In the video, an early morning car commuter, presumably someone working on the nearby Barclays Center arena project, apparently decides that the last parking space on this block of Pacific Street (between Sixth Avenue and Carlton Avenue) is too small to accommodate his SUV, so he makes his own free parking by uprooting a No Standing sign. Oder says the vandalism and flouting of parking regs is symptomatic of the un-monitored violations around the Atlantic Yards construction zone, including trucks double-parking and idling.

This isn’t the first time that Atlantic Yards workers have torn out this particular No Standing sign, thereby adding about four or five illegal on-street spaces, according to Atlantic Yards Watch. In fact, the maker of this video predicted that the sign “would be destroyed within one day of installation again,” and he was right.

And you thought placards were the ultimate in free parking entitlement.

This is the generous new sidewalk extension at the five-way intersection of Washington Avenue, Park Place, and Grand Avenue in Brooklyn. Here you can see bell bollards protecting the added pedestrian space between Washington, on the left, and Grand on the right.

I live around the corner, and I can’t say enough about how much this addition has improved the walking experience. Before DOT put this in as part of a broader safety project, the area between Grand and Washington felt like a grey zone were pedestrians weren’t supposed to tread. Walking on the east side of Washington usually entailed weaving between a combination of parked police vehicles and metal barricades:

Image: Google Street View

The cops who operate out of the building at the corner of Grand and Park have staked claim to the sidewalks here, and they seem to consider any pedestrian space within a 200-foot radius of their workplace to be fair game for parking. Here are their vehicles hogging the sidewalk on Park:

At first, when the city poured concrete earlier this year, the cops parked all over the new sidewalk extension too. But that has subsided over the past several weeks as more obstacles have popped up. Many more obstacles. First there were the bell bollards, a standard part of DOT’s toolkit for pedestrian safety projects. Then came several skinnier, red bollards. Now there are huge granite slabs sitting on the sidewalk.

I wish I had taken pictures the whole time to document the sequence, but here’s where things stand right now. Including the traffic signal pole, there are now 13 obstacles in the way of police who want to park on this sidewalk extension:

The total could rise to 15 if the new tree pits get planted as one would expect. This is apparently what it takes to keep the cops from appropriating space from people on foot in order to store their personal vehicles.

Assembly Member James Brennan wants the state government to force more parking into Atlantic Yards. Image: NYS Assembly.

Brennan is working on legislation that would force Forest City Ratner to build more off-street parking at the Atlantic Yards site, as was first reported in the Park Slope Patch. Currently, an 1,100 parking space surface lot is slated for the site.

Tonice Sgrignoli, a legislative aide for Brennan, said the legislation is still being researched and no details are available at this point. According to Sgrignoli, ESDC eliminated a requirement to build underground off-street parking that had been in an earlier agreement with Forest City Ratner and this legislation would likely undo that change.

When Streetsblog asked why Brennan thought that Atlantic Yards should have more parking in the first place, Sgrignoli replied that “Anyone who’s ever tried to drive a car and park it in that area will understand why it’s important to provide parking.”

Hopefully, Brennan himself has a more sophisticated understanding of parking policy. As former Boerum Hill Association president Jo Ann Simon said, no conceivable amount of off-street parking is going to free up on-street spaces so long as they are cheaper than going to a garage and available to anybody. “If people drive there, they will always try and find something free on the street,” she said. What happens on-street — many in the area, including Simon, have long pushed for residential parking permits — Simon said, “is entirely irrelevant to whether there should be more off-street parking to serve the arena.”

Simon’s argument is borne out by the reality at Yankee Stadium. There, despite a whopping 9,000 off-street spaces, area residents still complain that on-street parking is impossible on game day, according to a Crain’s report.

Moreover, building extra parking will simply mean that more people are able to drive to the area instead. “Brennan’s proposal to compel more off-street parking in one of New York City’s most transit-accessible locations betrays a terrible lack of understanding regarding transportation and mobility,” said University of Pennsylvania parking expert Rachel Weinberger. “His idea will invite more traffic through his district, more traffic in adjoining districts, and by requiring all of that parking, other development is preempted.”

Agreed Simon, “You induce drivers if there is parking there.”

Steven Higashide of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, which has analyzed the plans for Atlantic Yards and is a member of the Brooklyn Speaks coalition, said that underground parking had been a part of the Atlantic Yards plans, but was removed when the amount of development planned was scaled back.

