Coming Soon: Safer Streets Near BAM
At the CB2 Transportation meeting this week, the DOT presented plans for a more pedestrian-friendly set-up near BAM and the LIRR station, reports Streetsblog. “Cars will no longer be able to turn onto Hanson Place from the intersection of Flatbush and Fourth Avenue, where a new permanent sidewalk will be constructed. Pedestrians will also be…
At the CB2 Transportation meeting this week, the DOT presented plans for a more pedestrian-friendly set-up near BAM and the LIRR station, reports Streetsblog. “Cars will no longer be able to turn onto Hanson Place from the intersection of Flatbush and Fourth Avenue, where a new permanent sidewalk will be constructed. Pedestrians will also be able to cross Flatbush and Fourth Avenue more easily, with the implementation of a 31-second exclusive walk phase,” they write. Pedestrians have only eight seconds now. Work should begin in three weeks.
Photo by threecee.
Right now, crossing the Ashland/Hanson slip lane, or crossing Flatbush on the west side of 4th, is extremely dangerous. Large numbers of aggressive motorists do not respect the crosswalks. I’ve lived within 3-4 blocks of this intersection for six years, and crossed it thousands of times, so please respect that I know what I’m talking about.
BrooklynGreene, I understand your skepticism. And I can see your concern over increased traffic at other intersections. However, I live near Pacific and 4th and cross at that intersection (to walk down Hanson Place) about 10 times a week. It is extremely unsafe. I can’t tell you how many times my wife and I have almost been hit. The 31 second walk signal will be a huge bonus, and I do think closing that street will make crossing safer for pedestrians.
Unfortunately I don’t think these changes will be enough. The biggest problem with this intersection, as I see it, is the angle at which 4th Avenue connects with Flatbush. Cars turning left onto Flatbush and right onto 4th barely slow down as they make the turn. (This has also been a problem with vehicles turning right onto Hanson, but that will obviously be solved.) The city needs to find a way to slow these vehicles down as they turn.
zinka,
Likewise, you have no evidence that this is a compelling safety improvement…you’re most likely only going on what people posted above and an idea that turning one spot into a pedestrian plaza makes things “safe”. That is the angle that is being pushed with this decommissioning of the sidewalk and “traffic calming” for a street that is already relatively “calm”, especially for the area. Keep in mind that Hanson is also mostly a non-residential corridor. There a few houses and an apartment building but it is majority non-residential.
The impact on traffic through the area with the proposed closing of Hanson at the intersection and the 31-second all-way pedestrian crossing will have unintended(?) consequences. There will be much more traffic ploughing up Lafayette than we already have and cutting through a landmarked district. Right now, as I wrote above, a portion of traffic goes up Hanson, which is very wide. At the top of Hanson, drivers can choose Fulton (a heavily commercial street/corridor) and Greene Avenue. It relieves a bit of the traffic pressure on the already heavily used Lafayette.
And also, as I mentioned above, the intersection of Flatbush/Atlantic/4th will likely become more jammed with drivers catching on and eventually bypassing the intersection by using the residential streets all around it.
If you want to talk about safety, certain intersections on Lafayette have been known as Death Corners. More traffic forced up through the middle of Fort Greene does not equal bodily safety or improved air quality.
And of course, I do not “have” evidence that this has anything to do with Ratner or One Hanson. What do you want? A leaked letter scanned and put up on the web? A tape recorded dinner conversation? Honestly…
I’ve been around long enough to know how things work.
Look, the closing of that intersection and making it a public plaza, thus benefitting the owners of the property on either side does NOT pass the smell test. This is the m.o. of developers. Either they encourage public land improvements and then develop along the borders of the improved areas (new parks, views over water, recreational areas, etc., calmed traffic, medians, plazas, heavy tax-abated shopping with tax-incentivized retailers) or they start building and then later arrange for things much like the closing of the mouth of Hanson Place which benefit themselves. These things are almost always packaged as beneficial to the community, our safety, the tax base… I would not be surprise if the the closing of the mouth of Hanson Place was in some proposal ages ago. I’m sure it’s been an agenda point for FCR for quite some time.
Sorry but the rah-rah young people on this website can get on my nerves when they cheer for things they do not understand.
I guess, as the joke goes, we’ll end up selling the rope that is used to hang us. We rarely learn from our mistakes (as a society)…
Do you have any evidence that this has anything at all to do with Ratner or One Hanson? All evidence points to this as a compelling safety improvement, and on that basis, I find it hard to oppose.
Schultz,
Do you live in FG as well?
The City publishes truck route maps. According to what I see on the one for FG showing routes allowed for thru-trucks and deliveries-only trucks, there are endless violations all day long every day of the year. Because Lafayette is one-way, and due to the traffic light sequencing, it is the speedway of choice for traffic heading to many points east.
At least, currently, it appears to me there is partial avoidance by drivers at the BBI (Big Brooklyn Intersection) in question to take Lafayette because Hanson (which is never crowded or overburdened) is available to them to bypass the lower Lafayette area and intersection with Fulton. Because the top of Hanson essentially offers drivers the choice of taking Fulton or Greene, they manage NOT to cut over to Lafayette, at least not immediately, thus distributing the traffic through this funnel area as it fans out going east through Brooklyn.
