Dare ya! (Getty)

It is clear by now, if it has not always been, that the opponents of the Prospect Park West bike lane do not trust the city's Department of Tranportation.

They have insisted the project was "trial" with virtually no proof that this was ever the city's position. They have dismissed city-run studies of traffic data that show the lane has improved traffic flows and reduced injuries. And they have sneered at the considerable majority of their neighbors who have voted time and again in favor of the project. Still, the efforts of Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes persist, especially now that their lawsuit against the lane has been returned to court on a technicality. The group's response has been to offer the city a settlement that essentially amounts to little more than a barroom dare.

In a letter to the city Law Department shared with The Observer, attorneys for the Neighbors group offer to drop all charges if a "fully independent, mutually-agreed-upon expert," paid for by DOT, will produce an "objective study" of the bike lane's traffic and safety impacts, and this expert finds, through "scientifically accepted standards and the resulting raw data," that conditions have indeed improved. Because clearly the city's own study was not objection.

But here's the kicker. "If, however, the study demonstrates that traffic or safety conditions have not improved, or have worsened, then DOT will concede that the Bike Lane has failed to achieve its stated objective (calming traffic) and will remove it."

In the annals of transportation chest thumping, this is almost as good as the time MTA chief Joe Lhota got in a fight with one of his fellow board members and told him to "be a man" and stand up to him.

The greenway gauntlet has been thrown.

"My clients have offered a completely reasonable mechanism to resolve the claims in the lawsuit, about which DOT has so bitterly complained," Neighbors attornewy Jim Walden said in an email. "Hundreds of community members earnestly believe the bike lane has compromised safety, so the Independent safety study my clients propose represents sound public policy."

He said that paying for the study would be cheaper than continuing litigation. But what would be even cheaper would be just dropping the suit outright.

The city said the so-called settlement is nothing more than yet another media blitz from the bike lane opponents, and they could not take it anyway, as it would cede all legal authority, which the city not only must maintain for reasons of responsibility, but the city also fully believes it will prevail in the case.

"This offer—designed to maximize press coverage by rehashing their prior distortions—is rejected," Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo said in a statement to The Observer. "The Prospect Park West bike lane has already been subjected to the most thorough analysis and review of any bike lane in history. The petitioners simply reject and misrepresent the results of these reviews, and are now seeking to move the goal posts yet again."

The Department of Transportation study in dispute found that the lane, which cut traffic lanes on Prospect Park West down from three to two while eliminating some parking spots along the mile-long stretch, found that traffic accidents had gone down 63 percent and speeding had been reduced by 74 percent. Bicyclists riding on the sidewalk had fallen by 46 percent, while the vehicular throughput, or amount of cars traveling the stretch without traffic, remained unchanged. Meanwhile both a poll by the city and local Council Man Brad Lander found that more than 70 percent support the new lane.

Opponents counter that there is data from the local precincts that demonstrate an increase in accidents as a result of the lane. Perhaps they should bring it with them when they are next in court.

"We remain confident that, just as was the case with the three other claims in this lawsuit, the court will see through the petitioners' one remaining claim and again dismiss the remnants of this lawsuit," Mr. Cardozo said.

Not so fast. (Getty)

While it seemed like the bicycle backlash of a year ago had finally cooled off, and those larcenous lanes were here to say—won't someone think of the motorists!—the cold war is back this winter. The Columbus Avenue bike lane expansion was rebuffed by the local community board, bike share has been delayed a few extra month, Steve Cuozzo thinks bikes are a cancer on the city (O.K., so what else is new?), and now opponents of the Prospect Park West bike lane have finally won a court case.

After complaints over the lane were ignored in court in the spring, Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes appealed the results to a higher court, which today ruled that the lower court had to reconsider the case on technical grounds. The Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court ruled unanimously that judge Burt Bunyon erred in dismissing the case as lacking merit, and now a hearing must be held over the lane (you can read the one-page decision here).

The politically connected Neighbors group, which counts Iris Weinshal, Chuck Schumer's wife and the former DOT commissioner, and Borough President Marty Markowitz among its backers, argued that the lane was a trial until last year, and thus there was time for the group to file a challenge to the lane. Judge Bunyon, however, found that the statute of limitations for the suit had lapsed. The appellate court found that time was not up for a legal challenge, but neither did the judges rule that the lane was wrong, simply that hearings as to its appropriateness had to be heard.

Indeed, the city's Department of Transportation is holding today's decision up as much as a victory for itself. "We’'re confident that the Prospect Park West bike lane is here to stay," spokesman Seth Solomonow said in an email. "We'’re very pleased that three of the four causes of action were dismissed by the Appellate Court, which also returned to the trial court one claim for a limited finding on a technical issue. We are fully confident that the trial court will decide that there is absolutely no merit to what is left of this case."

Opponents of the lane have been calling for legal discovering all along, insisting the city was hiding something—without any proof, but the suggest that something was being hidden creates an implication that is hard to deny. Now, they may get their day in court, but it still does not ensure a victory.

Still, the group remains undeterred.

“We are gratified by the Court’s decision, and we look forward to finally forcing the truth from the Department of Transportation,” Jim Walden, the Neighbors' attorney, said in a statement. “As we have maintained all along, DOT broke the rules, fudged the data, and orchestrated actual harassment against people who disagreed with its tactics. It is just shameful."

Or delightful, if you're a cyclist. "In the meantime, local residents will continue to enjoy the safety that this community-requested and supported lane has provided every day for the last two and a half years," Mr. Solomonow said.

Repeatedly, the lane has been overwhelmingly supported in local surveys and community board votes.

Don't stop us now, we're having such a good time, we're having a ball.

For the past year or so, The Observer, along with the rest of the press corps, has been chronicling the city's, and the press corps', reaction to our burgeoning bicycle culture. The Post, obviously, has been highly critical, to say the least, if not downright damnatory. The News has, understandably, followed suit. Even The Times has been playing against type, turning its back on its pinko-brownstone readership to criticize everything from a--gasp--European-style bike share program to streets czarina JSK (rhymes with DSK!).

We just pointed fingers and laughed.

With all this skepticism about what is basically a child's toy, never did we expect to read the most clear-eyed and concise defense of biking yet in the (ever-so-much-so-these-days) conservative Wall Street Journal. Granted the praise comes from a wry sports columnist, but the fact remains: Jason Gay declares the Bike Wars over, and he may just be right.

Bikes are New York fringe? Email your friends. Ask how many of them own bikes. Then ask how many of them own cars. If more of them say they own cars, look out the window. You live in Connecticut.

[...]

The revival of urban cycling in this country follows a fairly predictable pattern: nervousness and ridicule, followed by the realization that the truth never matches the fear-mongering. The supposed choice between bikes and everyone else is a bogus choice. More bikes in a city doesn't merely benefit riders; it reduces congestion, saves money, improves quality of life, elevates the experience. No one returns from a city and says, "Oh, it was great—except for all the biking."

Whether the bicycle backlash is truly over remains to be seen. Yesterday, arguments in the lawsuit against the Prospect Park West bike lane were postponed yet again until July 20. Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes, the anti-lane group backed by Iris Weinshal, the former DOT commish and Chuck Schumer's wife, as well as officials at Brooklyn College, the botanic garden and a former deputy mayor, want time for depositions and discovery. As Streetsblog notes, this is a rare administrative challenge the group is undertaking, but if it succeeds, it "could turn into another round of media spectacle for the case."

We might be in for a long, hot summer after all.