Remember when we told you about the bus rapid transit project slated for Nostand Avenue? Well, Streetsblog is now reporting that the Obama Adminstration's 2011 budget includes $28 million to make the dream a reality:
Nostrand Avenue SBS would ply the B44 corridor in Brooklyn, a route where ridership is already high, demand is higher, and bus service is currently the most unreliable in the city... The FTA's announcement should help turn this project into reality. "That funding helps assure everybody that the project is going to move forward in these difficult times," said Joan Byron of the Pratt Center for Community Development, which has been a major advocate for bus rapid transit in New York. Byron highlighted the fact that the design for the route is still very much an open question and that secure funding will make the public outreach process more effective.
Those of you who read this blog know how we feel about the intersection at Ocean and Parkside Avenues. (Hint: hate it.) You probably also know that, under the aegis of PLG Public Works, our "sister" activist group, we've asked the DOT to find a way to fix it, to make it safer for pedestrians, cyclists and all users.
I am happy to report that we've received a response. According to a letter from Borough Commissioner Joseph Palmieri, the DOT's Division of Traffic Planning is investigating the location and will recommend appropriate action soon. The letter states that they'll respond to us directly by March 29, 2010.
Earlier today, Gothamist lauded the residents of Maple Street for their respect for the bike lane during alternate side hours.
It is a great thing to see, and I am glad that Maple Street has learned to coexist with the bike lane in their midst. I'm surprised, however, that nobody has jumped into the Gothamist comment section to remind them that the compliance is likely due in no small part to the 71st Precinct's policy of ticketing cars parked in the bike lane during alternate-side hours, as kicked off by the notorious September 2007 Ticket Blitz.
I can't read about the MTA budget crisis (no more free students passes, service cuts, etc.) without feeling violently ill, but Daily News writer Michael Daly managed to say what I would have liked to say without turning blue or shouting obscenities.
Daly points out how Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver has screwed over school kids and other transit riders by letting congestion pricing die last year.
Welcome to Shelly World, where school kids pay full fare on the subway, but motorists pay nothing to cross bridges and even park for free if they want to shop in his 'hood....The income from placing tolls on the East River crossings would have covered much if not all of the MTA's $383 million budget shortfall. Just the three untolled bridges serving Silver's Lower Manhattan district would have generated more than enough to keep school kids riding the subway for free as they have since 1948.
Subway fares aren't the only toll on kids. The New York City Health Department has just published an air quality study that shows how traffic congestion is poisoning the air. Area of the city that have higher levels of traffic have "higher levels of particulates (27 percent greater), elemental carbon (45 percent greater), and nitrogen dioxide (37 percent greater) than those in areas with less traffic." [Streetsblog]
Eliminating the free fares for students (particularly when coupled with the service cutbacks) could even make the air quality problem worse: anything that makes public transit more expensive and less safe and convenient is likely to encourage more driving.
A proposed amendment to zoning rules would make it harder for property owners to turn their stoops and front yards into parking spaces.
You need to look no farther than Parkside Avenue to see how curb cuts can make a nice block ugly: many front gardens there have been paved over to serve as driveways. The owners paint the curb in front yellow, removing space available for public parking -- sometimes legally, sometimes not.
Flatbush Life has more about the proposed changes here.
At the next Community Board 9 meeting, reps from the Department of City Planning will be discussing the zoning changes and answering questions about them. Come on down!
Tuesday, December 22 7 pm Middle School 61 Auditorium 400 Empire Boulevard Brooklyn NY 11225
Over a year ago, some fellow travelers and I put together a proposal to urge city officials to make the intersection of Ocean Avenue and Parkside Avenue safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Perhaps you read about that here or here. At any rate, the project got put on hold due to the group members' having personal lives (two couples had babies) but we've recently resumed. We call ourselves PLG Public Works and aim to make PLG streets better, quieter, and safer for all users. In some circles, this is known as building "livable streets."
Our inaugural act is a letter to the Department of Transportation, cc'd to local elects and Community Board 9. I've copied the letter below, which was mailed out today. To read the full proposal, download the PDF here.
Future plans call for improving Parkside Avenue and weighing in on the DOT's stated plans to improve Flatbush Avenue south of Empire.
If you'd like to get involved, join our Googlegroup to find out about upcoming meetings. If you're part of a local organization or block association and would be willing to endorse our proposal, please email me at brooklynite282 at gmail.com. Thank you, thank you.
I really hate the UPS dropboxes. I don't know if you realize that UPS bombarded our neighborhood with them (see map from UPS site). How many of these boxes do we really need? Check on the UPS website and you'll see nabes like Park Slope don't receive the same treatment. Maybe it is because it's in front of my building, but I'm not a fan of these. They add to the visual blight of the already cluttered street. Inside or in front of a commercial building makes sense, but I live on a mostly residential block.
Frankly I'm kind of surprised that UPS just plopped these down. Do they have any legal right to suddenly place these all over our neighborhood? One or two dropboxes, maybe. But five in 1 1/2 miles?
You ask a good question. I hadn't really thought about this, which is funny because in a previous life, we went after businesses dumping clothing "recycling boxes" without permission (here and here). I probably didn't think about it because I actually like UPS and appreciate the service. If you don't, write UPS and let them know how you feel, or call 311 and complain if you think the boxes pose a sidewalk hazard. Let us know what you find out.
