Mayor Mamdani announced Friday he’s moving forward street safety upgrades to a major thoroughfare in Greenpoint that Eric Adams’ administration and former top Adams aide Ingrid Lewis-Martin worked to thwart.
The formerly stalled street redesign on McGuinness Blvd. will include protected bike lanes in both directions of travel on the thoroughfare, which has been among the city’s more dangerous stretches for pedestrians and cyclists.
Street safety advocates have long pushed for the road to be revamped, but the plan hit roadblocks under Adams, who worked to scale back the project. Lewis-Martin was charged last year for her alleged role in working to water down the project in exchange for bribes.
“The city committed to a redesign of McGuinness Boulevard,” Mamdani said. “That commitment promised to deliver the safety and improvements that residents had been asking for until the prior administration bowed to big money interests, leaving the project incomplete and Greenpointers still at risk. Today, however, there is a new mayor in City Hall.”
Each direction of the boulevard will include one travel lane for motor vehicles, one parking-protected bike lane, and a vehicular parking and loading lane. The project is set to begin as soon as the weather warms up, Mamdani said.
The move, which Mamdani said on the campaign trail that he would do, comes after the Adams administration repeatedly watered down the project. Former Mayor Adams’ top adviser Lewis-Martin is currently facing charges that she illegally accepted thousands in bribes and a short appearance on the Hulu show “Godfather of Harlem” from the owners of a Greenpoint-based film production company in exchange for working to chip away at the project. Both the production company owners and Lewis-Martin have pleaded not guilty.
Mamdani likewise pledged on the campaign trail to finish other projects that were either diluted or canceled by the Adams administration despite being greenlit by the city Department of Transportation.
“I will just say, as someone who has been on the other side of DOT for many years, we actually mean this,” Mamdani said to some laughter.
