Streetsblog New York City

Last month, builders broke ground on Fort Greene’s Navy Green project, which, when completed, will add 458 homes between the Navy Yard and the BQE. A full three-quarters of the project will be affordable to families earning between 30 and 130 percent of the area median income, and 97 of those residences will be supportive housing, offering social services in addition to shelter.

Such affordable prices for housing wouldn’t have been possible had Navy Green been subject to the area’s parking requirements. Nor would the 32,000 square feet of open space included in the project. Without an exemption granted by the city, said the project’s developer, parking would have replaced a playground and increased the cost of each unit.

Developer Martin Dunn explained that each parking space came with a direct tradeoff in terms of open space and affordability. “To meet the parking requirements that would normally be required,” he said, “if we made half the open space parking, we’d still have to build structured parking.”

Structured parking is expensive to build. Nationally, the average construction cost of a single structured space is $16,000, and in New York it is almost certainly higher. Building a garage, said Dunn, would have required either increasing rents or asking the government for extra subsidies. “So not having structured parking made it more affordable,” he concluded.

Even if the parking requirements were relaxed for Navy Green, including any parking at all would have taken away the project’s gardens and play spaces. Most affordable housing puts its parking at grade, explained Dunn, because that’s the cheapest option. With only so many square feet to go around, “there is a direct tradeoff between open space and parking.”

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The NYPD failed to follow up with at least one key witness in its investigation of the crash that killed Aileen McKay-Dalton earlier this month, according to a woman who saw the collision and stayed at the scene.

Witnesses were allowed to leave the scene without being interviewed by police or leaving contact information, said Tara Simoncic, who was driving behind the SUV that struck and killed McKay-Dalton at the intersection of Clinton Avenue and DeKalb Avenue on July 8. Of the three witnesses who remained at the scene, only two are named in the NYPD's accident report, a copy of which has been obtained by Streetsblog.

NYPD filed no charges against the SUV driver, identified as Joel Loudon Murphy, who was heading north on Clinton when he struck McKay-Dalton, riding west on her Vespa.

Simoncic was driving some distance behind Murphy, she said, but with no cars in between them. "The SUV was going fast through the intersection," she recalled. "I saw the moped entering into the intersection and the SUV hitting the moped."

Simoncic remained at the crash scene with two other witnesses. After being ignored for some time by the police, she said, she went over to the squad car to talk to an officer. She recalled him telling her, "'You can stay or you can go, I'm not going to make you stay.'"

When one of the three witnesses, Hector Maldonado, had to leave around 15 minutes later, Simoncic says that she, not an officer, took down his contact information. Otherwise, she said, the police wouldn't have had a way to reach him.

A third witness remained at the crash location longer. She was a student, said Simoncic, and had just parked her car to go take an exam, which she skipped to stay at the scene. "She was traumatized," said Simoncic. "We all were. We still are." Simoncic didn't take down her name and contact information, assuming the police had it.

Only Simoncic and Maldonado are named as witnesses in the police report. The name of a third witness does not appear anywhere in the document.

According to Simoncic, both Maldonado and the third witness told her they were positive that the SUV driver was speeding and ran a red light. "They seemed without a doubt," she said. "I asked them each several times." Maldonado declined to be interviewed for this story.

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Last night, NYCDOT's Ted Wright presented a revised design for the Flushing Avenue bikeway to the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 2. The new version preserves plans for a fully-protected, two-way bike path while leaving room for two-way bus service and auto traffic. Because the revised design requires more complex construction work than the original, however, Brooklynites will have to wait a few years before that phase of the project gets built. In the meantime, DOT plans to lay down a less-robust interim project, which the committee endorsed unanimously.

The interim project will extend the two-way bike path on Williamsburg Street West -- which is protected from traffic by jersey barriers -- onto the north side of Flushing, up to Washington Avenue. (To orient yourself, check out this map.) Between Washington and Navy Street, the plan calls for buffered bike lanes on each side of the street. Parking on the north side of the street will be removed.

The original concept for Flushing Avenue called for a two-way, protected bike path all the way to Navy Street, preserving curbside parking while eliminating the eastbound traffic lane. DOT could have built that out as an in-house project this summer, but adjusted its plans after Navy Yard businesses and local residents objected to the new traffic pattern.