That said, I'm pretty wary of your conspiracy theory. There's a 7th Avenue copy shop and a Staples in Center Slope, both of which accept UPS packages. So if there aren't drop boxes there, perhaps that's because drop boxes aren't needed. Also, the two boxes in PLG are on Flatbush and Parkside — both commercial strips, not residential streets. Perhaps you're referring to another box but, if so, you don't mention it.
The Brooklyn Van Association, a new organization representing van owners, is campaigning against the illegal dollar vans on Flatbush and Utica Avenues. Sulaiman Haqq, who heads the group and owns Brooklyn Van Lines, spoke at a Community Board 17 meeting of the need for greater police enforcement.
Haaq told Courier Life that police enforcement of unlicensed vans diminished in 2002, when most of the vans were still legal. At this point, he said, “About 95 percent of the vans that operate along Flatbush and Utica Avenues are illegally operated."
For residents, he said, a major issue revolves around safety.
Many of the illegal operators, Haqq contended, don’t have adequate
insurance; some, he added, don’t even have driver’s licenses. While
they may be able to offer lower fares, Haqq added, it is because they
spend a great deal less to operate.
Haaq also suggests that the illegal vans drive and park more recklessly than the legal ones.... which may or not be true. We often take the dollar vans to and from Grand Army Plaza or Atlantic Center, and some drivers are certainly borderline insane. (I remember riding with one guy once who would stop every block or so and shout at women on the street.)
But the trouble is that it's hard to know which vans are legal and which aren't. If what Haaq says about the low percentage of legal vans is true, the wait for one is bound to be more than a few minutes, which (to my mind) would defeat the purpose of using them. Perhaps if more illegal vans were off the streets, the legal lines could afford to add more to their fleets. The money riders spend on unlicensed vans is, after all, getting diverted from public bus service as well as the legal vans.
The Straphangers Campaign has given the B44 bus, which runs along Nostrand Avenue, its annual Shleppie Award for being the most unreliable line in the City. And a runner up? The B41, along Flatbush. Both of these buses are likely to be either bunched together or spread far apart over 20% of the time, causing gaps in service.
Unfortunately, the one community effort directed to change the matter only promises to make things worse: the Nostrand Avenue Merchants Assocation organized a protest last week against Department of Transportation efforts to upgrade B44 service. The DOT has been working on a plan to implement a Bus Rapid Transit network, starting with Nostrand and Rogers Avenue. Streetsblog writes:
[Nostrand Avenue Merchants Association president Lindiwe] Kamau takes issue with bus improvements planned for Nostrand because, she claims, dedicated bus lanes will eliminate curbside parking along the corridor. Here's the thing: The most recent renderings of Select Bus Service on Nostrand [PDF] depict buses operating in an existing travel lane. The curbside parking lane would still be there.
[...]
On a typical weekday, more than 40,000 people ride the B44 on the Nostrand corridor. On Saturdays, average ridership is about 29,000. B44 riders can definitely use some relief: They currently depend on the second-most unreliable bus route in the city, according to the Straphangers Campaign. The improvements promised by Select Bus Service -- pre-paid boarding, dedicated travel lanes, signal priority -- would speed trips and enable buses to stick to their schedules.
[...]
When I had asked Kamau why she opposed plans for BRT on Nostrand, the indignities and inconveniences of riding the bus weren't foremost in her thoughts, nor were her own customers' transportation needs. She said merchants already get ticketed for parking their cars on this stretch of Nostrand during the p.m. rush, when the west side of the street is a no-standing zone. "We already have problems with parking," she said. "Our merchants get tickets constantly."
Bill Thompson, Bill de Blasio, and John Liu all came out to a Nostrand Merchants press event to protest the bus line upgrade, which, incidentally, is the kind of short-term thinking that made me not want to vote them (or, at least not in the primaries). In essence, they threw their weight toward a relatively powerful minority--car owners--ignoring the voices of the silent (unorganized) majority. Or, as one commenter put it, "Democrats [made] a huge effort to pander to a single merchant who,
essentially, wants nothing more than to be able to park her own car in
front of her shop."
The Department of Transportation is holding a public meeting next Tuesday, November 10, to discuss its ideas for improving Church Avenue. The intersection of Church and Flatbush is one of the most congested intersections around, with doubleparked cars and vehicles turning every which way. Small wonder that that there are a ton of crashes, many with pedestrians, here. Ocean Ave. and Church isn't much better.
Some of the DOT's plans include improvements that we'd love to see more of here in our nabe: bulb outs, lead pedestrian intervals, pedestrian refuge islands, and dedicated turn bays. These changes would help cut congestion, improve air quality, and make the streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists.
The meeting will be in the auditorium of Erasmus High School, 911 Flatbush Ave., just south of Church, at 7 pm. If you'd like to speak at the meeting, please arrive by 6:30. For more info on the Church Avenue improvements, see the DOT project page. or call 212-839-4850.
Incidentally, while improving Church Avenue is a top DOT priority right now, the department plans to look at Flatbush south of Empire in the future.
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