“The only way Atlantic Yards can become part of a vibrant urban fabric is if the city and developer work to reduce driving to the site,” said Higashide. “Providing hundreds or thousands of extra parking spaces won’t do that.”

Prospect Heights resident Steve O’Neill has been biking for most of the 15 years he’s lived in New York City. Steve commutes daily to Columbus Circle, and last year he added a new leg to his trip. Every day he drops his son Beckett off at school in Park Slope, and the new Prospect Park West bike lane helps him do that safely.

As a subway trip it took 30 minutes — including a transfer and going up and down nearly 200 steps. On the bike, they get to school in just 10 minutes. How does Beckett feel about the bike ride to school? “The last time I didn’t ride it was winter and it was really snowy and he was begging to go on the bike instead of the subway,” Steve said.

The view south on Washington Avenue at Prospect Place. Photos: Ben Fried

It looks like DOT is exercising its option to stripe a bike lane on Washington Avenue, imposing some order on street markings from Eastern Parkway to Atlantic Avenue. Previously it wasn’t really clear whether this part of Washington was one traffic lane or two traffic lanes in each direction, leading to a lot of double-parking, dodging, weaving and speeding. Now it’s official: Washington Avenue is one lane in each direction with left-turn bays and a marked bike route (some of which is sharrows). I could be wrong, but this bike lane might be NYC’s first new route in 2011, which is shaping up to be a slower year for bike network expansion compared to the previous three years.

The bike route was described as “optional” in DOT’s presentation on the project, which Brooklyn Community Board 8 approved in April. The safety improvements on Washington include new pedestrian infrastructure for the five-point intersections at Atlantic Avenue and at Park Place. Local residents, led by architect Jeff Sherman, had gathered hundreds of signatures asking for pedestrian improvements at Atlantic.

The expanded sidewalks at the intersection of Washington, Park, and Grand Avenue will, one hopes, permanently discourage police from depositing their vehicles in the pedestrian right of way. (Full disclosure: I cross this intersection just about every day.) Crews have been carving up the asphalt there for the past two days, holding the sidewalk parkers at bay for the time being, at least at the corner marked off with construction barrels.

New and expanded pedestrian islands and sidewalks on the north side of GAP will create safer and more direct connections to walk to the central plaza area. (This image comes from DOT's 2010 presentation on GAP and may not include minor changes to this part of the plan.)

Construction on a slate of pedestrian and bike improvements for Grand Army Plaza is scheduled to move forward this summer, NYC DOT announced this Saturday. The redesign includes a major expansion of the pedestrian islands at the north side of GAP and the addition of a two-way, protected bicycle connection linking Union Street to Eastern Parkway on the southern side. It does not include the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street shown in DOT’s 2010 presentation on this same project, which Community Boards 6 and 8 both approved last year.

DOT made its revised presentation Saturday at the Grand Army Plaza Coalition‘s annual meeting. It was an anniversary of sorts for GAPCO, a partnership between the area’s major cultural institutions and neighborhood residents, which formed in 2006 to make Grand Army Plaza a welcoming public space instead of a traffic vortex. Since then GAPCO has put together several public workshops and site visits, producing a conceptual blueprint for city agencies to work from [PDF].

Image: Google Maps

The big difference between last year’s DOT plan and this year’s is that the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street has been set aside until an unspecified date in the future. Plaza Street encircles most of GAP, and a two-way path would create a safe hub for cyclists to take the most convenient routes to and through the space. But after last year’s CB votes, some Plaza Street residents contacted the city saying the parking-protected bikeway would cause traffic back-ups, even though Plaza Street receives little traffic and is already just one lane wide.

So call it the NBBL effect: Despite the multi-year community-based planning process that informed last year’s presentation, and despite the community board votes in favor of it, DOT seems unwilling, for now, to stir the pot so close to the litigious and well-connected NIMBYs of Prospect Park West, who happen to have  U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer on their side.

