There was a lot going on at the Community Board meeting Tuesday night so let's jump right in... EMPIRE/OCEAN/FLATBUSH TRAFFIC CALMING The most exciting news to my mind is that the Empire/Ocean/Flatbush intersection is getting a revamp to make it safer for pedestrians. We've been calling for this for two years now and are pretty impressed with the Department of Transportation's response:
- 3 of the 4 crosswalks at the intersection will get new splitter islands: raised platforms with trees and other plantings placed in-between north- and southbound lanes. The islands will slow down traffic and give pedestrians a refuge in case they get stuff between lights.
- Left turns from northbound vehicles on Flatbush (onto Ocean) are now banned. The DOT found that no one was doing left turns here, anyway, so it won't hurt traffic flow.
- Ocean Avenue will get a a new curb extension, which will slow down turning vehicles and shorten the distance pedestrians need to travel to cross the street.
- Alignment of traffic lanes will be improved.
Our neighbor, Dynishal, raised the point that the traffic lights for cars on Flatbush are out of sync, so DOT Rep Hillary Poole said she would look at that. Plans to remake the intersection should begin in a couple of weeks or so. Fire up!
NOSTRAND AVENUE SELECT BUS SERVICE
The improvements to bus service will also have a direct impact on our neighborhood, whether you ride this bus or not: faster buses means more riders, fewer cars, and better air quality.
The Select Bus Service (SBS) will replace the limited bus on Nostrand. There will be two stops in PLG, one at Empire and one at Clarkson. A few highlights from the meeting:
Continue reading "Notes From Community Board Meeting: Safe Streets, Rapid Buses and Scary Water" »
 A few months ago, we wondered out loud which of the two token booths at the Prospect Park subway station was slated for destruction: Lincoln or Empire? Well, we now have our answer, and the winner (loser) is... Empire.
As of this writing, what was formerly the work space of an actual MTA worker is now a pile of rubble. People can still enter and exit the subway at the Empire entrance, but they'll have trouble if they're, say, pushing a large stroller or grocery cart. In order to use the special entrance, they'll need to go around to Lincoln (which makes a certain kind of sense since the elevator is at that end as well). This is bound to also be a pain for people who live nearby in Crown Heights, and for visitors to the Prospect Park Zoo and Brooklyn Botanic Garden. PREVIOUSLY
Coming Soon: Empty Token Booth
Possibly Token Booth Closing at Prospect Park Station
Jake McDonaugh, an 18-year-old cyclist from Kensington, was struck
and killed by a minivan after turning onto Flatbush from Duryea Place. The driver, Michael Oxley, allegedly ran a red light and was speeding at the time of the crash. Atypically, Oxley has been charged with criminally negligent homicide and reckless driving, in addition to driving with a suspended license and traffic violations. I am usually a huge defender of the dollar vans because they are cheaper, run more frequently and are faster than the B41. I admit that I've always considered the white-knuckle ride part of the charm. This tragedy should act as a cautionary tale for all van drivers - all drivers, really - that traffic laws exist for a reason. Nobody riding up Flatbush is in such a hurry that lives should be in danger. Update: It turns out that Oxley was not a dollar van driver but rather a driver in a hurry. I apologize for the error.
 Standing in the rain waiting for the B41 bus last weekend got me thinking: Why is it that only one of the B41 bus stops around here has a bus shelter? The B41, which goes up and down Flatbush, is one of most heavily used bus lines in Brooklyn. Yet Park Slope's B71, whose ridership is so low it's been slated for extinction, has new bus shelters in several spots along Union Street. RIGHT: The bus shelters along Parkside Avenue have no shortage of
customers. Yet the most heavily used bus lines in PLG lack such
shelters. The B41 isn't the only heavy-lifting bus line in PLG that doesn't have bus shelters. The B44 along Nostrand—which has the fifth highest ridership of any bus line in the city—has none within the PLG boundary either. In fairness, the MTA/DOT may be waiting until after the planned bus rapid transit line is in to install shelters along Nostrand. And before launching into a conspiracy theory, I should check whether the site specs along Flatbush would even allow for a shelter. If B41 stops don't fit the specs, it would be because the sidewalk along Flatbush Avenue is too narrow. But if the sidewalk is too narrow for a bus stop, that suggests another kind of problem: passengers clogging the sidewalks as they wait for one of the most crowded buses in the city. (I can attest to this happening at the Parkside stop.) One of two B41 express stops in PLG—at Empire Blvd.—has a bus shelter from a previous era, but there is no shelter at Parkside, nor are there shelters at Grand Army Plaza, an area with much wider sidewalks. I asked Community Board 9 President Pearl Miles about this, and she responded with a request for suggested stops. I'm going to recommend Grand Army Plaza and Parkside for the B41, and the B44 stops along Nostrand and New York Avenues. The B49, along Bedford and Rogers, has less than half the passenger load as the other buses, and I haven't checked for shelters along these roads (though I'm pretty sure there are zero). So if anyone has any other suggestions for Ms. Miles, do let her know: bk09@cb.nyc.gov.
