Brooklyn 11211

Between yesterday morning and this afternoon, both DOT and State Parks have been busy with the signs.

On Wythe Avenue, DOT has followed through on its promise to free up parking spaces, switching much of the stretch from Grand Street south to Broadway from No Standing or No Parking to alternate side rules.*

Meanwhile, State Parks has posted a new sign on East River State Park (BEDT park): The Park Will Reopen APRIL 1.

Happy New Year, please stay indoors.

*Yes, DOT had promised to compensate for lost parking on Kent as part of the implementation of the Greenway; it just took them a little longer to get around to the master plan part of things. But give them some credit - after a disastrous implementation, DOT has now: changed the stretch of Wythe in front Schaefer Landing from No Stopping to No Standing (allowing drop offs); added side-street loading zones for at least one business; and followed through on its long-standing promise to free up side street parking rules to make up for lost parking on Kent itself. That's a lot of trade offs for the residents and businesses in the area of Kent, none of the fully to their benefit, but they mitigate a lot of the negative impact of the Kent Avenue bike lanes. And the impact on businesses still needs to be addressed further.

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The City Concealed: Newtown Creek from Thirteen.org on Vimeo.

The City Concealed is a new project from Channel 13. Its a blog of sorts that takes in-depth looks at obscure or unknown places in the city. The first installment is this video on Newtown Creek. Its very well done, includes a lot of great old photos and maps, and is, well, kind of gross.

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Kate Yourke has answered my plea, and provided this account of the Broadway Triangle charette that was held earlier this month:

I was at the charrette, and intended to write some kind of report, but life overtook that intention and now I'm not sure what is the news except that the charrette must be made legitimate to give the rest of a community a chance at involvement in the development of the broadway triangle. The guest list was impressive, and the event was first class. The ideas were balanced and there was an easy consensus:

Environmental sustainability, community input in the planning process, maximized low-income housing, developments to allow for a mix of incomes within buildings and sites, integration in all aspects of the development, developments attractive to families, limited large scale and extensive small-scale retail business & entertainment opportunities, loads of underground parking, slower traffic on Flushing, small-town feel through plenty of trees, walkable streets, pleasant corridors leading to public transportation, maximize use of potential green space, including green roofs... There was the suggestion that a fund be created and an inventory of industrial and manufacturing businesses be done, with the businesses evaluated to see if they could co-exist with residential use, if not, adaptations paid out of the fund, and if necessary, subsidized relocation.

The Pfizer building was imagined as a multi-generational sports, arts, entertainment, and recreational center with space for artisan workshops and residential use.

I am sorry that I couldn't make to this month's "alternative" charette. I did attend the Autumn, 2007 community charette, and there were a lot of similarities to what Kate describes in this month's forum. Like this one, last year's charette resulted in a lot of very creative and thoughtful ideas about what a community should look like. Issues such as building heights, location of retail corridors and through streets and like all came up, as did sustainability, open space,community character and other hard to quantify ideas about neighborhood and smart growth.

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The Eagle article (linked to below) about today's clown time on Kent Avenue also includes some substance, which deserves some comment beyond a quick link.

Wiley Norvell of Transportation Alternatives is quoted extensively in the article, starting with this:

“[The city is] no longer treating parking as sacred. Newer designs are treating parking as any other space on the street. Kent is one of only half a dozen streets in New York City where the bike lane affected parking by more than one space ... When safety is up against convenience, safety wins.”

Dead-on correct. Parking should not be driving this discussion; there is no inalienable right to parking in NYC. (On a related note, I am told that CM Yassky is working to get Shaefer Landing to change its ridiculous exclusionary access regulations, so that all residents can use the driveway there.

Additionally, the lost parking spaces could potentially be compensated. The DOT’s Kent Avenue plan, available online, says there would be a high availability of curbside parking on side streets off Kent if “outdated, overly restrictive regulations” are removed.

However, Scott Gastel of the DOT told the Eagle that the potential parking changes on these side streets, running from Clymer to North 14th streets, are still “under review.” He could give no timeframe for how long the review process would take. “We are continuing to discuss the changes with the community,” he said.

This is the whole problem with the DOT's Kent Avenue implementation - a complete lack of a comprehensive approach. Rather that piss off half the neighborhood and pretty much guarantee that the community will never, ever, support another bike lane initiative, why not do the parking study before you take away dozens of parking spots? When the plan was presented to the community last Spring, we were told that the lost parking would be made up on adjacent streets. That hasn't happened and the fact that it hasn't is indicative of DOT's shortsightedness in this whole process.

“It was always a part of the DOT plan to accommodate businesses on Kent by adjusting the parking restrictions on side streets,” says Norvell. “We would have liked to have seen that done before, but sometimes the order gets messed up.”

Why didn't they "accommodate" those businesses beforehand? I find this statement pretty hard to swallow given all the scrambling DOT has undertaken to make up for the lost access to businesses (and, DOT's solution of side street loading zones takes away more on-street parking).

“The blocks on Kent are very short, so that to park on a side street makes a difference of about 10 or 15 feet. Most retailers’ needs can be met with these measures,” [Norvell] says.

The blocks along Kent are, on average, 200' long - just as long as the north/south (avenue) blocks in Manhattan (and those on the Southside/Northside). For a business that is loading heavy goods (like, say, a printing press), that means the loading zone is around the corner and as much as 125' feet away. These remote loading zones are a stop gap measure at best.

For businesses with loading bays and deliveries that take hours due to the quantity, DOT can “maybe cut into the buffers of the bike lane to the outside of the loading zone,” Norvell said.

Again, why didn't DOT think this through before they installed the bike lanes? And why is Wiley Norvell forced to be defend DOT's botched implementation - shouldn't DOT speak for themselves?

Hopefully, DOT is taking a very careful look at Kent Avenue and coming up with solutions that address the business and economic issues in a meaningful way. That starts with having a plan that recognizes that Kent Avenue can only do so much. It probably includes some actual traffic control measures, like stop lights. It also probably includes actually rescinding outdated parking regulations on the side streets and on Wythe Avenue (there are plenty of opportunities for this). Hopefully, this great new plan will rescue the Greenway and make it work.

Let's face it, a can of paint is not a comprehensive transportation planning solution.

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