City Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez shamelessly exploited a visit to the scene of a deadly Staten Island crash to tout unrelated local new bike lanes Monday and should apologize, a local pol says.
“Our DOT commissioner just showed up for a photo op at the site of last night’s horrific accident, which tragically claimed the lives of three teenagers, to announce that DOT will be installing bike lanes and turning lanes over a half a mile away,” City Councilman Joe Borelli (R-South Shore) fumed in a Facebook post.
Borelli blasted Rodriguez’s visit as nothing but “shameless exploitation” and accused him of staging “a photo up” over the controversial planned bike lanes on Hylan Boulevard between Satterlee Street and Page Avenue.
Borelli said the bike-lane proposal, which the city Department of Transportation unveiled in June, “was strongly opposed by the community board, elected officials, and residents in community surveys.”
He noted that there are already bike lanes at the intersection where teenage siblings Fernanda Gil and Jesie Gil and 15-year-old pal Ashley Rodriguez died when the car they were in collided with another vehicle Sunday night.
The accident had nothing to do with bicycles.
“This is the most shameless exploitation I have ever seen by a city official to push through an unpopular agenda he had long sought to see through,” Borelli wrote.
“In other words, when he heard of this accident, he decided it was a good moment to push more miles of bike lanes. He should resign.”
