« Crime trumps traffic: the Post-tabloidization of the Courier-Life tabloid | Main | Sunday Comix »
March 18, 2007
For Neighbors, Happiness Is a Two-Way Street
NY Times
By JAKE MOONEY
By Thursday, eight days after a report on the plan to make Sixth and Seventh Avenues into one-way streets first surfaced on Streetsblog.com, a Web site run by Aaron Naparstek, a local writer and bicycling and pedestrian advocate, fliers lined local streets, petitions had circulated and almost 200 people were packed into an auditorium at New York Methodist Hospital to hear the first official details made public. An additional 250 could be heard cheering and booing from the lobby and the rain-soaked sidewalk.By the end of the night, a stream of residents and elected officials had criticized the proposal, and the transportation committee of Community Board 6 had passed a resolution asking the city’s Transportation Department to kill the plan. According to the department’s presentation, the plan was intended to improve safety for pedestrians and motorists, “enhance mobility” and “better serve current and future land uses.”
Critics, including the Park Slope Civic Council and Park Slope Neighbors, which gathered more than 1,400 signatures on petitions opposing the proposal, say traffic would move much faster on one-way streets, making them less safe. Some contend that the plan’s real goal is to provide easier access to the proposed Atlantic Yards tower and arena complex at the northern edge of the neighborhood, although the presentation by the Transportation Department never mentioned that idea directly.
NoLandGrab: Although KILL! is an exciting action word, it's little too exciting for this story. The motion was 'tabled' not 'killed.' Rich Calder made a similar error in the Post.
Posted by amy at March 18, 2007 9:55 AM