DOT Steps Up Grand Army Makeover
At a meeting Thursday night with three area community boards, the Department of Transportation unveiled its much-anticipated plans for remaking Grand Army Plaza. StreetsBlog summarized the changes in a blog post: Lots of asphalt will be reclaimed for walking and biking. Getting to the central plaza will be a much-improved experience, as will biking to…
At a meeting Thursday night with three area community boards, the Department of Transportation unveiled its much-anticipated plans for remaking Grand Army Plaza. StreetsBlog summarized the changes in a blog post:
Lots of asphalt will be reclaimed for walking and biking. Getting to the central plaza will be a much-improved experience, as will biking to the greenmarket, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the park, thanks to an entirely two-way system of bike lanes. Russo said DOT hopes to begin implementation in August.
The plan got a very positive reaction from other stakeholders, including Robert Witherwax of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition: “We have called for a wholesale rethinking of the interplay between peds, bikes, and cars and the space devoted to each: DOT brought that.” There’s another diagram of the makeover on the jump and lots of graphics in the DOT presentation. You psyched about this? Looks pretty exciting to us.
GAP as a Walkable Destination and Bicycling Hub [StreetBlog]
DOT’s GAP Plan: Bold, Exciting, Crowd-Pleasing [StreetsBlog]
Grand Army Improvements [DOT – pdf]
It’s the north side that has always been ridiculous. If you actually want to cross the roads legally and (relatively) safely, and get the fountain, you have to walk waaaaay around. A guy made a video once of how he had to walk to get from Flatbush or Vanderbilt on the north side to the Arch and then to the Park.
(I agree, i’ve never had a problem with this thing on my bike, on foot, or by car… I’ve never quite gotten how this is an “extremely dangerous” traffic circle. If NYC’ers would just look at the lines on the road, we’d be all set.)
That being said, this will be a huge improvement. Maybe even a old granddad will be able to visit the fountain.
Renato;
Wait a minute, perhaps I’m thinking of the wrong Piazza. I’m thinking of the one near Villa Borghese. Is it Piazza del Popolo? It’s the one that was renovated about 10 years ago such that the traffic only moves around its circumference, leaving the entire central portion free for pedestrians.
Piazza della repubblica as a urban model?
Are you kidding me?
I am italian and I think that plaza is just a chaotic and dangerous traffic island (as Piazza Venezia)… a place that romans are used to avoid…
Also, which park are you talking about?
There is just a disgusting and blighted pocket park close to it, and just homeless and male prostitutes use it…
I’m with ENY. I’ve traversed that circle a few thousand times by bike and on foot without incident, and can’t understand what the problem is. Personally, I think DOT could do a lot more for cyclists by filling potholes.
Shrug. I never have any problem biking, driving or walking through the circle, been doing it for 30 years. Try crossing the circle around the Arc de Triomphe! Much more difficult in my opinion. I think Grand Army is relatively OK, although landscaping is definitely a good idea. But hey, if this plan improves the circle, I’m cool with that.
I used to travel to Italy alot, and wish that we would take a page from their book when it comes to the design of “Piazza’s”. It looks like this plan will improve GAP, but it doesn’t address another shortcoming that I see, and that is the landcaping. Imho, the current landscaping in the central island resembles that of an undeveloped, wooded lot. More importantly, it prevents a grand vista of the plaza. It is this latter point where Italy succeeds so well. In Italy, the urban landscape is celebrated in the piazza, not hidden. One can sit in the piazza and take in all the buildings that surround it.
GAP has the potential to be Brooklyn’s Piazza della Republica (in Rome) which also adjoins a great park and is indeed an extension of it.
Looks like a great plan, with real improvements for everybody — drivers, pedestrians, bike riders. I’m psyched about the taming of the incredibly confusing-to-cross intersection of Plaza Street West, Union Street, and PPW.
Looks like a real comprehensive improvement. Now, if we can just teach new yorkers how to navigate a traffic circle.
Two things — North of the arch… AWESOME. You’ll actually be able to get to the Plaza from Vanderbilt etc without running like a chicken with it’s head cut off.
However… TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT. Please note in the second diagram how there are, appropriately, TWO lanes of cars (out of 4) coming from the circle and able to turn right onto Flatbush Ave southbound? What will be truly *magical* is if ONLY those two lanes turn onto Flatbush. But we all know that there will be millions of douchebags in the far left lane looking to exit right.
The two-way bike lanes are great… and I can see just a hint of the narrowed Prospect Park West. Awesome! (When do they “break ground” for that bit?