-- One after another after another, Hoboken residents and business owners packing City Hall Monday night said bike lanes just weren't right for Washington Street: reckless riders would threaten elderly pedestrians crossing the streets and people trying to get to their cars; the riders themselves would be vulnerable to opened car doors as they pedal alongside parallel parking spaces; and, most of all, the 6-foot bike lanes proposed for each side of the street would make traffic lanes too narrow for double parking, the illegal but institutionalized practice that businesses rely on for deliveries from vendors and pick-ups and drop-offs by customers.

"Our businesses on Washington Street are in fierce competition with the Amazon.coms, the Fresh Directs," Hany Ahmed, a local real estate developer with Pegasis Properties, told the City Council, which must approve the plan. "Now, you're one step away from making them obsolete."

More than 150 members of the public crowded the City Council Chambers on Monday night for a special meeting on a Washington Street redesign plan developed by engineering consultants at T&M Associates. The redesign is backed by Mayor Dawn Zimmer, whose embrace of technology and contemporary planning trends, including bike and car sharing, have won her praise from progressives and criticism from those more wary of change.



Zimmer said construction work could begin this fall, if the City Council approves issuing $10 million in bonds for the plan, after having already approved a $5 million low-interest loan from the state to cover part of the cost. The council could vote as soon as Feb. 17, said Council President Jennifer Giattino, who declined to say whether she would vote for or against the plan as it stands.



The chairman of the council's transportation and parking committee, Michael DeFusco, said it was possible the committee could meet again before the 17th, possibly to come up with some sort of compromise more acceptable to business owners.



Some retailers told the council that bike lanes would ruin their business, and that the cyclist-shopper envisioned by the mayor was a rarity at best, vastly outnumbered by people who shop by car and would be inconvenienced and possibly driven away by bike lanes and the lack of double parking space they would entail.



The redesign plan, laid out on the city's website, is intended to improve traffic flow and the safety of pedestrians, motorists and cyclists through measures including electronic count-downs at intersections, where bump-outs would shorten crossing distances, and back-in/drive-out diagonal spaces that give the parking car more control of the situation than drive-in/back-outs.



The bike lanes would let cyclists avoid competing with automobiles, while the resulting narrower traffic lanes would slow the average driving speed by cars and trucks. Even with the narrower lanes, Zimmer said total drive times up and down Washington would be reduced by newly coordinated traffic signals.



Zimmer has cited figures rating Washington as the most dangerous street in Hoboken, with more than 300 accidents between 2013 and 2015. One was a pedestrian fatality in June, in which an 89-year-old woman was struck and killed as she crossed Washington at Fifth Street by a van making a left turn onto Washington.

The project also contains physical improvements including a repaving of the street, reconfiguration of parking and bus stops, the addition of loading zones, relocation of fire hydrants from mid-block to corners to free up parking spaces, and replacement of water lines.



Eugene Flinn, who owns three restaurants in the city, spoke for several critics of the bike paths when he said other elements of the redesign plan were necessary, and suggested an alternative design that omitted the lanes.



Freeholder Anthony Romano called for compromise. Another speaker, Dan Thompson, was applauded when he suggested making bike lanes a ballot question. Others suggested putting bike lanes on a less busy street, or the waterfront.



Armando Luis, owner of the two restaurants and a liquor store on Washington Street, said it wasn't the cyclists who needed protection.



"As an avid cyclist and a bicycle racer at one time, I have dozens of friends who are cyclists and are more reckless than drivers, Luis said.



Lt. John Petrosino of the Hoboken Police said in response to a question from Councilman Ruben Ramos that eliminating room for double parking on Washington Street could also make it more difficult for officers to pull over a violator without blocking traffic.

"Possibly," said Petrosino, the department's traffic commander.



Not everyone spoke out against the bike lanes on Monday.



"We should be happy when we see somebody on a bike on Washington Street," said Ronald Bautista, a 29-year-old marketing consultant and resident of the city affiliated with a new group called Bike Hoboken. "That ois one more chance I have to find a parking space. That is one less car in front of me."

Another cycling advocate, Peter Kim, a software engineering and 37-year-old father of two who lives on Willow Street, said he rode to the meeting on a Hoboken Bike Share bike. Kim suggested that, for some, the bike lanes were a symbol of change generally.

"I think it's more than just about bike lanes," said Kim, who has lived in town for three years. "I think there are a lot of people who have grown up here, or have lived here a long time, and they see bikes as representing change."



Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.