Streetsblog New York City

As the Department of Transportation's "Road Diet" plan for Brooklyn's 9th Street stirs up the ire of a small but well-organized and politically-connected group of home and car owners, it's worth taking a look at this Parsons Brinckerhoff presentation, "Applying the Road Diet for Livable Communities." PB's case studies show that, after properly executed Road Diets, car crashes and speeding are drastically reduced, pedestrians "feel" that streets have become safer and more pleasant, and very little excess traffic is diverted to neighboring streets. Someone want to forward this to State Senator Eric Adams? 

Thanks to Streetsblog reader Greg Raisman from Portland for forwarding this along.

DOT's press office just called to say that there is no consipracy to hide the plan for 9th Street. They sent it to me a few days ago but it got stuck in their e-mail inbox. Doh!

Download the presentation as a PDF here. 

I will not be able to attend tonight's big meeting in Brooklyn so I really hope that someone will ask DOT about this and report back on what they say:

At the big Houston Street bike lane meeting a couple of weeks ago, DOT's Ryan Russo and Josh Benson told Manhattan's Community Board 2 that physically-separated bike lanes should only be installed on streets with a maximum of 8 intersections per mile. Houston Street has 18 intersections per mile which, they believe, makes it not a good spot for a Class I bike lane.

Ninth Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn has exactly 8 intersections per mile. It therefore meets DOT's own standards for when a physically-separated, on-street bike lane is warranted! On top of that, neighborhood people are upset about the idea of a bike lane preventing them from occassionally double-parking to load and unload their cars. A physically-separated bike lane might be an answer to those concerns and a real win-win.

The lanes could be put between the sidewalk and parked cars as is done in so many great biking cities around the world. Here is an example from Copenhagen, Denmark:

Another possibility would be to run both lanes between the sidewalk and parked cars along the southern side of 9th Street, away from the double-parking commotion in front of the grocery store, post office and car service station. Here is a two-way bike lane I saw in Paris, France recently (no one is riding because it is in the middle of a hail storm):

It's just Thermoplast. Can't we experiment in New York City?

As noted elsewhere, tonight the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 6 will consider a plan by DOT to redesign 9th Street from Third Avenue to Prospect Park West in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Ninth Street is a very wide street for the number of vehicles that actually use it. Overly wide streets may tend to encourage speeding and create dangerous conditions. On 9th Street we often see these dangers where the left-turning vehicles have to cross two lanes of traffic while keeping an eye on pedestrians in the far-off crosswalk.
Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights had a very similar problem to 9th Street. So, in May 2006 DOT striped a 15-foot wide median with left-turn bays, reducing Vanderbilt to one travel lane in each direction and bringing left-turning cars closer to the crosswalk where the pedestrian conflicts occur.

Many in Prospect Heights will tell you that the Vanderbilt median has helped to calm traffic, make left-turns less dangerous, and foster a safer, more pleasant pedestrian environment. In the future DOT says that it hopes to turn the striped median into a raised, planted median kind of like Park Avenue in Manhattan.

DOT's success on Vanderbilt Avenue is, I believe, the basis for the 9th Street proposal. But no one at DOT is talking very much and these planning processes are done in secret, so who really knows?

Here are some Vanderbilt Avenue before and after photos:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Looking down Park Slope's 9th Street at Prospect Park West. They call this "excess capacity."

A lot of different things are happening on 9th Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It's got some gorgeous residential blocks, a bus route, a busy bustling commercial district including a post office, grocery store, car service storefront and lots of double-parking, motorists use it to get to the Battery Tunnel and Red Hook and, of course, at the top of the hill is a grand entrance to Prospect Park fronted by a massive plaque honoring revolutionary war hero Marquis de Lafayette.

Ninth Street is very broad. It's got two wide travel lanes going in each direction and a lane of curbside parking on each side. DOT, I've been told, believes that 9th Street has "excess capacity," especially up towards the Park. In other words, the street is much wider than is needed for the number of vehicles that actually use it.

Car-free moments on 9th Street above Seventh Ave. are not hard to find.

Tonight, 6:30 pm at Old First Church on 7th Avenue and Carroll Street, the transportation committee of Brooklyn Community Board 6 hosts a blockbuster follow-up meeting to the "One-Way? No Way!" extravaganza of March 15.

While I haven't managed to get a look at DOT's proposal, we know a few things about it: It will include some pedestrian improvements at Grand Army Plaza, new bike lanes for Red Hook and a new design for 9th Street. The Grand Army Plaza changes, supposedly, include some of the improvements that the community has been advocating via the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. The Red Hook bike lanes sound pretty straightforward. As for 9th Street, DOT wants to do the following:

• Install two bike lanes heading in each direction.
• Stripe a median down the middle of the street with left-turn bays for cars at the intersections.
• Eliminate one travel lane in each direction.

Not surprising -- it's Brooklyn, folks! -- there is some opposition brewing to the 9th Street changes, the bike lanes in particular. Below is a discussion thread I found on the Brooklynian web site. Fans of MyBikeLane.com will have to wrap their heads around the idea that their bike lanes are actually blocking motorists ability to double-park. Is it only a matter of time before someone starts MyDoubleParkingSpot.com?:

Ninth Street Residents and Businesses

The Mar. 29, 2007 meeting of the Transportation Committee of Community Board 6 will discuss adding a painted centerlane (similar to Prospect Park SW) for left turns, AND bicycle lanes.

That will mean there will be only one lane for driving, and NO ability to stop your car to drop off/pick up at anytime because you will be blocking the bike lanes.

Please come out to the meeting to voice your opinion/opposition to these changes

Transportation Committee of
Community Board Six
Mar. 29, 2007
6:30 PM

Old First Reformed Church
729 Carroll Street
(Corner of 7th Avenue)