If somehow I got your message and didn’t return it, I apologize. My policy is to return all calls. In any event, please call the CB14 office and leave a number where I can reach you. I’ll call.

Alvin

One of the very first things I did when I took over from Ellen Cavanaugh as campaign coordinator of T.A.’s Car-Free Prospect Park campaign in 2002 was to reach out to Alvin Berk to initiate a conversation about how we might work together on traffic problems in and around Community Board 14. I met with every City Council member and most of the Community Boards surrounding the Park.

Berk never returned my phone calls.

I know that there are many people in the advocacy community and city government who would enjoy the opportunity to help develop comprehensive solutions for easing traffic congestion in and around Flatbush.

With all due respect, you seem confused. Alvin Berk doesn’t have “traffic concerns” that we can help him with. If so, he would have asked and we would have helped – a long time ago. What he does have is driving concerns. He’s concerned that he and his neighbors will lose a scenic shortcut.

http://hdcblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/04/rezoning-victorian-flatbush/

“One concern about the rezoning of strips such as Coney Island Avenue is that it could raise property values to the point where local services might be priced out.

Noted Alvin Berk, the board’s chairperson, “A lot of us would get very annoyed if we had to go to McDonald Avenue to buy gas, or something comparable to that. Those are amenities that are crucial to the balance of the residential area.”

I guess it would be REALLY annoying if he couldn’t drive through the park.

Early-morning MOTOR VEHICLE use of the drives from JANUARY to DECEMBER is too light to justify increasing the environmental problems on THE PARK LOOP, all packed with PARK GOERS. And DRIVERS and others who want to USE the drives can wait for the traffic lights to change ON SURROUNDING STREETS.

Who is really inconvenienced by allowing cars in the park or not allowing them?

I’m tired of drivers from Midwood, etc. dominating this conversation and pretending they are representing the interests of the poor people south of the park. As one of those people, I can tell you that I’m tired of these drivers clogging my neighborhood streets, honking their horns, running red lights, and polluting my air–all so that these drivers can take a lovely, traffic-free drive through my park and, all the while, put me and my kids at risk on the loop drive.

Don’t pretend that by opposing a car-free park you’re helping my neighborhood. The best thing you could do to help my neighborhood would be to stop driving through it.

I’m saying TA should be doing more to help DOT, Community Board 14 and the communities south of Prospect Park with their traffic concerns, and commit to solving those problems fully, to clear the path for a total and permanent closure of Prospect Park to traffic which no one will object to.

Period.

It sounds like you’re saying the TA crowd is not concerned about traffic congestion, only about parks. I am reading you correctly?

If all the traffic enthusiasts who would like to see the park permanently closed to traffic were to redirect their energies into solving some of the problems identified by our Flatbush neighbors, we would remove any bar from a trial closure. We should have our cake and eat it too. After all, aren’t we all agreed that “traffic” is the problem?

I see you’ve developed a hypothesis you’re not willing to test.

I suspected you were more concerned with the people who drive on Parkside than those who live there. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

Early-morning recreational use of the drives from November to April is too light to justify increasing the environmental problems on nearby streets, all packed with apartment buildings. And dog walkers and others who want to cross the drives can wait for the traffic lights to change.

As to the DOT study, the numbers cited do not assume zero shrinkage.

Of the 168 hours in each week, the park drive parallel to Parkside Avenue already is closed to vehicles 158. The 10 remaining hours are when Parkside Avenue traffic is heaviest and the environmental hazard is greatest.

It is a park not a highway. I don’t get it.

http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/prospark/studies
http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/prospark/study_comments

The study’s traffic model assumed a completely unrealistic worst-case scenario in which EVERY single car using the Park Drives at the rush hour peak would be diverted to a street immediately adjacent to the park. The study assumed zero “shrinkage” — that not a single commuter would choose to use a different mode of transport, travel at a different time of day or along a different route.

With more than a decade passed, we now have plenty of real-world data to show that this study and its models were inaccurate. The study, along with your Community Board, predicted that removing cars from Prospect Park during the weekday would create traffic disasters (Level of Service D’s and F’s) at a number of intersections around the park. In the intervening years, car-free hours in Prospect Park have expanded substantially yet the predicted traffic cataclysms at these intersections have not materialized.

That being said, there is no question that the morning rush hour traffic around that Flatbush/Parkside/Ocean/Caton section is horrendous and something needs to be done to fix it. It must be noted, however, that a good part of that Manhattan-bound AM rush hour traffic from south Brooklyn could just as well be using the Prospect Expressway and the tolled Battery Tunnel. Many commuters choose instead to short-cut through Prospect Park and inch their way up Flatbush Avenue to take advantage of the free pass over the Manhattan Bridge.

We really do need to do something to alleviate the crippling traffic congestion in the neighborhoods south of Prospect Park. Using the park as a traffic relief valve isn’t the answer.

Prospect Park was never intended to be used in this way.

Alvin is also wrong when he states:

“For most of the year, the sole benefit of closing the Prospect Park drives during the morning rush hours would be to increase the number of bike lanes available to those few bicyclists who are physically and logistically able to commute from southern Brooklyn to Downtown areas.”

Oh, to be so simple! It shows the narrow-minded focus of community board members. A closed park benefits kids going to or from soccer practice or Little League games, who wouldn’t have to dodge traffic on their way to a ballfield. Dog owners want the park closed. Stroller moms, too. And, people who can’t afford a gym membership, like me. (I live in Flatbush and like to run in the morning, but sometimes my health is at risk if I go when cars are there.) It’s amazing to me that in one of the most unfriendly cities for bike commuting, a community board member would think that bike commuting is the only reason people want to park closed to traffic.

Leave it to kids: they have more sense than adult policy makers.

Over the years, thousands of people have signed petitions calling for either a trial or permanent closure. Many, like Lindsey, are from the neighborhoods to the south and east. Despite this, Mr. Berk and his associates have continued to insist, based on outdated traffic models, that the sky will fall if cars are not allowed to use the park.

It seems like more should be done to persuade these leaders, or to replace them if they continue to ignore common sense.