Loopy in Prospect Park? Changes Come to the Ring
Reprinted in full from Gothamist: Back in February, in the wake of two serious collisions between cyclists and pedestrians in the often-crowded 3.3 mile Prospect Park Loop, the DOT proposed a significant redesign to change how the road gets shared. Many were disappointed the DOT didn’t use the opportunity to try banning cars completely from…
Reprinted in full from Gothamist:
Back in February, in the wake of two serious collisions between cyclists and pedestrians in the often-crowded 3.3 mile Prospect Park Loop, the DOT proposed a significant redesign to change how the road gets shared. Many were disappointed the DOT didn’t use the opportunity to try banning cars completely from the park, but the new layout does shrink the real estate allocated to motorists. Here are details about the work that starts today. As you can see, the new design, being implemented this month, replaces a lane of car traffic with a dedicated bike lane intended to keep cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers out of each other’s way. (The bike lane is bifurcated to accommodate different cycling speeds.) So drivers lose a lane, bikers gain their own dedicated zone, and pedestrians get their own section on the inside track. The only thing missing is a special fenced-in lane for teenagers!
Click through for Tobias Funke’s thoughts on the matter.
Big Prospect Park Loop Lane Changes Start… Now [Gothamist]
One of the biggest problems in the park for runners — and I know it’s only a small group of overall park users — is that running on that inside area of the road is the fastest way known to man to end up with an IT band injury. The last thing anyone should be doing is running with one foot 8″ lower than the other, and it’s easy that pitched in most of the loop. (Not terribly safe for a lot of walkers, either, really.) Not that commenting on a blog is going to make any difference, but when you see runner veering to the outer edge of the “walking” section, that’s why. Try not to go aggro on them, cyclists, by shouting at the back of their head and clipping them with your arm to “scare” them. Ahem.
this will not change anything.