Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday the city won’t be going after vehicles clogging bike lanes because it doesn’t have adequate “resources” for such a crackdown.
“We don’t have the resources to do that right now in the way I think … the bicycle community would like to see, but we do believe that anybody who is parked in the bike lane, of course, is going to be summonsed and there will be consequences,” de Blasio said during his weekly appearance on WNYC radio.
“So these are just different priorities that we need to work with every single day.”
Host Brian Lehrer pointed out that callers to the show regularly question why the city is concerned about clogged bus lanes, but not bike lanes, where “someone can get killed or seriously injured by having to swerve into traffic.”
De Blasio responded that bus lanes are a higher priority because “of the sheer number” who use them, meaning the 2.5 million daily passengers.
His comments came a day after de Blasio announced that seven NYPD tow teams would be dedicated exclusively to clearing bus thoroughfares.
The tow teams are a key part of the city’s bid to boost bus speeds by 25 percent from their current average of 7.4 miles per hour, de Blasio said.