COMMENTARY: Bike Safety: Engineering, Education and Enforcement

The City aggressively attacks unsafe conditions for bike riders on the City’s streets and avenues, but less successfully attacks unsafe behaviors of bike riders. Unsafe conditions can mostly be engineered away, but unsafe behaviors require changes of a cultural nature. The City in 2019 experienced 28 bike rider deaths and more than 4,000 bike injuries. So far 2020 has experienced more bike injuries than in 2019. To make the City safer for bike riders, the … <Read More>


Bicycle Riding and Injuries, Tort Claims and Defenses

Bike riding is enjoyable, healthy and fun. It can also be dangerous. The City is heavily invested in encouraging bike riding and bike safety. Yet, accidents happen, and when they do bike riders may opt to sue. Bike riders receive no special status as tort plaintiffs. Bike riders in court live by the same rules that govern tort claims by pedestrians and car drivers. As New York courts have repeatedly stated, a “bicyclist is required … <Read More>


Chief Administrative Judge Issues Statewide Moratorium on Eviction Proceedings in Wake of Corona Crisis

REBNY, Legal Aid and all parties united against evictions during Corona outbreak. On March 15, 2020, the New York State Court System issued an indefinite moratorium on eviction proceedings, effectively allowing many people and families throughout the state to stay in their homes and off the streets or in shelters. Tenant advocates and numerous elected officials argued housing insecurity and homelessness will only exacerbate the COVID-19 threat. The proceedings which a New York City … <Read More>


Rosedale Infrastructure Upgrades to Be Completed Ahead of Schedule

The project is set to be completed one season early and over $1 million under budget. On March 4, 2020, the NYC Department of Environmental Protection announced that a major infrastructure upgrade project in Rosedale, Queens, would be completed ahead of schedule. The area, from 130th Avenue to the north, 133th Avenue to the South, and Brookville Boulevard to the west, is part of an area in southeast Queens that has faced flooding in the <Read More>


Council Approves Go Broome Development on Lower East Side

Council Member Chin was pleased to announce deeper affordability, senior housing and the preservation of two Lower East Side institutions in Go Broome project. On February 27, 2020, the full City Council unanimously approved with a companion resolution, GO Broome LLC’s application to rezone and develop a large-scale, mixed use development on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The Chinese-American Planning Council and the Gotham Organization Inc. partnered to propose a development with mixed-income, intergenerational … <Read More>


Landmarks Holds Public Hearing on Seven-Story Mixed-Use Development in Greenpoint

Landmarks agreed with local elected officials and residents that the proposed building was out of context for the Greenpoint Historic District. On February 11, 2020, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on a Certificate of Appropriateness to demolish an existing one-story brick building and construct a new seven-story mixed-use residential and commercial building at 171 Calyer Street, located within the Greenpoint Historic District in Brooklyn. The existing one-story building was a former supermarket … <Read More>