The least they could do is install traffic lights and program them to stay red for the park closed hours.

"For Athletes, An Invisible Traffic Hazard"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/fashion/12Fitness.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Cars, trucks, and diesel buses — the main culprits in the creation of particle pollution — spew untold millions of the microscopic pollutants into the air daily. Exercisers should take precautions against particles, experts said, by not exerting themselves near traffic, or, if they must use a path next to a highway, staying a few hundred yards away from vehicles.

Particles can sail past nasal hairs, the body’s first line of defense, and settle deep in athletes’ lungs. Some remain there, causing irritation and inflammation. Others, so tiny they can bypass various bodily defenses, migrate into the bloodstream.

It seems to me that Prospect Park is the place to start, precisely because closing the park drives will have a MINIMAL effect on car commuting times. As I understand it, the study of closing the drives in the off-peak direction increased commuting times by 3 (count them, 1-2-3) minutes. But what about a study of the effect on commuting times of full closure? I am willing to wager that this will find an increase of no more than 5 minutes, if that, especially for the evening commute. Again -- just look at Prospect Park SW between 5 and 7. Traffic moves briskly.

My fantasy is to make a film that captures the difference it makes to the park experience to have cars driving through. When you go into Prospect Park after 7 pm on a summer evening, you very quickly leave noise behind and are enveloped in cool greenness, bird chirping, and all the rest.

When you enter the park during the evening rush, you have to walk much farther into the park to get the same experience. In effect, letting cars through the park SHRINKS the park dramatically, not just by spoiling the experience of running or biking on the drives, but by spoiling the sense of peace and quiet that would otherwise be available just a fews steps within the park boundary.

(Ditto for the morning rush I'm sure, but that's not when I happen to be in the park.)

Apparently 3rd Street opens to traffic right on time, and the cars are lined up, ready to get in. At least that's what happened at about 5:00 PM today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdR5xPYeuVs

And last I checked, plenty of people from different income levels use the park. Considering how few low-income people can afford summer homes or big vacations, doesn't the city owe it to the people who use the park as their "summer home" to keep it car-free? There are so few places in Brooklyn where a kid can run around without cars spewing exhaust. If reducing asthma is a big reason to support congestion pricing, it should also be a reason to support car-free parks.

Fascinated seems to be making this point, but it's worth repeating. We're talking about a park! Why do cars have to go through it at all? We need more creative solutions and shouldn't fall back on an easy out of opening the park to traffic!

I wonder if any parks people or DOT officials have been following this and what their opinions are on this issue.

Also the basic facts: Traffic is unbelievably horrendous in Flatbush on the southeastern side of the park, particularly during the AM rush. Many people who live down there (who also happen to be not as white or as wealthy as the Park Slope-oriented constituency that wants a car-free park) believe that making the park car-free would load up their streets with even more crushing traffic.

Car-Free Park advocates need to get themselves out to Flatbush and start talking with those communities about how to relieve their traffic burden beyond continuing to allow people to drive in the park (which isn't actually helping them very much anyhow). That's the clear next step in the campaign. But no one's doing it.

Til then, how about, at the very least, closing the Third Street entrance to cars. There's no need for that to be open to traffic at all.

If we can keep focused on the basic facts--that drivers aren't saving much time by using the park, that traffic outside the park doesn't increase significantly when the park is closed, that people don't have a lot of park space to use car-free during popular times of day--then we win. I think most people are well-aware of how dangerous mixing cars, people, and a thin line of paint on the ground separating the two can be. While I hope it doesn't take someone getting killed by a car in the park, I would hate to think that focusing on the extremes is the only way to make a change.

I'll weigh in only to say that in the longer video, I very clearly say that the people who are using the park after it's supposed to be closed are most likely merely ignorant of the hours and not maliciously flouting posted rules. This was cut in the interest of time, but it's there for the record.

In fact, in the longer video, you can see what happens when the barriers are set up: most drivers slow down, see that the park is closed, and continue down Prospect Park West. (You are right that the drivers going around the barriers are another story altogether.)

Regarding petitions, one already exists: Transportation Alternatives has been at it for years, gathering signatures online and in the park. More information for both Central and Prospect Parks is at:

http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/index.html

By the way, I don't think it's necessary to label cars "deathmobiles," and I'd hate to turn this into a mandate on automobiles in general. Obviously if a car comes in close contact with a person the car will win, but I am not anti-car at all and actually love to drive when I get the chance. I'm not against people driving on Fifth Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, the BQE, the West Side Highway, or on any of the other thousands of miles of roadways available to them 24-hours a day across this city. I'm just against them driving on a 3.3 mile loop of pavement through a city park.

But I can see how someone coming from another context wouldn't realize that the drivers weren't the real targets (at least the ones who weren't going through the barriers), and that the goal isn't to shame them, but to get quicker closing of the car entrances (in the short term) and cars out of the park (in the long term).

Of course part of the problem is that cars really are "deathmobiles," but drivers have become so desensitized to that fact, and all they can think of is whether they can get away with a shortcut or not.

That's the big disconnect, and until we can bridge that disconnect, motorists are going continue to be baffled by our concerns. But I'm not sure it's possible to bridge it, because I think that it's almost impossible to drive regularly without that desensitization and denial.

I think most reasonable people would want to ban cars from the park, if the question were put to them in a reasonable manner.
Start a petition. Set up a booth at the 3rd Street entrance.

Firstly, no one ever got hit by a car while mailing a package 15 minutes after closing. Secondly, it's up to the discretion of one postal worker to make an exception for one customer at a time. In this case, a handful of cars are making their own decisions at the expense of hundred or thousands of people who want to use the park in the less than two hours before the sun goes down. If they could realistically get to every entrance in time, no parks employee would allow cars beyond the 7 PM cut-off. Thirdly, your analogy describes an emergency situation (A Christmas deadline) and the good graces of an employee. But what's so urgent about a bunch of people looking to save 5 or 10 minutes off of their daily commute? If these drivers could give compelling arguments for why they NEED to drive around barriers (forget about when they are open) then maybe people would be more forgiving. (And perhaps the tone seems pedantic because it seems impossible to understand why one should have to explain why cars in parks are not a great idea.)

Regardless, I don't see what's thin-skinned about wanting as much time as one is entitled to in a car-free park, according to the rules. The hours are what they are and maybe a greater effort could be made to enforce them. Right now, if I want to go for a run without cars racing by me, I have three choices: get up at 5 or 6 in the morning and run so I have time to get ready for work by 9 AM, take the day off of work and run mid-day, or go after 7 PM, but then only in the summer because there's absolutely no daylight left at that hour in the fall. So working stiffs like me get maybe two hours each weekday for three months to use the park. Why should cars get prime park time at the expense of the majority of people who work during the day?

So that something constructive might come out of this (and not just a back and forth where we dissect each other's arguments), how would you propose those who are arguing for car-free parks go about it?

Check out this short youtube clip showing how they guard the bus lane in Manchester, UK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEbmJi3ROKk

it's about the fact that those 15 minutes represented something like 44 cars, each one a potential accident/injury to someone in the park whose guard was down because the commute time was over.