do it, and the MTA, of course, was ready for this, expecting this, filed a counter lawsuit. I'm not going to say all of this is about congestion pricing, but I think a lot of it boils down to this antagonism between the Trump administration and New York City. One of the arguments in the congestion pricing lawsuit is that the subways are not a safe option for people. That's where this bubbles up.

As you've reported, and our dear excellent reporter Liz Kim has also reported, the connections between the Trump administration and the Adams administration are interesting and complicated. It's interesting that Duffy and Adams are close, and Duffy was in New York City very briefly to ride the subway with Mayor Adams. It's funny because Mayor Adams is in charge of the police essentially, and goes along with Duffy throwing the subway system under the bus. Meanwhile, his police department is the ones that are down there patrolling it supposed to be making it safe.

They're cozying up and agreeing like, "Yes, subway is pretty bad, isn't it?" It's a strange thing because it's his police force that's enforcing it and keeping it safe.

Brigid Bergen: Stephen, a listener texts, "Regarding subway safety, we need to distinguish crime from crime directed toward women. Harassment, sexual aggression, even the woman set on fire. Women are frightened more on the subway. This is why "defunding" police is a concerning idea to all women, Black, white, brown." I'm wondering, to my knowledge of the crime stats on the subways, they're not differentiated necessarily by who is the victim of the assault. Any thought on that from that texture?

Stephen Nessen: No, I will say that rape on the subway is rare and concerning, but it does happen, and probably more frequently than any law enforcement agency would want to admit. As far as assaults and whatnot, they don't differentiate unless you want to do a deep dive in the crime data and confirm those things yourself, which takes time.

Brigid Bergen: Sure. Just because this is what our text say of another listener, Jeanette, who texted saying, "I feel safe on the subway." Another woman, presumably Jeanette, who feels very differently about her experience on the subway. We mentioned congestion pricing. You talked about the administration's opposition to it. So far, the state's kept it going, has talked about how it's been very successful. What's the status of federal efforts to stop it at this point?

Stephen Nessen: The US Department of Transportation has been trying to kill the program. They keep giving the MTA these different deadlines to wind it down or stop it, or they are threatening to cut funding for the city and for the state and for various transportation things. Basically, the last time they said it was their third threat in May, and it seemed to be a little more aggressive, I guess, than previous threats. The MTA went to court, and a judge said, "Hold on, hold on. You cannot withhold any of the funding until this lawsuit that the MTA filed is resolved." I think we could expect a decision sooner than the fall, but I think the fall is the deadline that we're working with here.

Brigid Bergen: Interesting. I'm going to share one more text that a listener sent. The listener writes, "The subway has always felt a little sketchy. My main concern is that I'm not sure what the police are there to do. They are always on their phones and don't seem to have the capacity/interest to help with the homeless, mental health crisis. We might as well have scarecrows." That's a pretty blistering text, Stephen, but I shared it in part because I think it's something that you have heard in your reporting, that you mentioned the National Guard. We've seen more police officers on the trains, but people don't seem to know exactly how to interact.

Stephen Nessen: This was certainly a complaint from a lot of folks. Earlier this year, the city and the state changed their tact a little bit. In a very costly move, Hochul agreed to fund overtime so that two police officers could patrol the trains on the overnight hours. The idea is that they won't just be standing on the platform, but will actually be moving through the train cars. Another way to reassure people if they see a police officer, maybe they'll feel safer, but to the point that they're not mental health experts either. The city and the state continue to invest money in these programs.

I don't know, you're not going to see results overnight, but I think it's a year-long effort to try to get folks out of the subway system. The most dire, the most people in need. It's a tough effort. I've been covering transit for a while, and every mayor has essentially said the subways can't be a homeless shelter, but that's what happens in New York City.

Brigid Bergen: We're going to get one more caller in. Zora in Williamsburg. Zora, thanks for calling.

Zora: Hi, I'm a New York City sightseeing guide, and I've been seeing tourism going down, and there's concerns among the tourists. I think people don't talk about how many people ride the subway every year. Last year, there were over one billion rides. Now, let me just say, terrible crimes are crimes, and that's a terrible thing, but when the press and then people of right-wing and even left-wing sentiments exaggerate the fear that they feel because it's perpetuated in a way, there are over one billion rides. Yes, 200 and some felonies or whatever are terrible and we don't want that, but by the way, if I had those odds, baby, I'd go to Vegas, you understand?

[laughter]

Brigid Bergen: Zora, thank you so much for that call. Making a case for subway riding, I think, particularly with the view of someone who's got to encourage tourists to keep coming to New York. Certainly, we do see stories that happen, some of the most terrible things that happen on the subway that consume national attention. I know you've probably had this conversation. I know I have had this conversation with family and friends who are visiting that ask me, "Is it safe to ride the subway?" By and large, the answer is absolutely, of course. I ride the subway, you ride the subway all the time, but an issue nonetheless.

Stephen Nessen: Of course. Cycling advocates will point out cars are way more dangerous and more people are injured on the street than in one of these assaults in the subway.

Brigid Bergen: Lots more to cover, lots more to talk about. We're going to leave it there for now, Stephen. Stephen Nessen is a transportation reporter at the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom. Thanks for coming in and seeing us right here in person on the show.

Stephen Nessen: Thank you, as always.

Brigid Bergen: I'm Brigid Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian.

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