The Fight for Prospect Park's Roads
When new driving restrictions in Prospect Park go into effect on April 27, CB 7 won’t be cheering. The board started making noise last year when the plan was floated, agitating for an Environmental Impact Study before any changes were made. Now, according to the Brooklyn Paper, it’s a matter of pride: “No one was…
When new driving restrictions in Prospect Park go into effect on April 27, CB 7 won’t be cheering. The board started making noise last year when the plan was floated, agitating for an Environmental Impact Study before any changes were made. Now, according to the Brooklyn Paper, it’s a matter of pride: “No one was contacted on this before it was a done deal,” said CB7 District Manager Jeremy Laufer. Opponents fear that Park Circle will be overwhelmed by the rerouted cars, a charge both DOT and TA pooh-pooh.
Arkady, what if there was a little chairlift or gondola that popped you over the the other side the the circle? That would be awesome. There should be more of those.
I agree — Park Circle without lights means almost certain pedestrian death.
What I never understood is why the DOT has never tried properly timing lights and enforcing the posted speed on periphery streets. Traffic occurs from too many cars arriving at a bottleneck at the same time. Nobody should be surprised that there’s traffic at Grand Army Plaza, Empire Blvd, and Park Circle when cars go 40-50 mph down PPW or flatbush to beat lights along the way…
I hate roundabouts (I didn’t learn to drive in the US originally) . Much prefer traffic lights, although the ones in that circle are ridiculously long.
I like the lights when I’m trying to cross – there should be some halt to traffic for pedestrians.
BTW I run most mornings in Prospect Park. Since retiring it’s after rush hour, but before that I ran at about 6AM with no problems from cars, even in winter, when I ran before dawn (although I wore a reflector for visibility).
I agree that the park roads should be closed to cars most of the day, but having them open during rush hours used to significantly reduce traffic on the periphery. The partial rush hour closings in the last couple of years have already made the park drives virtually useless to drivers (which, I’m sure was their intent) so a total closing would hardly be worse. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think the rush hour car closing isn’t a dumb idea.
Americans don’t know how to use them because they were taken away because someone decided we didn’t know how to use them… chicken and egg. Perhaps if we actually taught people how to drive and actually raised the bar for driver’s licenses… just sayin’. New England has rotaries/roundabouts and they seem to know how to use them just fine. It’s the New York tourists that are stymied.
(You’re probably right about the “level of traffic” — but Park Circle could probably be blinking reds during 19 hours of the day… and get rid of that set of lights in the middle of the circle altogether…. just control the “inputs”)
As someone who relies on the park as my main location for recreation and exercise, this is welcome news. It’s nice to think that I won’t have to run with cars dangerously close to me, spewing exhaust as I try to get healthy.
Cars don’t belong in the park. If this community board is worried about traffic, it needs more creative solutions than just “Oh, there’s a park nearby, let’s use that.”
tybur6: The problem is that Americans generally don’t know how to use roundabouts. Aren’t roundabouts effective only up to a certain level of traffic flow anyway? Maybe this circle has surpassed that.