Oh wait, maybe I'm wrong. Single bikers get killed TOO DAMN OFTEN, and the rest of us still live. My God, I've just realized that we are INDIVIDUALS!!! Now there's a novel idea....

But what confounds me, because you haven't explained it, is why you think it's appropriate for motor vehicles to be allowed to drive through a park where children run and play. Just because bikes are dangerous too is not a legitimate answer (although it is painfully amusing that you consider bikes to be a bigger menace than cars - my mother was nearly killed by a car once, but she was luckier than the other hundreds of pedestrians that die in New York City every year because they are stuck by vehicles. I DARE you to explain to anyone who has had a loved one killed by a reckless driver that bicycles are a bigger menace).

"Welcome to education" - I know you're trying to teach me, and I thank you for that. It's charming. Let me expand a little bit on your lesson. There are TWO kinds of public space in New York that we all have to share, as you alluded to. Streets and parks. These are called "land uses". It's in the City Charter. Explaining it to you in very basic terms so you'll understand, streets are for transportation, parks are for recreation.

GET YOUR G*DDAMN CARS OUT OF OUR PARKS

That said, I find it curious that your position here is that cyclists' bad behavior somehow justifies allowing cars to drive in a park. Two wrongs make a right, is that it?

I realize you are a novice when it comes to traffic calming, since you don't know that closing streets reduces, not increases, the amount of traffic on neighboring streets (that goes for you too, epkwy). But education is what Streetsblog is all about! Howabout the loop be designed to make pedestrians safer instead of having to compete with both bikes AND cars? Check out the photo in this new post showing a two-way bike lane with a textured crosswalk and a ped crossing sign:

http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/10/02/foes-of-car-free-trial-in-prospect-park-demand-environmental-review/

If only we could just get the CARS out of our park and onto the streets where they belong, we could actually build a safe facility for bikers and pedestrians to share. But as long as cars are part of the equation, we are stuck with the speedway we have now.

See, Bicycle Blues:

http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/articles/sf%27s-bicycle-blues-would-the-city%27s-bike-plan-do-more-harm-than-good/R11OYFJFZ3ISP8R1Z84VXD4UISP8

The little old lady trying to get to a doctors appointment is a very sympathetic case. Of course we all know that:

1. Seniors are the age demographic with the lowest percentage of car ownership in the city. What seniors need to get around is better bus service, better paratransit, and safer streets for pedestrians.

2. Nothing about closing the park to traffic prevents anybody from getting anywhere, they just have to select a different route.

3. The park drive is currently only open at rush hours (7-9am and 5-7pm). Assuming a doctor's office is open 9-5, appointments in the hour between 9-10am are really the only appointments one would be using the drive for now. Somehow little old ladies are getting to appointments between 10-5 without using the drive and it doesn't seem to be a problem.

I sympathize with the pro-car crowd, too--public transit is an ugly alternative if you're taking a frail elder to the podiatrist or a passle of kids to a distant event, and I've done both (in my car, sometimes through the park).

Brenda, I think you pretty much nailed it though I'm not sure it's a class divide so much as a generational one.

What's strange to me about this line of thinking (that you have to use a car to take an elderly person to the doctor) is that making Prospect Park car-free does not in ANY WAY prevent ANYONE from driving their elderly relative to the doctor! There are still thousands of miles of streets available for motorists to use throughout the borough Brooklyn. As for the poor, beleaguered Windsor Terrace motorist, he's still got Prospect Park West, a veritable four-lane freeway. He's got Flatbush Avenue, a straight shot to the Manhattan Bridge. He's got the Prospect Expressway, literally, a FREEWAY that cuts through his own neighborhood to facilitate fast motor vehicle travel to Lower Manhattan.

Setting aside 2 miles of Prospect Park's loop drives for recreational use for three months of the summer isn't going to prevent any driver from reaching his or her destination by car. Brooklynites who would like to find some outdoor refuge from the endless noise, fumes and danger of motor vehicles have no alternatives. Prospect Park is all we've got. Let us have that.

Feudalism. Those who benefit from existing arrangements believe what is should be. Back to your hovel, serf.

Why can't we demand EIS for existing and ongoing policies?

Oy vey.