Traffic Islands for Vandy

Hey Mr. Fake What - take your suburban mindset back to Lodi and leave us alone. Vanderbilt Ave is the main thoroughfare of Prospect heights - with all sorts of interesting restaurants and shops. RIght now it is an extremely unpleasant pedestrian environment largely because the street is so wide and there's not enough greenery. Narrowing the roadbed and adding landscaping will make Vanderbilt a more pleasant pedestrian experience which is really what this area needs. Go look up the concept of "induced demand" if you want to understand why widening the road for cars doesn't make any sense. If you make it easier for people to get to Atlantic Yards by car, then they will drive. But if you make it a nightmare to drive to AY then people will get out of their cars and take one of the 15 subway lines or LIRR lines that conveniently stop within block of the stadium.

The City is doing the right thing here - it's good news. Only an idiot like the fake what could possibly see this otherwise.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 3:19 PM

um...Vandy?

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 3:20 PM

3:19 - i agree completely.

even when the arena is going to be built, i really don't see who's going to be driving down vanderbuilt anyway...what to go back home to park slope??

uh, no. they'd walk.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 3:25 PM

Excellent point, 3:19.

I actually think that's the real What, though. Something about the tone. Kind of hard to fake. Also, it's pretty funny that now that the What has a certain city-wide stature, the way he gets put down is to accuse him of inauthenticity. Heh.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 3:29 PM

It's going to be an unpleasant pedestrian experience for a while becasue the driving experience is vehicle after vehicle double parked in the only driving lane. And the What makes a good point (see you can make good points if you don't choke on your own venom) about what the alleged stadium will do.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 3:31 PM

As a PH resident, I am happy to see these medians. Vanderbilt already looks nicer and has gotten more bars, restaurants, and shops over the past few years.

I agree that the above person is a fake What. The grammar is too proper for it to be the true What, who has the writing skills of a six year old child.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 3:35 PM

"Plus if you are going south on Vanderbilt you can't turn left on Atlantic Ave. This crap creates a nightmare on Pacific and Atlantic."

This confuses me. The medians stop a block before Atlantic at Pacific. Are you just griping about a different issue and including it here because it's also on Vanderbilt, or is this somehow related to the medians?

Also, with all of the doomsdaying about the subprime mess, why not do the same with gas? Talking points could include: gas is getting more expensive, soon all of you entitled drivers will be walking/biking, speculative hedge fund traders are driving up the price of gas (there are several articles you could provide links to), comparisons to Mad Max (Atlantic Yards as Thunderdome etc), LMMFAO, and so on.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 3:41 PM

3:20, I thought the same thing...

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 3:56 PM

I ride my bike on this stretch of Vanderbilt every day, and already I can say the bike lanes are making the ride far less treacherous. THANK YOU to the city for this!

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 3:59 PM

Dandy on Vandy. Wish I still lived over there. What process did they go through to have these put in- who was their sponsor? We need those people to help us out over on 4th ave, where there are plenty of median, but which are badly maintained, with no good place for pedestrians who get stranded.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 3:59 PM

Fake What -
A suburban mindset assumes that people are going to drive every where. A suburban mindset is obsessed with adding parking spaces and accommodating drivers. An urban mindset assumes people are going to walk and take the subway. An urban mindset is more concerned with having cohesive urban fabric and a pleasant city at ground level than pandering to the selfishness of drivers who think they have to the god given right to drag their huge SUV's anywhere.

An urban mindest is in favor of street narrowing and greening. A suburban mindset complains about the traffic and wants to kill this project because someone somewhere will double park once and be inconvenient for him.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 4:18 PM

OMG, I agree with the What...

We'll just have to undo this. The resulting median is the result of the Prospect Heights moms with strollers, who couldn't get it to together to cross Vanderbilt. It was fine as it was. As a long term resident, I cannot believe that my tax dollars are being used for the median and will no doubt be used to undo the median.

Can we say Fulton Mall?

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 4:25 PM

Wow...the What DRIVES instead of taking mass transit, biking or walking.

WHAT A SHOCKER!!!!

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 4:27 PM

Please don't encourage the hideous practice of calling the street "Vandy."

