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July 30, 2009

Sidewalk safety in Ratnerville

How do you mitigate construction-related traffic-flow problems in Ratnerville? Drive on the sidewalk!

Here's some coverage in the blogosphere of one of the more amazing traffic mitigations brought to you by Bruce.

StreetsBlog, Bruce’s Way

Over at Pacific Street and Sixth Avenue in Prospect Heights, the sidewalk has been transformed into a motor vehicle travel lane.
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The Atlantic Yards construction project -- which still hasn't even gotten started -- is already turning out to be something of a minor disaster for pedestrians and cyclists. The Carlton Avenue bridge, a critical link in Brooklyn's bike network, was demolished months ago and isn't expected to re-open for years. Then there was that entire city block that Forest City leveled and turned into a surface parking lot for construction workers and future arena visitors.

Norman Oder from Atlantic Yards Report added this eyewitness report in the comments section that will make you cringe:

I walked by there this morning around 9 and a pedestrian--walking west, approaching Sixth Avenue--was smack in the middle of the sidewalk-turned-road, at approximately the location of the black car in the second photo.

There was a uniformed traffic cop in the intersection helping steer traffic, but I didn't see (or hear) him motioning for the pedestrian to get out of the way.

The pedestrian didn't look confused, but she sure wasn't aware of the change.

Brownstoner, Closing Bell: Ratner Remapping Road

If you happen to be going past the corner of Pacific Street and 6th Avenue, watch out: Forest City Ratner has turned the sidewalk into a road!

The Local, DOT Explains, Improves Sidewalk-Road

This morning we asked DOT what was up with the dodgy-looking conversion of Pacific Street’s sidewalk into a car traffic lane that Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn reported last night. Department spokesman Scott Gastel tells us that the sidewalk and roadway have now been more clearly demarcated and offered this comment: “We approved a plan at this location to permit two-way traffic using a portion of the sidewalk during sewer installation for approximately 12 weeks. This kind of arrangement is not unique and has been used on projects such as the Second Avenue Subway and on major projects on 34th Street in Queens or Richmond Terrace on Staten Island. We inspected the location this morning and instructed the contractor to replace the wooden barrier with one made of concrete and to extend it in both directions while maintaining at least a five-foot-wide pedestrian walkway, and to install additional signs as was part of the original, approved plan. We will continue to monitor the area.”

ATLANTIC YARDS CONSTRUCTION UPDATE: Weeks beginning July 20, 2009 and July 27, 2009

For your information, the Department of Transportation's plan "to permit two-way traffic using a portion of the sidewalk during sewer installation for approximately 12 weeks" was not mentioned in the Atlantic Yards Contruction Update. The only notifiction of work in this location is as follows:

  • Required Maintenance and Protection of Traffic (MPT) has been installed

  • Infrastructure work related to installation of new sewer chambers at the intersection of 6th Avenue at Pacific Street has commenced. This work is part of the first of three phases of upgraded water and sewer installations previously commenced at the site. Chamber work is expected to take 12 weeks from commencement.

NoLandGrab: This is another example of how the Empire State Development Corporation's notifications and hearings are pro forma, intended more to satisfy some legal requirement and not as a useful common sense approach to inform the public in a meaningful fashion.

But rest assured that DOT is doing a bang-up job with "Protection of Traffic."

Posted by lumi at July 30, 2009 6:07 AM