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]
tyburg- having participated in the aforementioned Indy 500, traffic calming is a concept I can agree with you on. I was just wondering about the impact of displacement because I think it is going to happen in many more places- especially if and when AY gets going. I am dreading that day. But insofar as Prospect Park- I’ve always felt the traffic circle was a horrible concept-maybe it when it was a leisurely ride in your carriage with your matched set of bay mares, but certainly not the merry-go-round it is today with 2 ton metal vehicles racing around.
By the way, the above pet peeve is actually a somewhat rational one… I was recently involved with trying to add a small park area to a neighborhood in central brooklyn. The neighborhood association crushed it… basically because it would bisect a fairly low-volume street and force traffic to go around the block
This design actually ADDED parking to the neighborhood, ADDED a park in an area that has almost no green space, and would ALLEVIATE congestion at a badly design intersection…. but, many residents would have to add 2 mins to their commute and, more importantly, SOMETHING would change. All the change is good, but it’s change and that’s bad. Why would you want a park outside your oppressive soviet-style apartment building?
bxgrl — PPW is a problem being a virtual speedway (with terrible light sequencing that actually promotes 50+ mph driving) and needs “traffic calming.”
I’ve never quite gotten the issues surrounding traffic displacement. It’s not like the traffic is being moved to streets that didn’t have car before. If you narrow PPW or even shut down the park slope stretch of 5th Avenue… the cars will either simply travel slightly slower (but less erratically and dangerously) in the case of PPW… or they will be “displaced” to 4th Ave, 6th Ave, 7th Ave or PPW if 5th ave disappeared. All of these streets already have cars — it would take a lot of convincing to suggest the quality of life would be adversely effected.
(In contrast to say, Prospect Park… where it is a PARK, but twice a day the perimeter becomes the Indy 500.)
Also, streets like 4th Ave (a proper boulevard that is designed for large traffice flow) are seldom “at capacity” because there are alternatives like 6th Avenue — what if 6th Avenue was “calmed” with various techniques… bike lanes, single travel lane, irregular driving path, etc. And then 4th avenue was improved (better left turning capacity, light patterns, etc)…
Of course it has to be a somewhat comprehensive approach, but traffic “displacement” doesn’t have to be an issue.
Also, and this is a controversial statement, the community groups tend to screw this stuff up because they are adverse to CHANGE… in general. Not the effect, just the change. What is best for the community/city/region — through economic and environmental impact studies, modeling and so on… is usually destroyed and some half-assed “solution” is arrived at because of parochial pet peaves (e.g., “I will lose all of my business because it will be harder to drive to my shop.” even though she never really had many driving customers and the proposed plan would improve other forms of transportation.) But that voice will win and the majority will suffer.
I’m all for things like this but my question is, what happens to the surrounding neighborhoods and increased car traffic? How will those neighborhoods be impacted?
Oh, and folks have been looking at this sort of stuff in Manhattan for decades…. like this project http://www.vision42.org/
Fills the cross-town transport gap and makes for a pleasant place to be a non-mechanized human.
I agree wholeheartedly with tybur6. The DOT, spearheaded by Commissioner Sadik-Khan, is doing some great things that will hopefully transform our city.
http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s1-2-18-17075-1,00.html
by the way, if you were wondering, I don’t live in Park Slope. I just imagined 5th Ave with it’s restaurants and shops to be a good candidate. But perhaps it’s Smith Street or somewhere in Williamsburg… or all of these places!
(I don’t mention Brooklyn Heights because they already have the Promenade! Can’t be greedy.)
Oh, and what a glorious thing if BIG swathes of Brooklyn became traffic-free zones.
Imagine if 10 blocks of 5th Avenue in Park Slope became bus-only (or even was replaced with a streetcar from atlantic to prospect ave!!) and in the nice weather the restaurants and cafes poured out on triple-width cobblestone “sidewalks”… It would truly be a destination.
This isn’t a fantasy… cities ALL over the world have things like this.
Great idea! PPW has way too many lanes and extremely dangerous traffic.
oldrte10, the Eastern Parkway project is funded (with stimulus money) and should start construction within a year.