I'm a bicyclist and the very last person you know who would criticize the DOT for restricting car traffic. Kudos to them for all the new bike lanes in our city and other traffic-calming schemes designed to make our streets quieter, safer and more breathable and to get people out of their cars and into mass transit or onto their bikes or feet!
However! Bruce Ratner recently broke ground for his mega-development and stadium at the Atlantic train yards. Not only is this ill-begotten land-grab-of-a-scheme stinking to high heaven from corruption and public/private malfeasance, it's also creating havoc on our quiet, residential streets due to collusion, I believe, between the billionaire developer and the city to make things go smoothly ... not for you and me but for Ratner and his stadium.
If you live in Prospect Heights, you may have noticed a huge uptick in traffic on little old Park Place, a narrow, residential eastbound-only street. But you may not know the reason. Here's why. If one drives south on Flatbush Avenue - i.e. from the Manhattan Bridge heading toward Prospect Park, there are very few opportunities to turn left (eastbound). Yet, large amounts of people live in our neighborhoods to the east of Flatbush Avenue: in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights and beyond.
Click the map for a larger view.If you live in those neighborhoods and want to go east from Flatbush Avenue, once you pass Lafayette Avenue, you cannot turn left for almost a full mile, until you reach Park Place! That's because --
• There's no left on Hanson Place - it was closed permanently a while ago.This traffic nightmare was "designed" by the folks at DOT and it has transformed Park Place from a relatively quiet and traffic-free street into a major eastbound thoroughfare. Long lines of traffic between Flatbush Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue are common - cars very often take several red light cycles to finally pass through the intersection at Vanderbilt. Then much of that traffic proceeds up the next eastbound block of Park Place and, frustrated with their long wait on the previous block, many now tear up the street in order to "make" the green light on Underhill Avenue. This has created, noise, congestion, fumes from waiting lines of cars and dangerous speeding by frustrated drivers.
• There's no left on Atlantic Avenue.
• There's no left on Fifth Avenue or Pacific Street - closed permanently.
• There's no left on Dean Street - ever! (until last week one could at least make a left after 7 pm and all day Sundays).
• There's no left on St. Marks Avenue.
The new sign at Flatbush and Dean - this used to read "no left turn except after 7 pm and all day Sunday." Now it's No Left Turn --- Ever! Click for a larger view.
Fifth Avenue eastbound from Flatbush - now permnently closed. Privatized for Ratner's stadium. Click for a larger view.
I'm compelled to ask - is this the professional planning of traffic engineers who ought to be concerned about reducing traffic and making streets safe for residents and pedestrians? Or is it, more likely, an order from up on high to do what has to be done to keep traffic flowing smoothly for the soon-to-be traffic-attracting stadium a few blocks north? It seems to be the latter. The result of this preposterous design is an assault on the residents of Park Place and environs.
No left on 6th Avenue - southbound on Flatbush. The result is that if you want to go east into Prospect Heights or Crown Heights, there's only one way to go and that's up tiny, narrow, residential Park Place. How could this be? Click for a larger view.
We must demand, from our elected officials and the Department of Transportation, that a better plan be implemented and the current design abandoned. Calls should be made to Community Board No. 8 (Ms. Michelle George, Manager) at (718) 467-5574 or Tish James (our Council Member) at (718) 260-9191 or the Mayor's office at 311.
Call now and call often until this travesty is un-done.