The improvements scheduled for this summer are still significant, and they represent a major milestone in the campaign to make GAP more accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. Starting in June and wrapping up in August, the city plans to build out these improvements, which Streetsblog reported on last April:

• On the north end of the plaza, northbound traffic on Flatbush and southbound traffic on Vanderbilt will cross at a greatly simplified X-shaped intersection. The pedestrian spaces that define the boundaries of the “X” will be much more generous and well-defined than the mish-mash of poorly-connected islands and striping that people navigate now. Walking to the central public space will be safer and simpler, especially if you’re approaching from Park Slope.
• The area between the arch and the central plaza will be set off with DOT’s epoxy-and-gravel surface treatment, seen on Broadway and other pedestrian reclamation projects. Physical barriers will be added to keep cars from illegally cutting across.
• On the south side of the plaza, pedestrian islands will be expanded and crosswalks will be added, making it easier to walk between Union Street, Plaza Street, and the greenmarket area. The greenmarket area will also be set off with epoxy-and-gravel and have physical barriers from traffic.

The bike improvements to be built out this summer should greatly improve east-west connections on the south side of the plaza and create better transitions at the northern end of the Prospect Park West bike lane. A new two-way, separated bike path will run from Union Street to Eastern Parkway, making bicycle access to Prospect Park, the GAP greenmarket, and Prospect Park West much improved.

The south end of the GAP plan (looking south toward the Brooklyn Public Library) expands pedestrian space and clearly sets it off from the asphalt expanse of the roadway. It also includes a two-way connection for bikes between Eastern Parkway and Union Street. Photo: Amy Sara Clark/Patch

Without the two-way Plaza Street lane, however, GAP won’t be as useful and convenient a hub for bicycling as it could be, and it’s hard to say when that missing piece will get filled in. NYC DOT downtown Brooklyn coordinator Chris Hrones said outreach to Plaza Street residents would continue, and that the city intends to pursue the unfinished part of the project at a later, unspecified date.

No one from the PPW opposition attended the meeting, but their presence was felt nonetheless. “DOT is excellent about coming to the community, presenting to the community, working with the community, and getting the proper sign-offs from the community,” GAPCO coordinator Rob Witherwax said in his introduction, praising DOT for being engaged on the project from the beginning. “For people who after the fact don’t like the result to say the process was bad is patently false.”

DOT will be taking the revised proposal before CB 6 and CB 8 (again) in the next few weeks. The full presentation will be online then. In the meantime, Amy Sara Clark at the Park Slope Patch has some photos of the plan shown Saturday.

Damage to the SUV's windshield shows the force with which the driver hit a cyclist last night. Photo: Wayne Bailey

An SUV driver hit and injured a delivery cyclist at the intersection of Dean Street and 6th Avenue in Brooklyn at around 10 p.m. last night. Photos sent to us by reader Wayne Bailey, who came across the scene shortly after the collision, seem to show that the cyclist was on his way to deliver food when he was hit and thrown over the hood of the car with enough force to shatter the windshield.

The NYPD press office did not have any information on the crash, but according to the Park Slope Patch, police have assigned culpability to the cyclist, who did not suffer major injuries. The driver stayed at the scene, according to Bailey, and the cyclist was taken by ambulance to the emergency room. Bailey said the driver claimed the cyclist “came out of nowhere” and also blamed temporary blue walls around the Atlantic Yards construction site for blocking his vision. We do not have the cyclist’s version of events.

The injured cyclist's bicycle after the collision. Photo: Wayne Bailey.

Plans to create a "temporary" 1,100 space surface parking lot, shown here in the lower left, are at issue in the latest fight over Atlantic Yards. Image: Jonathan Barkey and the Municipal Art Society.

The latest round of the knock-down drag-out fight over the Atlantic Yards project is underway, and it’s all about parking. At issue is a potential 1,100-space surface parking lot that would be located between Pacific and Dean Streets, just west of Vanderbilt Avenue. That lot has been portrayed as temporary, “interim” parking by the Empire State Development Corporation and project developer Forest City Ratner, but could sit there generating traffic for up to 25 years. Last week several groups filed a motion to halt construction until the environmental impacts of the project are studied more fully.

The basic question is whether the environmental review for Atlantic Yards needs reworking in light of the fact that development could take up to 25 years, rather than the ten-year construction schedule originally put forward by ESDC and Ratner. (Be sure to check out the invaluable Norman Oder for all the details.) If construction is really going to take an extra fifteen years, the argument goes, the true impacts on things like traffic, noise, and air quality weren’t ever disclosed, in violation of environmental law. That argument got a boost in the courts a few weeks ago, and the legal battle now hinges on whether or not to halt construction.

For the BrooklynSpeaks coalition, the 1,100 space “interim” parking lot is at the heart of the issue. As Oder reports, their lawyer suggested that construction on the Barclays Center basketball arena might be allowed to continue “but all other work, including any attempt to convert Block 1129 to a parking lot, should be absolutely enjoined unless and until there is full compliance with SEQRA.”

