Streetsblog New York City

The Park Slope Civic Council announced the winners yesterday in its design competition for the Third Street entrance to Prospect Park, which has sported rickety metal barricades since it was closed to cars in April 2009.

In addition to designing a better gateway to the park, the entries had to be movable, to allow for emergency vehicle access. And they got points for feasibility: The winner could potentially serve as a template for Third Street and other entry points to the park.

“Stone Garden,” an entry from Jordan Yamada and Peter Zaharados, took the top prize in the competition. The stones would be set into recessed grooves and could be re-positioned to clear a path for emergency vehicles. The award announcement notes that Stone Garden appealed to the jury on several levels, but that “the design would likely be modified in its mechanical functions, if brought to prototype stage.” Operationally, those grooves (and the stones in the bikeway) could be problematic for passing pedestrians and cyclists.

“The Tree Grove,” an aluminum sculpture that would rotate on a central pivot, took the runner-up position, followed by the “Third Street Arches.” Follow the jump for renderings and see all the winning entries in this slideshow.

Read more…

Mark next Thursday on your calendars. It’s a critical day for one of the city’s most innovative livable streets projects. If you care about safer streets, it’s going to be an excellent time to respectfully show your support in public.

That morning, at 8:30, opponents of the Prospect Park West bike lane are holding an event at the corner of Carroll Street and PPW to call for its removal. They’re posting flyers around Park Slope and inviting the press to turn up and get the whole thing on camera. Here’s a look at how the bike lane opponents are advertising their event:

To coincide with the anti-bike lane demonstration, Park Slope Neighbors, the Park Slope Civic Council, and Transportation Alternatives’ Brooklyn Committee are putting together a show of support for the bike lane and its traffic-calming effect on the street. They’ll be gathering at 8:00 a.m. at Grand Army Plaza.

Neighborhood groups collected more than a thousand signatures in support of this project before DOT implemented it, and more than 1,700 people now belong to the pro-bike lane Facebook group. Next Thursday you can come out and show the press how many people support this traffic-calming improvement to the neighborhood.

Read more…

The entrance to Prospect Park at Third Street in Park Slope was closed off to car traffic in April 2009. Since then it’s been graced by these barricades. With the completion of the Prospect Park West re-design, there’s even more reason to make this a welcoming entrance for people walking and biking to Brooklyn’s flagship park.

The Park Slope Civic Council is putting on a design competition and looking for entries that “provide an attractive, contemporary, contextually appropriate, and visually clear entrance gateway, with a sculptural, graphic, and functional contribution to the Park perimeter.” The new gateway has to maintain access for bikes, keep cars out, yet be flexible enough to allow access for emergency vehicles.

The PSCC is accepting submissions until October 25, and they’ll announce the winner on November 15. Two of the jurors are staff members of the Prospect Park Alliance, and we hear that if the winning design is realistic enough, it could be used as a prototype for this entrance and, possibly, for other gateways to the park.

Up until this summer, speeding was the norm on Brooklyn’s Prospect Park West. With three wide lanes inviting motorists to hit the accelerator, it was a street monopolized by car traffic. That changed in a big way in June, when NYC DOT converted one vehicle lane to a two-way bikeway separated from traffic by the parking lane. Physically separated bike lanes are making New York safer for cyclists and pedestrians wherever they’re installed, and this one is no exception.

The new lane feels safe and comfortable to ride on, no matter how much experience you may have as a cyclist, and it’s attracting riders of all ages. For everyone walking to and from Prospect Park, the street re-design means slower cars — compliance with the speed limit is up by a factor of five, according to a study by Park Slope Neighbors — and safer crossings at intersections.

The transformation has been dramatic, and like any major change to the street, this one has attracted some vocal critics — most notably Borough President Marty Markowitz.  While some opponents contend that the lane has been installed without public input, the truth is that community groups have been calling for traffic calming and safer biking on this street for years. Watch and see how the new Prospect Park West has made good on those demands.

A lot of neighborhood activists swear by the maxim that it's easier to organize against something than to drum up support for something new. But apparently this rule of thumb doesn't apply to the Prospect Park West bike lane.

Based on the latest tallies from Facebook, the incipient skirmish over New York's newest two-way protected bike lane -- and the traffic-calming removal of a lane for cars on PPW -- is turning into a pretty lopsided affair, with the "pro" side on top. Two days ago, membership in the lane-loving Facebook group shot past the 1,000 mark, and last I checked was getting pretty close to 1,200.

The anti-bike lane group, which had a couple days to build up a head start, now has 293 members, according to founder Lisa Napolitano.

I spoke to Napolitano, who graciously returned my phone calls, about her group and why they oppose the new bike lane. We went back and forth for a good long while, and, as one would expect, she belongs to the hard core of opponents who will never be convinced that narrowing car lanes to slow traffic and create more safe space for biking is a good thing.

She also took issue with the assertion that the Facebook counts indicate that most people don't share her views. "We as a community have to have a say," she said, meaning the people who live right on Prospect Park West. "Not the people that live five blocks away, not the people that come in from all over the city to use this."

Read more...

Before I get to the "intrigue" part of this post (it's juicy), first let me say that if you haven't checked out the Prospect Park West re-design yet, you owe it to yourself to head on over and take a look. Last time I checked, some of the finishing touches have yet to appear, but it's already one of the most effective street transformations the city has undertaken.

With two lanes of traffic instead of three, PPW feels like it's been reclaimed for the neighborhood. I haven't biked the new two-way path since it opened, but I've walked on each side of the new PPW, and it's a pleasure. The highway speeds and zooming traffic noise are gone, and the calming effect seems to rub off on everybody.