The city hasn't backed away from its commitment to build a safe connection for bicyclists and pedestrians on Flushing, but it will take longer to get there. Phase two of the new plan for Flushing calls for widening the sidewalk on the north side of the street by six feet. The wider sidewalk will then accommodate a two-way bike path and pedestrian space. Since expanding the sidewalk along the entire street entails changes to drainage and grading, phase two will have to proceed through New York's multi-agency construction bureaucracy. Wright estimated that it would take two to four years to build.

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The current concept for the Flushing Avenue segment of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway footprint calls for converting the street to one-way westbound traffic flow. Two-way vehicle traffic, say DOT planners, will create conflicts that endanger cyclists and pedestrians as trucks and cars turn left into the Brooklyn Navy Yard. At Wednesday night's public meeting on the project, the one-way conversion didn't sit well with most people who showed up, prompting the DOT team to say they'll take a second look at how the street can be configured.

Toward the end of the event, City Council member Tish James asked for a show of hands: Who'd be satisfied with a bikeway plan where Flushing stays a two-way street? Most people in the crowd of about 80 raised their hands. It's not clear, however, whether the street can accommodate both two-way traffic and a safe, protected path for biking and walking.

For followers of bike lane disputes, the meeting had a little bit of everything. Some speakers cited concerns for bus riders who'd have to wait on Park Avenue, a BQE service road, if eastbound routes get shifted from Flushing. Navy Yard businesses pleaded to keep truck access the way it is now. Other speakers vented typical anti-bike sentiment, calling for bike licensing, registration and fees. Fears that all eastbound traffic on Flushing (a fraction of the westbound traffic heading to the free Manhattan Bridge) would divert to Park Avenue were widespread. And at times, the evening veered into a heated discussion of whom bike infrastructure is meant for.

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Brooklyn Community Board 2, NYCDOT, and City Council members Steve Levin and Letitia James are putting on a public meeting tonight to get feedback on the two-way protected bike path with planted pedestrian medians proposed for Brooklyn's Flushing Avenue. The project is part of the footprint of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway and would form an important connection to three East River bridges and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

A source tells us that supporters of safer biking and walking should come ready to respectfully make their case and to keep an open mind about how to tailor the project to address local concerns. (I don't have specifics yet on what those concerns might be.) If you live close to Flushing, your voice will carry a lot of weight. The meeting starts at 6:00 p.m. Here's where to go:

Navy Yard Houses - Community Room
45 N. Elliott Pl. (bet. Park & Flushing Aves.)

Here's a look at the Flushing Avenue bike path concept that NYCDOT presented to the Brooklyn Community Board 2 transportation committee last night. This project would add another preliminary link to the path of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, following in the footsteps of the Kent Avenue bike lane. After a round of questions with DOT's project team, the committee passed a unanimous motion to endorse the concept.

DOT is aiming to implement the new bike path in July, and Brooklyn greenway project manager Ted Wright told CB 2 members to get ready for more greenway planning in the meantime. The agency is holding a series of public workshops, starting next week, for the full 14-mile length of the proposed greenway, part of a master planning process that officials expect to run through 2012. The first workshop, open to anyone who wants to come, will take place at Brooklyn Borough Hall on March 25. (You can RSVP with the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, which is sponsoring the workshops with RPA.)

The Flushing Avenue project would construct a two-way bike path from Williamsburg Street West to Navy Street, separated from traffic by a nine-foot planted median. Vehicle traffic would travel in one westbound lane, between two lanes of parking. Only three curb cuts providing vehicle access to the Brooklyn Navy Yard would interrupt the bike path along the length of the project. Passengers on the B69 and B57 would disembark at bus bulbs constructed in the center median, with eastbound bus routes diverted to Park Avenue.

Despite the current tendency of motorists to speed on Flushing, the high volume of trucks, and the absence of a bike lane, more than 300 cyclists ride there on summer weekdays, according to DOT counts. "People are already using it for recreation and commuting purposes," said DOT Bicycle Program Coordinator Josh Benson. With the recent completion of the Sands Street bike path and the Kent Avenue path, the attraction of Flushing as a bike route to the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge Park is expected to grow substantially.

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Atlantic and Flatbush time lapse from tracy collins on Vimeo.

This time-lapse film by Tracy Collins at Not Another F*cking Blog is a telling indictment of poor pedestrian conditions at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. And depending on how Bruce Ratner's new sports arena is built out -- the groundbreaking is set for this week -- things could get much worse.

As exemplified by the crosswalk hogs in the video, this is a terrible environment for pedestrians right now. If and when the arena arrives, two things will happen: thousands of pedestrians will arrive via transit to get to games -- the more the better, but they'll need more space; and more people will be driving here, especially if there's a huge surface parking lot.