“They were supposed to put the parking underground,” BrooklynSpeaks member Jo Anne Simon explained. A quarter-century of surface parking wasn’t part of the deal.

Though Simon said that BrooklynSpeaks has tried not to debate suitable uses for the Atlantic Yards site, she did suggest that surface parking wasn’t an acceptable option. “Something that’s an amenity for the community,” she suggested, “maybe some interim open space.” Simon also added that some additional demolition would still be required to pave over the block, “and that we’d like to see not happen.”

It's a complex project that really needs graphics to help you visualize it, but I don't have the plans just yet. Here's my bullet point description and a Google satellite view until DOT posts the full presentation online, which should happen later today.

• Image: Google Maps
  On the north end of the plaza, northbound traffic on Flatbush and southbound traffic on Vanderbilt will cross at a greatly simplified X-shaped intersection. The pedestrian spaces that define the boundaries of the "X" will be much more generous and well-defined than the mish-mash of poorly-connected islands and striping that people navigate now. Walking to the central public space will be safer and simpler, especially if you're approaching from Park Slope.
• The Plaza Street bike lane will be converted from a buffered, one-way counterclockwise path to a two-way, parking protected path, giving cyclists a safe and legal way to take the shortest routes around the plaza.
• The area between the arch and the central plaza will be set off with DOT's epoxy-and-gravel surface treatment, seen on Broadway and other pedestrian reclamation projects. Physical barriers will be added to keep cars from illegally cutting across.
  
• On the south side of the plaza, pedestrian islands will be expanded and five crosswalks will be added, making it easier to walk between Union Street, Plaza Street, and the greenmarket area. The greenmarket area will also be set off with epoxy-and-gravel and have physical barriers from traffic.
• There are several two-way bike connections planned for the south side, the general effect of which will be this: Anyone coming or going from Prospect Park West, the Prospect Park loop, or either end of Plaza Street will be able to bike safely and legally to any of those streets. Eventually a two-way path on Eastern Parkway, part of a separate capital project, will feed into this system. The plan also appears to include a small "bike roundabout" where PPW meets a two-way connection leading into the park loop (h/t @mikepstein for pointing that out).
  

Russo got a sustained round of applause after the presentation. Most comments afterward were of the helpful suggestion variety, although there were a few people who had qualms with narrowing traffic lanes or introducing new bike infrastructure. A few cranky individuals had come for the next agenda item -- the Prospect Park West bike lane -- and couldn't wait to air grievances. (For more on how that went, check out @mikepstein's twitter feed again.)

The advocates and public servants who are closest to the campaign for a better Grand Army Plaza seemed thrilled by the plan. Prospect Park Administrator Tupper Thomas said she loves the changes in store for the north side and reassured the crowd that she had worked with DOT and the Parks Department to make sure the project works well.

Robert Witherwax of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition -- the alliance of several community groups and local institutions formed in 2006 to advocate for public space enhancements -- called the plan "a huge step forward" in an email to Streetsblog.

We'll have more on this important development for Brooklyn's most iconic public space later today.

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.

The Vanderbilt Rail Yards and the rump of the Carlton Avenue bridge. Photo: threecee/Flickr

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.

Mike Epstein's proposal for new bike lanes (in blue) at the confluence of Flatbush, Lafayette, and Third Avenues. The full plan would create a safer, more cohesive network linking several 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.)

"It sounds strange to be charged with disorderly conduct for a moving violation," said Adam White, an attorney who has represented cyclists for more than 10 years. White cited a 2006 court case which determined that improper conduct must be "reinforced by a culpable mental state to create a public disturbance." If Geisinger wasn't intentionally trying to cause trouble, he probably shouldn't have been charged with disorderly conduct. White concluded that "the police officer did not have a reasonable basis for charging the cyclist" with disorderly conduct.

He added that the relevant question is how the law normally gets interpreted and applied. On that score, it's worth mentioning that Gus Gonzalez, the driver whom a witness saw intentionally knock a cyclist to the pavement on Ninth Avenue, causing severe bruising, is now facing a disorderly conduct charge as well.

We'll never know for certain if the charge would have held up in the city's justice system. In December, Geisinger went to court, pled not guilty and had his case dismissed when the cop didn't show up. He regrets being denied his day in court. "I wish I could have at least gotten in a sentence or two to state my case," Geisinger said, "but I silently accepted the dismissal and went home."

