By Margaret Gordy

Newsday, December 8, 1987

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

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

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

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

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