Take The City And Run

I attended last night’s Brooklyn Community Board 6 Transportation Committee meeting. The turnout was impressive — the auditorium we were in wasn’t the biggest, but it was filled to capacity, which was probably somewhere around 150 people. But there were even more people outside in the anteroom to the auditorium — and, if I understood correctly, in other parts of the hospital — listening to the proceedings over a speaker set up for them. We were told there were 200 in the anteroom, not sure how many in other rooms of the hospital. Plus, at one point, we were told there were even people standing outside in the rain on 8th Avenue — I believe they said 50 or so. So I’d estimate there were at least 400 people there at some point.

I have to say, the representative from the Department of Transportation handled himself as well as could be expected for someone facing, by himself, hundreds of people who strongly disagreed with him. During parts of his presentation, and during comments and questions asked by people opposing the proposed reorganization of 4th, 6th, and 7th Avenues, there were outbreaks of yelling in protest and support respectively. The crowd in the auditorium was good about keeping the outbreaks short so that people could finish what they were saying, but the people outside the doors impressively raised a commotion to let it be known when they disagreed or agreed. It can be said — and was said last night — that Park Slope spoke with one voice. If any steps are taken to advance these proposals to practical fruition, it will clearly be done without the support of the community, which is something the DOT has supposedly claimed they will not let happen.

As for the presentation by the DOT spokesmen, itself, there were a few points that really stuck out:

First, among the statistics and figures that he threw out was the explanation that traffic performance is graded on a scale of A through F and that the city usually plans for any given traffic system to perform at a D level. The thing is that he, himself, claimed that 6th and 7th Avenues perform at a B or C. If this is the case, why is any change needed at all? The streets are performing above average as is, so why screw that up?

Second, no matter what arguments were made to the contrary, the DOT rep refused to allow that traffic would flow faster on the avenues or that the side-streets would receive more traffic either as a result of more through traffic traveling to the avenues or from people having to circle blocks to get onto the avenue traveling in their direction. Statistics were offered by some and dismissed out of hand. Or the rep would just avoid answering with a straight answer.

Third — the elephant in the room. The Atlantic Yards. The DOT rep avoided talking about the project and claimed it had no bearing on this proposal. For the same reason, the person chairing the committee meeting attempted to keep people from asking about it — even in direct relation to this situation. According to the DOT rep, the only new traffic generated by the proposed change would be intra-neighborhood. He refused to entertain the possibility that people would want to use the reorganized avenues to cut through Park Slope to get from one place to another. Basically, all his proposals and theories seemed to hinge on unchanged traffic volume. Anytime someone tried to ask how increased traffic from the Atlantic Yards area would affect this, he simply, unbelievably, claimed it had little or no bearing on the proposal. How does an estimated increase of nearly 4,000 cars at rush hour not cause problems in the surrounding areas? If he could have properly explained that, it would have helped his case. But because he refused to explain, the assumption has to be that there is no explanation.

In the end, the opinions of the community were heard: Park Slope does not want 6th and 7th Avenue to be one-way streets, and in fact, would like 8th Avenue and Prospect Park West to also become two-way. As for 4th Avenue, I don’t think anyone is a great fan of it the way it stands, but, as far as I can tell, no one likes the proposed change there either.

Now, we wait and see if our voices will be heard or ignored.

Update - Related Links:

The Daily Gotham: One Way! No Way! DOT faces Park Slope Ire

And Streetsblog has a bootleg copy of the slideshow the DOT gave as well as a summing up and photos of the meeting.