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 4:27 PM

Hmmmm....the people who LIVE in Prospect Heights all seem to LOVE this new plan.

And the people who don't live in the neighborhood seem to want to talk sh*t about it.

GUESS WHO'S OPINION MATTERS MORE YOU DUMBF*CKS???!

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 4:28 PM

YOU DON'T LIVE HERE WHAT!

And this is NYC...a pedestrian city. The reason people like NYC is because it's NOT a cra driven society. Anything we can do to hamper more cars on the road is a GOOD thing.

If you don't agree, then you are extremely uneducated and ignorant.

Oh wait...not if. You are regardless.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 4:42 PM

I drive through this area all the time and think the additions are great. Would have been nice if they had been installed when they were resurfacing the road recently. It could have saved time and money.

The What only cares about himself. What matters to the residents of the area is meaningless to him. That is why he is an idiot.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 5:18 PM

Dekalb is one-lane? Since when? I believe they cut it from three to two.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 6:25 PM

I live near Vanderbilt and I find the landscape medians to be quite nice. It helps to mitigate the scale of the street and once some plants get added it should create some visual interest. I can't comment on vehicular traffic however, as I do not own a car. BUT, I think cars have been given too many concessions over the past 50 years; so let's call it a stalemate.

I agree with 5:18 about the timing of construction. Why does it seem that whenever new sidewalk or roads get paved, DOT or ConEd is outside ripping them up shortly after? Bad project management, or too much bureaucracy?

And a question for anyone who lives in the area... ConEd ripped up two blocks of Sterling Place sidewalk and laid an ugly asphalt stripe where they placed new tubes. Is someone going to fix that, or will those 2 blocks be left to look kinda ghetto?

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 6:25 PM

That's not fair 4:25:

>

There are a lot of nice families living here, shouldn't we try to ensure their safety while beautifying our common outdoor space? I think so.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 6:33 PM

Driving on Dekalb has become a nightmare since they made it one lane. Everyone on this website is talking through their asses. No way this improves traffic by limiting the lanes on the main streets. It's ridiculous. Look at bedford avenue, it talkes an extra 15 minutes every day just to get up to the BQE, but all the side streets that are one way and extra wide are now louder and more congested than ever because everyone is looking for ways around bedford. In Berkley they did the opposite regarding bike lanes than this, and it works great.

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 7:27 PM

This is actually the 3rd time within the past year that they've ripped up Vanderbilt. Seems they could have done it ALL at once--makes you wonder why the DOT likes to rip up, repave, rip up, repave etc--somebody's "uncle" is making some dough here (probably Marty's). I bike on Vanderbilt--since they closed the Carlton Ave bridge--and frankly the bike lanes are pretty pointless since the cars park/drive in them. How about separate bike lanes? barricaded like they have in Montreal?

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 8:23 PM

that is definitely NOT the What

Posted by: guest at June 2, 2008 11:41 PM

I don't mind the lane changes. What I mind is that drivers are ignoring the fresh, new, bold paint on the road that directs traffic. This behavior causes accidents, near accidents, road rage, traffic jams and grid lock.

I was on vanderbilt the other day when a car nearly ran into me because he was in a lane that turned (but didn't turn) and i was in a lane that shifted/veered for the new bike lane. AND, there was a cop right behind him/her, and they did nothing.

Posted by: guest at June 3, 2008 4:58 PM

DeKalb might be "one lane " in someone's fantasy, but in reality, at rush hours its 3 lanes all going like a bat out of hell. Cars routinely drive IN the bike lane, moving out only when they see a bike. Lots of bikers also ignore the bike lanes and go opposite traffic as well. There were a couple of teens on the sidewalk with bikes this morning and I couldn't blame them. Traffic was moving so fast they could have been killed. I have nearly been hit by fast moving cars just by stepping off the curb.

Posted by: guest at June 3, 2008 5:08 PM

DeKalb has no parking rules from 7am-10am and from 4pm-7pm, so it has two lanes of traffic for rush hours, and one lane of traffic at all other times.

Posted by: guest at June 3, 2008 7:16 PM