 The Brooklyn Paper reports that the people in Park Slope complaining that there seem to be a lot of low-flying planes roaring over their heads aren't crazy. A change in flight paths to increase efficiency has led to a 52% increase in planes flying over Park Slope and Prospect Park.
I think this puts to rest the idea that the marching bands and Big Apple Circus are somehow "dumped" on our side of the park to protect the gentle ears of Park Slopers from the noise.
 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.
Witnessed this morning at the Prospect Park station around 8:50am: a woman exiting the Manhattan-bound B train slipped and fell, causing her leg to fall into the gap between the train and the platform. The leg appeared to be brutally broken after a loud crack heard by a number of passengers. An unfortunate and terrible accident to be sure, and we hope she recovers quickly and with as little pain as possible. What really disturbed me, aside form the amount of pain this woman appeared to be in, is the MTA's apparent mishandling of the situation. The train was delayed until an emergency response team could assist (so far, so good). After 15 minutes, no EMTs had arrived on the scene. Here's where it gets really good: the B train was then taken out of service, forcing all passengers to spill out onto an already crowded platform. Adding insult to injury, the Q train behind us was rerouted to the Coney Island-bound platform and also taken out of service. Those passengers, having received no directions other than to leave the train, headed over to the Manhattan-bound platform, now packed like a tin of sardines and pushing towards the location of the accident. I headed out on the S train at about 9:15 so I'm not sure when the EMTs finally arrived, but let's just say it was much later than it should have been, and they were faced with a heck of an obstacle course. Lessons learned: (1) be careful of the gap when entering/leaving the train, and (2) don't ever, ever get injured on NYC transit (partnered with, of course, don't get sick on NYC transit). Lawsuit pending? We expect so.
Following up on our post the other day about City plans to upgrade B44 bus service, I talked to Keith Bray, Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Transportation.
As mentioned earlier, the B44 line along Nostrand and Rogers is slated to be one of the first routes for New York's new bus rapid transit program. Bus rapid transit is expected to dramatically improve commuting time for those who ride the buses every day and make the buses more reliable. But recently, the Nostrand Merchants Association held a protest of the plan to upgrade, expressing concerns that the new bus lane would eliminate parking along Nostrand.
Bray said that his department was planning to sit down with Councilmember Tish James (who represents the district north of Empire; our Councilmember, Mathieu Eugene, has so far been silent on this issue) and the Nostrand Merchants to clarify some misinformation. According to Bray, there's not going to be any massive loss of parking. Select bus service is designed specifically to improve traffic congestion, not add to it. Bray believes that once DOT reps can sit down and openly discuss the plan with elected officials, merchants, and other community members, there's not going to be any serious opposition to it.
That said, the DOT does plan to have several public meetings in the future about the Nostrand buses. At those meetings, it'll be helpful to have bus riders and other community members come out and express support for public transit. We'll be sure to let you know when those happen.
RELATED:
PLG buses lose again; Nostrand Merchants protest bus upgrade
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." (Photo: Streetsblog)
 When we first heard about the possibility of losing a clerk at the Prospect Park station we didn't know how certain it was. Now we know: it is a done deal. Starting on Sunday one of the token booths at the Prospect Park station will be unattended until the MTA gets its financial house in order (read: permanently). I don't know whether the clerk will disappear from the Lincoln Road or Empire Boulevard entrance.
Other local stations losing at least one station attendant are the Church Avenue Q/B and the Newkirk and Brooklyn College 2/5 stations. The full list of citywide station closings is here.
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