Lawsuit Seeks to Erase Bike Lane in New York City

Lawsuit Seeks to Erase Bike Lane in New York City

Well-connected New Yorkers have taken the unusual step of suing the city to remove a controversial bicycle lane in a wealthy neighborhood of Brooklyn, the most potent sign yet of opposition to the Bloomberg administration’s marquee campaign to remake the city’s streets.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, comes after a year of dueling petitions, pamphlets and rallies over a bike path installed by the city last summer along Prospect Park West.

But while the suit seeks only the removal of that particular lane, it incorporates criticisms of the administration’s overall approach in carrying out the high-profile initiatives of its transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, including placing pedestrian plazas in Times and Herald Squares and rededicating dozens of miles of traffic lanes for bicycle use.