I Love It When Politicians Pretend They're Engineers

Let's fix one problem by causing a couple more. Rising NYC fire deaths, response times blamed on traffic measures

De Blasio wanted the City of New York to be bike friendly. Sounds good, right? The problem is that the city also needs to be friendly to fire trucks and other emergency vehicles.

Critics point to the Big Apple’s controversial street-closure and outdoor-dining programs aimed at boosting economic recovery during the pandemic. They also blame new bike lines, road barriers and other anti-car policies made under former Mayor de Blasio’s “Vision Zero” initiative aimed at reducing traffic deaths.

“When you see the amount of construction with the bike lanes and those issues in certain areas, you have instances where these long [fire] trucks can no longer make the turn onto or off of a block,” said Andrew Ansbro, president of the Uniform Firefighters Association.

“It definitely causes delays, and delays cost lives.”

This is not the first time politicians have sacrificed public safety for a pet project. It probably won't be the last.

But back to NYC. When you add a bike-lane with concrete dividers you force fire trucks to be 10 feet farther from a building.

“If you go 10 feet further away from the building, that’s one less floor,” he said. “You’ve basically put an entire floor of civilians out of reach.”

Ladders only reach so high, after all.

It isn't just firetrucks. Cops and EMS are slower to respond because traffic sucks.

And De Blasio's vision for zero traffic fatalities has come up short as well, with an increase in incidents of 44%, to a number not seen since 2014.

But still politicians will insist that they are engineers.

In the meantime, when the people of NYC call 911, they can expect to wait longer than they would have a few years ago, and at least a part of that is due to the insanity of bike lanes.