Note that Forest City Ratner has not answered questions about all the "interim" surface parking it intends to construct. Scroll down this post for a thorough list of related unresolved issues from the Dean Street Block Association, care of Norman Oder.

Norman Oder at Atlantic Yards Report has the details from Wednesday's public meeting on street closures and traffic changes near the footprint of Bruce Ratner's Brooklyn arena project. With construction apparently on the verge of ramping up significantly, local electeds, NYCDOT, and representatives of developer Forest City Ratner engaged in a Q&A session as notable for what was left unsaid as for what was revealed.

Forest City Ratner did discuss its failure to reopen the Carlton Avenue bridge. This missing piece of the Prospect Heights/Fort Greene street grid -- a critical link for cyclists who use the Manhattan Bridge -- was originally expected to be rebuilt two years after closing in January 2008, with Forest City facing a three-year deadline to complete the work before incurring penalties. Now the reconstructed bridge is unlikely to open until 2012 at the earliest, and Oder reports that Forest City's explanation, along with its timetable, keeps on shifting.

Largely unmentioned at the meeting was Forest City's intention to construct more than a thousand "interim" surface parking spaces on the site, mostly to store vehicles belonging to their employees and construction workers. Since all this new parking could sit around generating traffic and blighting the landscape for quite some time, neighborhood groups want to know exactly how much would be constructed, and how it will be priced and managed. They didn't get any answers on Wednesday.

For more on the meeting, head over to Atlantic Yards Report.

The transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 2 voted unanimously Tuesday night to advance the idea of improving cycling connections between Fort Greene and surrounding neighborhoods. The proposal put forward by committee member Mike Epstein envisions safer bicycling across Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, spanning intersections that are currently among the most dangerous in Brooklyn. A resolution asking DOT to study the plan's feasibility is now expected to come up before the full board at a meeting next month.

The proposal would complete several missing links in the bike network connecting Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Park Slope, and Prospect Heights. If implemented it would also improve bicycle access to East River crossings, especially the Manhattan Bridge, from several Brooklyn neighborhoods.

"The area between Fort Greene and Park Slope has been notoriously difficult to ride through," said Aja Hazelhoff of Transportation Alternatives. "This would produce safer and more reliable corridors between neighborhoods."

The proposal calls for a new connection linking bike lanes on Ashland Place, Schermerhorn Street, DeKalb Avenue, Lafayette Avenue, and Third Avenue, including a contraflow segment across Flatbush and down a few blocks of Third where motor vehicle traffic travels northbound only.

To the east, where the Carlton Avenue bridge has been indefinitely closed to accommodate Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, an extension of the Vanderbilt Avenue bike lane to Flushing Avenue would provide a much-needed alternate route across Atlantic.

The plan also envisions a new eastbound bike route on Lafayette Avenue and a Flushing Avenue connection linking Williamsburg's new two-way, protected bike path and the approach to the Manhattan Bridge.

Council members Tish James and Steve Levin have signed on in support of the proposal. According to reports from Tuesday's meeting, Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Coordinator Chris Hrones indicated that it's increasingly common for DOT to receive and move forward with ideas that originate outside the agency.

When Jeff Geisinger biked through a red light on Atlantic Avenue last October, he knew that he might get a traffic ticket. So when a cop pulled him over, he wasn't surprised. He just didn't expect to be handed a summons for disorderly conduct, a criminal violation.

What Geisinger did wasn't legal and it wasn't the safest technique. Shortly after midnight on a Tuesday, he ran a red while biking north on Sixth Avenue in Brooklyn, at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue. "There was a stopped car to the right of me on Atlantic waiting to turn north," he said. "As the light turned red and I dashed through the intersection, the car slowly started to turn and I cut in front of it, with enough distance between the two of us for me to pass by safely." An officer saw the maneuver and pulled him over.

It's hard to imagine that what happened next would have happened to a motorist who did the same thing. Rather than write a traffic ticket, the officer issued Geisinger a summons for disorderly conduct.

While moving violations are non-criminal offenses, disorderly conduct is part of New York's penal code and carries a fine of up to $250 and up to 15 days in prison. It's something of a catch-all charge, probably by design, that can theoretically be invoked for "threatening behavior," making "unreasonable noise," using "abusive language" in public, or obstructing traffic, among other things.

Geisinger says that he didn't give the officer a hard time or make a scene, making much of the statute inapplicable to his situation, but not necessarily all of it. (The 77th Precinct has not returned Streetsblog's requests for comment.)

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