The experts at Project for Public Spaces, where I worked before coming to Streetsblog, will tell you that the "outer park" matters just as much as the "inner park." Well, now the west side of Prospect Park has more breathing room -- it's a much better "outer park." If you're walking next to the park, you don't feel hemmed in by parked cars and traffic, and you're not sharing the sidewalk with cyclists any more. And the bike lane is attracting kids and other riders who never would have felt safe biking on the old PPW.

Not everyone sees it this way. These folks on Facebook want to see the bike lane disappear. (They've been eclipsed by the growing ranks of this pro-bike lane group, which -- full disclosure! -- I joined today.) Last week, Courier-Life publications ran a screed against "pedal-pushing jerks in their fancy Spandex uniforms," though they were curiously silent about the business casual commuters, the pants-wearing errand-runners, and the families-with-kids-in-T-shirts-and-shorts crowd who seem to be enjoying the new lane immensely.

And, a few nights ago, staffers from Marty Markowitz's office were seen leaving an anti-bike lane strategy session held at 9 Prospect Park West. The apartment building is home to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and former DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall, whose daughters have both signed on to the anti-bike lane Facebook group, but I was not able to confirm a rumor that the meeting happened inside the Schumer-Weinshall residence. Streetsblog is in the midst of following up on that particular storyline.

Read more...

Its fresh green paint is already bringing relief to car-free commuters, but that hasn't stopped anonymous opponents of a safer Prospect Park West from continuing to spread anti-cyclist tripe of the kind pictured above.

Though no names or contact information have to our knowledge accompanied any of these fliers, local media can't resist piling on, generally trumpeting random comments as prevailing opinion and ignoring the fact that the PPW bike lane was vetted by the local community board and installed at the request of residents who prefer bike and foot traffic to another lane for speeding drivers. If any Streetsblog readers are able to attend tonight's misinformation session, please let us know how it went.

Lots of other relevant things happening over the next few days. This week's calendar post is coming up.

At last night's presentation to a joint meeting of three Brooklyn community boards, DOT assistant commissioner Ryan Russo unveiled what he called "a pretty dramatic and bold, exciting plan" for Grand Army Plaza. The proposal lived up to the billing. Lots of asphalt will be reclaimed for walking and biking. Getting to the central plaza will be a much-improved experience, as will biking to the greenmarket, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the park, thanks to an entirely two-way system of bike lanes. Russo said DOT hopes to begin implementation in August.

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).
  

Read more...

This report on the proposed Prospect Park West bike lane from NY1's Jeanine Ramirez doesn't quite stoop to Marcia Kramer levels of fabrication, but that might make it even more insidious. Slap together a few shots of ill-informed people on the street, add an anonymous flyer, and you've got a story headlined "Park Slope Residents Oppose Addition Of Bike Lane."

The central claim that the story rests on -- the reason it's "news" -- concerns the "growing opposition" to the PPW bike lane. The same bike lane that DOT designed at the request of neighborhood residents. "Those who oppose the bike lane have started a campaign to try to stop it," Ramirez tells us.

So, who's organizing against the bike lane? Well, it's impossible to say, because the "campaign" seems to consist mainly of anonymous flyers that someone slipped under the front doors of Prospect Park West this weekend. These pieces of anti-bike lane propaganda get a brief turn on camera in Ramirez's report. Here are a few examples of the misinformation and fear that the unnamed opponent is peddling:

• The bike lane will eliminate the B69 bus route. Clever, because it's true that the B69 is being re-routed. But that has nothing to do with the bike lane and everything to do with the recalcitrance of our representatives in the state legislature to fund transit through bridge tolls or congestion pricing.
  
• Traffic will be hazardous to pedestrians and pets. I wonder how many people fall for this sort of scare tactic. Even if you're not aware that the type of design proposed for PPW has made other streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists, it just makes no intuitive sense that narrowing traffic lanes creates hazards.
  
Read more...

Last night, Streetfilms' Robin Urban Smith and I got to catch the second half of NYCDOT's info session about the Prospect Park West traffic calming/two-way bike path project. The first half of the evening is when the fuss happened -- apparently a few people made it known in no uncertain terms that they think it's crazy to narrow a wide street where more than 70 percent of drivers are speeding. When we showed up, everyone was calmly perusing the DOT posters and talking amongst themselves. The upshot is that we don't have much drama for you in these short interviews -- just clips of people explaining why they like the project.

The headline news from the event: The city is moving forward with implementation this summer, and installation is scheduled to be finished sometime in August. DOT has also made a few adjustments since they presented to Community Board 6 last year. The basic template is the same, but the parking and moving lanes are collectively a few feet wider, while the bike path is eight feet wide instead of 10 feet, with a three-foot buffer instead of a four-foot buffer. (Note: The two-way bike path on Kent Avenue is also eight feet wide.) The project won't pack quite the same traffic-calming punch as it would with the narrower, 10-foot moving lanes for car traffic that were originally planned.

In response to some CB 6 requests, the design tweaks also include flashing "bicycle warning signs" for pedestrians at signalized intersections. Rather heavy-handed if you ask me, and not something I would want to look at while walking, but if that's what it takes to move ahead with this project, so be it.

Not everyone who showed up last night was a Park Slope resident. Some of the bikeway supporters hailed from the "Marty Markowitz side of the park" in central Brooklyn. The older gentleman who appears after the halfway mark in the video -- he gave his name as Simon -- lives in Kensington and told us he's looking forward to riding the new path on his trips home.