Lafayette is the path of least resistance for anyone going dead east. Atlantic, which is approved for through-trucks is like a highway but it will take drivers further south than they may desire as they head eastward. Drivers will avoid Greene which runs parallel with Lafayette because it is 2-way (and narrow). Drivers cannot speed up Greene like they can up Lafayette. Taking Fulton eastward, like Atlantic, forces drivers south…plus, it is two-way as well so is less desirable.
Closing the mouth of Hanson Place to traffic shuttling off Flatbush will funnel it onto Lafayette and other streets.
Ratner must have pushed this through so the old-stadium-like entrance to his building has a pedestrian plaza. Plus the owners of Won Hanson, must have pushed as well. All-in-all, closing off Hanson at Ashland/Flatbush will create a large oasis since no traffic will funnel in on it until further up (if the side streets continue as there currently are mapped).
Ratner and One Hanson might as well put raised beds and benches in to create a block long Hanson Place seating area for the employees and residents of the buildings there.
Meanwhile, if you look at the plaza on the Atlantic side of the mall there, the space is poorly used. From the way it is set up, there is very little sense it is a place they want anyone to rest. It’s really only an open space allowing unobstructed views of the Guitar Store and Victoria’s Secret signage from up Flatbush.
That large plaza should be maximized as a public outdoor space before they turn a public street essentially into their own realm while creating increased traffic burdens for other residents in other areas.
Double-hhhh…
Thank you BrooklynGreene for articulating my concerns so well.
“LilBitOfLuck” writes that “Cars travelling north on Fourth Ave can turn left on Flatbush and then right on Lafayette.” But unless I’m mistaken, I don’t believe you can turn right on Lafayette when travelling north-west on Flatbush. I think the only way to get to Lafayette is to make the 45-degree right turn onto Ashland at the Flatbush/Fourth Ave intersection.
Would the proposed plan also block the turn onto Ashland?
I’m for traffic calming and pedestrian-safe streets but I’m afraid that the 31-second pedestrian-exclusive crossing time will create some major traffic jams and not induce drivers (esp. private cars and commercial vehicles) to rethink vehicle use…plus there are many buses that also stream through the corridors that cross at Atlantic/4th/Flatbush.
Frankly, I think closing off Hanson is a BAD idea and smacks of a privatization of the street for “One Hanson Place”, Ratner and, in part BAM. Please realized the entry to Hanson is currently narrowed due to the construction easement Ratner has out into the street (and, BTW, if the slow pace at which they are working on that mall/LIRR entrance is any indication of the speed with which they might eventually work on some arena, then G*d save us all!).
What Hanson allows currently is to funnel traffic up to Fulton Street and Greene Avenue w/o impacting Lafayette and the side streets as much as they already are.
What I see happening is a redirection of way too much extra traffic up Lafayette. ALREADY there is NO enforcement, positively NO enforcement of traffic regulations regarding truck routes (through-trucks are not allowed, only trucks for local deliveries). I know this is hard to enforce but there are some blatant offenders. There are already enormous big rigs using Lafayette as a thruway. Lafayette’s lights are timed to make it into a speedway. Horrible.
Plus the G-train runs not far below ground and the houses all shake with the traffic and subway trains.
What also will happen is traffic will pile up at the not-driver friendly area of lower Lafayette in front of the BAM Opera House. BAM already got to take over a part of the roadway as there personal drop-off area which narrowed the street. East of BAM is the 7th Day Adventist School and the intersection with Fulton. These are very short blocks with a lot of pick-ups and drop-offs certain times of day. BAM’s need to park its Manhattanite buses and drop off/pick up show-goers is mostly at night when traffic will be lighter but the school probably uses Lafayette during the more trafficked daytime.
There will be tie-ups at the Lafayette-Fulton intersection and vehicles blocking the box. As it is, there are big rigs making weird turns in that tight area around Fowler “Square” (triangle) so they can shuttle down to Ratner’s mall.
I foresee a mess arising from developers wanting and getting Hanson pulled out of commission as a useful roadway.
As it is, with the Carlton Avenue Bridge (which normally allows drivers to shoot across from Flatbush to shortcut to the Manhattan Bridge and BQE) ripped out ostensibly for FCR’s unresolved project, traffic on Vanderbilt is much heavier.
I don’t drive. I am a perennial/constant pedestrian. I truly resent all the diesel traffic ALREADY jammed up into FG…including the idling, extremely polluting, noisy Fresh Direct trucks (though, at least, they’re making local deliveries). It’s the enormous, bone-shaking big rigs that fly up Lafayette that make Lafayette DANGEROUS both physically and as a health hazard.
I also don’t find the intersection at Flatbush and Atlantic that hard to navigate. You just cross when you have the right of way and watch the traffic. If anything is more alarming than usual, it’s due to Ratner’s construction taking over the area of Flatbush and Hanson that makes navigating that spot seemingly more difficult. Again, I make it across fine. Have there been major pedestrian injuries there? All the accidents I know of in the neighborhood have been on residential streets where cars have rammed into cyclists who are in the bike lane.
Plus, I can’t wait to see all the extra traffic we get as drivers learn that the Flatbush/Atlantic/4th Avenue intersection is more jammed than ever due to the long pedestrian-crossing times. Drivers, private and commercial, are going to start fanning out and bypassing the intersection as they learn to avoid it. That will mean more traffic on residential side streets all around the area on both sides of Flatbush/Atlantic–not just on Lafayette to the east, but also on the west side of the area.
Hhh…
Wonderful idea. You take your life in your hands when you cross here.