State officials announced yesterday that, starting sometime around February 1, they intend to close three blocks of the Brooklyn street grid to accommodate construction of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards arena project. Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic and two non-consecutive blocks of Pacific Street are slated to be condemned.

An announcement circulated by Brooklyn CB 6 yesterday characterized the changes as "permanent closures," but Dan Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn is calling that label premature. "It's the inevitability ploy," he said, noting that the closures seem timed to take effect immediately after a January 29 court decision on the state's seizure of properties in the project footprint. "At the very least they have to close the streets in a way that they can re-open them if they're forced to."

If the closures do take effect, it's about to get a little harder to move between Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, and Park Slope, no matter how you get around. Ratner's project has already forced cyclists heading to the Manhattan Bridge to find detours around one of the safest and most convenient routes, thanks to the 2008 closure of the Carlton Avenue bridge (for which there is no end in sight).

Now, these proto-superblocks will degrade the street grid further. Will pedestrians be barred from any of the sidewalks on the affected streets? The Empire State Development Corporation, overseer of the project, hasn't responded to Streetsblog's inquiries.

The asphalt expanse where Flatbush and Vanderbilt Avenues meet at the north end of Grand Army Plaza. Photo: Google Street View

We missed it in the run-up to the holidays last month, but this item in the Brooklyn Paper is worth a longer look. DOT has announced its intention to implement some safety fixes at the northern end of Grand Army Plaza.

According to the Brooklyn Paper, the agency may calm the racetrack conditions on the plaza's north end, where drivers speed around the traffic circle without stopping:

The suggested improvements would do away with the loop in favor of a normal traffic light with a left turn signal at the intersection of Vanderbilt and Flatbush avenues inside the circle.

At a CB6 committee meeting last month, DOT's Ryan Russo presented plans to alleviate the Union Street tie-up by converting the parking lane between Eighth Avenue and Grand Army Plaza into a moving lane. For advocates of a lively, welcoming, and safe Grand Army Plaza, the proposal encapsulated the shortcomings of DOT's approach to the area: By trying to solve the traffic problem on Union Street, the agency would do nothing to address the public space problems at the plaza, and may end up exacerbating them.

The city has recently made some headway improving Grand Army Plaza for pedestrians and cyclists. New pedestrian islands and a short, separated bikeway connecting the Prospect Park loop to Plaza Street have enhanced safety. More is on the way. A two-way protected bike path is slated for Prospect Park West, and a long-awaited median expansion on Eastern Parkway leading straight to the plaza should, someday soon, improve walking and biking from Crown Heights.

Adding another lane of moving vehicles on Union doesn't seem to fit with these incremental improvements, especially when an alternative that would simplify traffic patterns -- converting the westbound travel lane to a second eastbound lane -- has already surfaced at public meetings. "There are so many better solutions," said Robert Witherwax of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition.

In three years, Witherwax and GAPCo have built a broad base of support for the idea that Grand Army Plaza can and should function as a much better public space -- one that feels like an extension of Prospect Park rather than a few green islands surrounded by streams of traffic. The Prospect Park Alliance, the Brooklyn Public Library, Community Boards 6 and 8, and the North Flatbush BID are among the coalition.

All the tweaks to the plaza, so far, have been consistent with the planning principles GAPCo and its partners have promoted. The problem, says Witherwax, is the city's piecemeal approach, which the Union Street proposal has cast into sharp relief. "DOT has been an excellent partner," he said. "It's not so much that what they have done, or are proposing, is bad -- it's that they aren't going far enough."

Witherwax is calling for a "buildable master plan" -- a blueprint that would help guide planning and transportation decisions throughout the plaza area according to consistent goals. "Once you have that structure in place, you can say what happens if you do X, Y, and Z over here," he said. But to date, he added, DOT has resisted the idea of a comprehensive plan.

The reinvention of Grand Army Plaza as a great public space could be a signature achievement on par with DOT's transformation of Times Square and Broadway. It's a complex project, to be sure. But with a second stimulus or a front-loaded transportation bill gaining steam in Congress, the opportunity to move forward could present itself soon. Shovel-readiness is key. Will New York be prepared with a plan to breathe some life into the heart of Brooklyn, or will we be caught flat-footed?

