Comments on: Petition: Tell DOT to Reverse the Curse on Brooklyn Speedways

By: A Cyclist Against the bike lane

A Cyclist Against the bike lane — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:03:49 +0000

I support the idea of a bike lane on PPW. But while I applaud the city in its efforts to make the use of bicylcles safer and more efficient in a place where choosing to ride can often mean risking your safety, I also think it is far too soon to be crying success here. I have personally witnessed 2 accidents (and other near accidents) on the PPW bike lane. #1: a delivery worker riding down the lane on his bicycle at night and colliding head on with another cyclist entering the lane from between cars. The delivery worker’s shoulder seemed badly injured but he refused to go to the hospital for some reason. #2: a pedestrian with a stroller walked into an oncoming bike because she was trying to clear traffic and maneouver through a narrow space between parked cars. Are these getting reported? Doubtful. I support bike lanes, but can’t support this one until you can show me how it is safer than what existed before (in 3 years of living here I never witnessed so many accidents and near accidents until the lace was installed). Too many people are supporting it without paying attention to other issues. Clearly, it is benefitting many cyclists – and I get that and can support that if I were one sided. But there are other issues that are getting lost in translation here. The city has every interest in ignoring these because of the vast amount of resources it has placed to install these lanes. And that makes it easier to view this as an issue only being presented by PPW residents. People need to take a step back and assess what we have supported and what we have lost here.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:03:23 +0000

I live on Prospect Park West. While I’m not against the principle of a 2-way PPW, this post has glossed over the problems that a 2-way PPW would encounter at Grand Army Plaza. A northbound travel lane on PPW at Grand Army Plaza would likely need to take space from the farmer’s market space to enter the plaza, all while adding another inbound lane (or two!) to an already congested circle.

We should be encouraging less traffic into GAP, not more, so as to give more room to the already-crowded farmer’s market. We shouldn’t support any solution that adds more cars onto the plaza and takes space away from more pedestrian uses of the plaza.

That said, I’m very in favor of the two-way cycle track, hopefully hooking into a newly designed bike lane around the south side of GAP, coming very soon.

By: Eric McClure

Eric McClure — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:07:28 +0000

Geck, that was either me or my compadre who asked for your signature. Thanks for taking the time!

By: Geck

Geck — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:55:14 +0000

I signed the petition in person on Saturday. I was stopped as I passed by on my bike near the green market. With or without a switch to two way traffic, a two way protected cycle track along the park/lane diet on PPW would be amazing.

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:32:45 +0000

A second benefit of two way travel is for the bus network, which is now re-routed onto 15th Street rather than traveling on PPW as in the trolley days.

Of course bus service is about to collapse, with the B75 eliminated and the B69 likely to follow. But what would benefit Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and points south far more than either of those routes is the extension of the B68 to GAP, allowing frequent service to the vicinity of the library/museum/etc and a connection to the also-frequent B41.

By: bill

bill — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:20:35 +0000

I would nominate the 9th st bike lanes as one of the most double parked in (btwn the park and 5th ave) stretches anywhere, including Manhattan. Still a great idea, just sayin…

By: bill

bill — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:18:27 +0000

Fantastic, as always, Eric! Very exciting. I won’t even make any terrible puns.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:17:34 +0000

The two-way cycle track along the park was also requested by CB6 last year, when the 9th Street bike lanes went in.

By: Eric McClure

Eric McClure — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:07:45 +0000

Thanks, Clarence. I would say your work was the inspiration for the video, but I wouldn’t want to tar you with our amateurish filmmaking technique.

By: Clarence Eckerson Jr.

Clarence Eckerson Jr. — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:39:32 +0000

Good job guys! Proof, tons of proof. Of course we all know that happens 24-7-365.

By: Eric McClure

Eric McClure — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:36:23 +0000

Larry, a two-way Class I bike lane along the park is part of the ask — and included on the petition.

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:31:06 +0000

“Rather than switching Prospect Park West to two-way travel (we believe it, too, was originally a two-way street, but have been unable to find conclusive evidence to that effect) to accommodate that traffic, they saddled Park Slope with nearly eight decades of bad road design.”

I have a picture at home from a long time ago, though I’m not sure how long. PPW is one-way southbound, but along the park are trolley tracks in both directions in an exclusive ROW.

What I would most like to see is a two-way “cycle track” along the park, so bicycles are not forced to travel up eight avenue or all the way around the park (and up that hill) to get to Grand Army legally.