By Margaret Gordy

Newsday, December 8, 1987

The New Year should usher in a second ban on bicycles along the midtownportions of Park, Fifth and Madison Avenues, the city announced yesterday."We hope to have it back in place the first week in January," said JosephO'Brien, a spokesman for the city Department of Transportation.

First imposed in mid-August, the ban provoked angry demonstrations bybike messengers before it was struck down in State Supreme Court in Manhattanon Sept. 8, because the city had failed to give the public adequate notice.

Yesterday, the DOT published a proposal to reinstate the ban in theCity Record, the first step for inviting public comment. The program isbilled as an experiment, lasting from three to six months.

The rules are designed to reduce pedestrian-cyclist collisions, whichthe city claims killed two people and injured 688 last year. They willapply weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Park, Madison, and Fifth Avenuesbetween 31st and 59th Streets  -  an area police say has oneof the city's highest cycle-related accident rates.

A group against the ban, Bicycle Transportation Action, has threatenedto sue if it is reimposed. The group's spokesman, Roger Herz, said, "Wewill go back to court on this with substantive arguments and I am confidentthat we will win."