Enjoying car-free Bedford Ave. during Williamsburg Walks 2008. Photo: acsweet/Flickr

Starting tomorrow, Bedford Avenue from North 4th to North 9th Street will be open to pedestrians only on six Saturdays from noon to sunset. This year's Williamsburg Walks is a project of community residents along with Neighbors Allied for Good Growth and The L Magazine.

Every Sunday in June, Vanderbilt Avenue between Dean Street and Park Place will go car-free from noon to 5 p.m., thanks to the Vanderbilt Avenue Merchants District and the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council.  Says the PHNDC: "There will be music, art and gardening, face painting, sun and trees, shopping, eating and relaxing, biking and performances, and people watching. Plus a few surprises."

Word is there will be plenty more Summer Streets action this year. Stay tuned.

My second thought was, "It's not like you didn't know this could happen."

As readers of this Conscious Commuter column will remember, my very first day on a Xootr scooter -- about a year ago -- began with a near back-breaking accident. I realized then that scooters, despite being amazingly fun and really practical transportation devices for short distances, are inherently unstable, especially if you are six foot seven. They are tippy. Although they roll along easily, and are easily steered, small movements up top can tip them backward, forward or to the side. In addition, their tiny wheels can be stopped dead by a small piece of debris or a rock in the road, causing a major spill.

None of this is matters much if you are three and a half feet tall. My four-year-old son Max has no problem, and seems to recover easily from near catastrophic accidents. And if he does go down, it's not that big a deal. But when I went down, it was a much bigger deal.

I thought of all this as I lay on the icy asphalt last Friday morning, in 18-degree weather, waiting for the ambulance to come.

My son Max performed admirably in the crisis. We had been on our way to his school, our usual morning routine: him on his Razor scooter, me on my much larger Xootr. We weren't far from our building, an old converted warehouse in Prospect Heights, when I hit a patch of ice that I failed to notice while rounding a curve. I went down.

Max turned around and came back to see what was wrong. At first he thought I was joking. But then I told him, "Go to the front door of our building, ring our bell, and tell Mama that Papa is hurt and needs her help." He proceeded to do all that. My wife came out and found me. After some consultation, she called the ambulance. It came in about 10 minutes, I would say.

Meanwhile, various people were milling around me. I was beginning to shiver uncontrollably from the cold, and possibly the shock of the accident. People were helpful. Someone collected the contents of my bag. My wife found some neighbors, a couple she barely knew, to walk my son to school. Life is good that way.

Me, I am left to contemplate how you get what you foresee. While I hadn't foreseen a broken hip exactly, I knew I was risking some sort of bad injury by continuing to scooter. But I simply ignored my own foresight. I didn't want to stop. Scootering was fun. It was also a very efficient means of travel for a short distance, say less than two miles. And it was something that I did with my son, together.

Would I do it all again? Will I scooter again? Talk to me in a couple of months, but I'd like to think the answer is "Yes." You have to get back on that old horse and everything. I will certainly be more careful, but I would like to think that scootering would continue to be some part of my life.

As I write this, I'm in bed, my home for the next six weeks. I have three metal pins in my hip which connect the neck of my femur bone to its head. I must keep all weight off of that leg for six weeks. I got out of Methodist Hospital in Park Slope on Wednesday after five days there. While at home, I'm working on my patience, and humility.

Courtesy of Brownstoner, here's a recent shot of sidewalk construction between Flatbush Avenue and Hanson Place, near the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The short passage -- or slip ramp, as DOT calls it -- allowing cars to turn onto Hanson from Flatbush and Fourth Avenue is now closed to car traffic. This is especially good news for transit riders, who now have fewer vehicle conflicts to worry about as they walk to and from the Atlantic Terminal entrance.

As part of its menu of changes for the area, DOT also converted Hanson Place to two-way traffic flow, a switch that the Brooklyn Paper alarmingly depicts as "wreaking havoc on pedestrians and drivers." Judging by the reaction on Brownstoner, however, pedestrians are clearly grateful for the new conditions.

Now the good news: DOT is considering changes for the area -- especially the pedestrian crossings -- and the agency's ideas will get a public airing tonight at a presentation to Community Board 2. Community groups are encouraging Brooklynites to show up and share their suggestions. Here are the details:

DOT presentation to CB2 Transportation Committee
Tuesday, October 21, at 6 p.m.
St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights

Photo: Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn

Graphic of crashes and fatalities near Atlantic Terminal, 1995-2005: CrashStat