Rainy Day Rally to Step Demo for Yards Parking
Despite the torrential rains, more than 200 people turned out for yesterday’s Brooklyn Speaks-sponsored “Rally Against Demolition for Parking” at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene. The narrow objective of the rally was to save the 20 or so buildings (including Ward’s Bakery) slated to be torn down over the next month to…
Despite the torrential rains, more than 200 people turned out for yesterday’s Brooklyn Speaks-sponsored “Rally Against Demolition for Parking” at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene. The narrow objective of the rally was to save the 20 or so buildings (including Ward’s Bakery) slated to be torn down over the next month to create parking and staging space for the construction of the first phase of the Yards project. In the age of sustainability and global warming and added people to New York, it’s an obscenity to knock down buildings to build surface parking, said Jon Orcutt, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign advocacy group. To the chagrin of the many DDDB members in the audience, the more centrist approach of the organizing coalition, which seeks to reduce the scope of the project through peaceful engagement of FCR and government officials, dominated the oratory, as not a single speaker, including council members Yassky, BeBlasio, Jeffries and James, mentioned the words “eminent domain” and only one, Tish James (who, AY Report notes, drew the loudest applause), mentioned the pending lawsuits. DDDB is planning a protest at the corner of Flatbush and Pacific on Wednesday morning to coincide with the planned demolition of four buildings on that corner. More pics on the jump.
Rain Doesn’t Dampen Rally [Metro]
More Than 200 Rally Against Demolition for Parking [AY Report]
Over 200 brave storm to Rally [Brooklyn Speaks]
Here’s a laughable response from Bruce Bender of Forest City Ratner
“While opponents will say they[construction workers] should be using mass-transit to commute to and from the location, as many of them do, it is a tad difficult when your job requires that you arrive with tools and other gear.â€
1000+ contractors are not bringing their own tools to work with them every day. They leave things locked up in sheds on site and hire night security. But the contractors who are bringing materials and tools on to the site should have some place to store them. So maybe after Ratner tears down all the buildings he could build them a staging area. Or maybe he could just keep the Ward bakery building.
This is what grasping at straws looks and feels like.
So boring. No cares about AY….
As always, most of the attendees are white.
Anon at 3:35 — sorry sounds like I misunderstood you. My main point is simply that congestion does not stop people from driving. And I actually understand that. I have a car and would drive to Manhattan a lot more often, traffic notwithstanding, were it not for the difficulty parking.
Oh yeah, we are going to remain an enclave with parking, no lines, status quo, etc. D-O-N-E-D-E-A-L good morning!
why fight the inevitable
SPer – I completely agree with you, that most car trips to Manhattan could be avoided (i.e. people could take transit, bike, etc.). My point was just that people will drive until it’s too inconvenient (too expensive, too slow, etc.). If we made it somehow more convenient for people to drive (by widening roads, providing more free parking), more people would drive. If we made it harder for people to drive (by tolling the East River bridges, by NOT building lots of new parking at AY), more people would take transit.
“Of course traffic jams discourage people from driving! If there were no traffic jams, I would drive to work in Manhattan!”
Really? If traffic jams stopped people from driving to Manhattan, why are there traffic jams in the first place? My guess is that if you had the free parking enjoyed by most of the NYC residents who are commuting by car to Manhattan, you might drive too.
The research: (www.transalt.org)
“Ninety percent of auto commuters live and work in areas where most commuters use some other mode to get to work (i.e., rail, bus, walk, taxi).
Only 10% of CBD auto commuters commute between home and work areas in which auto is the typical way to make the trip. The choice of auto is motivated by the comfort and convenience of driving, speed of travel, availability of free parking or a combination of these and other factors. Very few people who drive in the Manhattan CBD lack an alternative mode.
AND:
A survey of over 1,600 motorists in the
Manhattan CBD shows that fewer than one-half of those parking in the CBD personally pay for parking. The majority of CBD parkers have employer-provided parking, are reimbursed by their employer or park at unmetered curbside spaces.