Two Lanes for Two-Wheelers on Prospect Park West
The reduced car access to Prospect Park isn’t the only bike-friendly change in the works for the Park Slope area: The Department of Transportation showed off a plan for a two-way bike path along Prospect Park West at a Community Board 6 meeting on Thursday night, reports The Brooklyn Paper. The move would eliminate one…
The reduced car access to Prospect Park isn’t the only bike-friendly change in the works for the Park Slope area: The Department of Transportation showed off a plan for a two-way bike path along Prospect Park West at a Community Board 6 meeting on Thursday night, reports The Brooklyn Paper. The move would eliminate one lane of car traffic, something that advocates claim would have ancillary safety benefits. “Prospect Park West needs traffic calming, and it needs to be more accommodating to all users,” said Joshua Benson, DOT’s bike program coordinator; only a few parking spaces would be lost. Unlike the traffic reduction measure for the park that is being vociferously opposed by Community Board 7, the bike lane proposal has the support of both CB6 and Transportation Alternatives. “It’s a pretty good package,” said TA’s Wiley Norvell. You get safer access to the park — and the chance to put in an innovative bike lane in one of the densest cycling communities in the city.
City Rolls Out Two-Way Bike Lane on PPW [Brooklyn Paper]
This is awesome. So happy that I’ll be able to use this route both directions.
I wonder how this plan integrates with plans to re-do Grand Army Plaza? I have always thought that making PPW a 2 way street was a great ingredient in that plan. Seems to me that making PPW 2 ways ought to happen first, then perhaps a bike lane could be created.
Southbrooklyn,
I imagine that , if I ever had the misfortune to meet you in person, you’d repeat your argument loudly and slowly, firm in the knowledge that doing so would finally penetrate my dense brain, since only poor benighted creatures like me could possibly fail to appreciate your wisdom. I assure you that doing so would work no better than writing the same thing over and over, ad infinitum. Clearly I’m not enlightened enough to agree with you. You seem to be incapable of realizing that anyone might differ with you in good faith, as your’s is the only point of view that makes any sense. You are, of course, perfectly free to disagree with me about cars in the park, or any other matter, but we won’t continue to argue that point because, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing left to be said.
Thanks zinka. Sadly, once kids learn to ride, there’s no safe place for them to ride on weekdays, except, I guess, in little circles on the transverse drives or the closed exits.
Bob Marvin,
Until you make a convincing argument for why cars should be allowed to drive in Prospect Park, I will continue to disagree with you and to argue with you. So far, all you have had to say is that the park drive are not the part of the park that parents and children would use. This is obviously false, as I have pointed out.
I’m not sure why you find it pathetic that I feel strongly about this issue, or why it would be pathetic that I don’t agree with you.
Do you think most people driving through the park have a strong need to do so? Do you think they don’t have time-competitive mass transit alternatives? Do you think having to drive around the park would unacceptably increase drivers’ travel time? Do you think the needs of a small number of people driving alone outweigh the needs of large numbers of people for fresh air, exercise, and respite from traffic?
I’m really unclear why you are opposed to banning cars from the park. I’m all for bike lanes, and I’m glad you are too, but I’m not sure what that has to do with our disagreement over cars in the park.
Southbrooklyn,
I guess you’re unable to accept my agreement with you about these proposed bike lanes unless I agree with ALL your points. How pathetic!
southbrooklyn, while I agree that the park should be car-free, I also want to point out that there are already some areas that are car-free 24/7 and would be great for teaching people to ride a bike: the closed exit to Bartel-Pritchard Square, and the two transverse drives.
>>>Especially in a city with an excellent mass transit system (yes, it is, compared to anywhere else in the country) and a climate and topography which allows people to ride their bikes a substantial portion of the year.<<<
Extra bike lanes are fine but riding a bike is not the solution for many. Some are over 50 or out of shape and would find a bike commute every day taxing or even dangerous. The ideal solution would be light rail or extra subway lines, but as we’ve seen, upstaters are in no mood to help subsidize the system we have now, much less build new lines.
Dedicate bus-only lanes on major thorofares like PPW, 4th Avenue and the numbered avenues in Manhattan. Build local and express bus lanes, it’s much more affordable than subways. Have some bike lanes for people in shape enough to do that every day as well.
http://www.forgotten-ny.com
And Bob, I responded to you on the other thread, but the key point I would make to you, since you reiterated on this thread that you oppose banning cars from the Park, is this:
You are entirely missing the point when you say that the park drive is the least attractive part of the park to parents and children. I feel you are being deliberately obtuse.
The Park Drives are THE logical place for many thousands of parents to take their children to learn how to ride a bike. But NOT between 5 and 7pm. I guess the need of a few people to drive through the park takes precedence over teaching children to ride bikes. Anyone who would like to teach their kid to ride a bike early on a summer evening will just have to wait until the weekend.