Under Mayor Adams, the city often abandons Department of Transportation plans to improve traffic safety and bus service after pressure from business interests and connected donors. Multiple planned projects — busways on Fordham Road and Tremont Avenue, protected bike lanes on Bedford Avenue and Ashland Place, and a Third Avenue road diet — were changed or canceled following complaints from influential business leaders. A Brooklyn studio owners' alleged cash bribe to an Adams aide to stop a McGuinness Boulevard redesign illustrates illegal interference, while watchdogs say legal political donations routinely produce similar results. City Hall interventions have overridden DOT plans despite safety and transit impacts.
A little money goes long way for business interests who want to stop, slow down or scale back Department of Transportation street redesigns under Mayor Adams - just ask Tony and Gina Argento.
Busways on Fordham Road and Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, a protected bike lane on Bedford Avenue in South Williamsburg, a protected bike lane on Ashland Place in Downtown Brooklyn and a planned road diet on Third Avenue in Sunset Park - all projects where Adams over-ruled his own DOT, often after months or years of planning, because of complaints those with access to the mayor's inner circle.
"The thing about McGuinness that's interesting and pathetic is that Ingrid actually took cash bribes, and that's rare," said John Kaehny, the executive director of Reinvent Albany. "There's a million other ways to bribe people without breaking the law."
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