Streetsblog New York City

that's a really informative presentation. well put together. the visual representation of the obstructed sight lines with the current config. is particularly good. kudos DOT!

Slide 13 has two big problems:
(1) 9th St. entrance to Prospect Park is not a vehicular entrance.
(2) The slide shows cyclists riding clockwise around Prospect Park's loop drive, the wrong way.

The slide should show a route up 9th St., right on Prospect Park West, entering at Bartell-Pritchard, and across one of the center drives to exit the park at the same point.

People are going to freak when they show this slide tonight.

Right, it's a bike route; but the 9th St. entrance is ped-only currently. Westbound riders will either have to exit at 3rd St., or dismount and walk the short pathway from West Drive to the 9th St. exit. Eastbound riders could either walk in at 9th St. or bike to 15th St.

But at the meeting this evening someone mentioned an option I hadn't considered... the park administration, at their discretion, could declare the walkway between West Drive and 9th St. a "shared-use" pathway, shared by bikes and peds.

Incidentally the CB6 transpo committee, to their credit, passed a motion to approve the plan by 4-2 vote.

nobody does a powerpoint like DOT.

DOT didn't send all the pages that they showed at the meeting. The number of crashes at every intersection on Ninth St. is 2 to 4 times greater than at neighboring streets. Shouldn't we try to find the safest streets for bikers. For example, 15th St. is wide, links with an actual vehicular entrance to Prospect Park, and will also link to the Armory that will soon open as a recreational site.

Aaron,
The problem is that 9th St. in not a bike connection to Prospect Park, It is a pedestrian entrance, My suggestion wouldn't ask bikers to go 12 blocks extra. If the were on 3rd St. they would just enter where we are supposed to when riding our bikes, and using 15th St. would add an additional entrance where bikes could enter/exit without worrying about pedestrians. The Armory will be a year round recreational destination in the very near future as well.
Bartel Pritchard has a full extra lane already painted out for traffic calming when they narrowed it. It's the left lane, that could easily be changed to the right/outside lane which would give bikers a full lane to bike safely in. Below 8th Ave. 15th St. gets wider than most other streets, and it will have no busses and very little commercial traffic.
Bob

During the over 30 years that I've lived in the Slope and used the Ninth St. entrance regularly, I've rarely seen anyone actually walk their bikes to the drive. The Drive is just about at it's furthest point from the outside of the park at 9th St. The short walk you mention has to go past both the Harmony Playground & the bandshell before reaching the drive. Or as you mentioned you make the right at PPW to go to 15th St, then you end up right where I suggested the bike lane should bring you to.

I ride my bike on 9th St. regularly and never once used it to access the park. There are many destinations on and around 9th St. that people on bikes use 9th St. to get to. Personally, I often end up riding down 9th St. all the way down to the Clinton St. bike lane, to Tillary St. and then over the Manhattan Bridge. 9th St. is part of my network.

I'd sugest to Bob that the reason that statstics show more crashes involving cyclists on 9th St. is simply because there are more cyclists using 9th St. If there are twice as many crashes but 10 times as many users, then it's hard to draw a negative conclusion about the appropriateness of bike lanes there.

I am a resident of 9th Street btwn 4th & 5th Ave, with a six yr old child, and I've always known this street to dismayingly be one of the most inhospitable to pedestrians. I applaud and welcome the positive changes proposed. Both my child and I have nearly been hit by cars 4 times, close enough that I banged on the car window in furious response (we were legally crossing the street on all occasions).

A bike lane could only be an asset to my rough block and is sincerely welcomed by my family. The idea that people would have difficulty doing drop offs and pick-ups as a consequence is nonsense: I've received DOT tickets for doing exactly that in the present scenario, so what's the difference?