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January 26, 2010
Revealed! LIRR bollards are bigger than they need to be!
The Brooklyn Paper
by Gersh Kuntzman
The controversial, tomb-like bollards around the new Long Island Rail Road terminal at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues — which were supposedly installed at the behest of the police — actually exceed NYPD counter-terrorism standards.
The department’s 2009 report, “Engineering Security: Protective Design for High-Risk Buildings,” advises that bollards “measure between 30 and 36 inches in height” and be spaced 48 inches apart.
But the granite-covered sarcophagi in front of the LIRR’s newly built Atlantic Terminal are 50 to 52 inches high — and they are far bulkier than even the most-rigid barricades in the NYPD handbook. And in some places, they are about 36 inches apart.
...This week, the LIRR did not answer questions about why the agency would install bollards that greatly exceed the NYPD standards that [LIRR President Helena] Williams cited.
The strongest bollard cited in the NYPD security report is classified by the State Department as K-12, capable of stopping a 15,000-pound truck going 50 miles per hour. Pictures of K-12 barriers downloaded from the Web sites of bollard manufacturers show that such strength can be had without nearly as much bulk as the LIRR is deploying at Atlantic Terminal.
...
“There’s just something so absurd about it,” said Aaron Naparstek of Streetsblog, who opposes the massive barricade. “They’ve nearly made the train station impenetrable to their own customers. They’ve literally turned our community’s public space into something that looks like a tomb.”
...The LIRR’s decision to ring a new building with a previously unannounced security perimeter led The Brooklyn Paper to file a Freedom of Information Law request with the Empire State Development Corporation for information about what the agency is planning at the proposed Barclays Center, the basketball arena across Atlantic Avenue from the LIRR terminal.
Current renderings show a thin line of bollards, but, as the Long Island Rail Road proved this year, plans are sometimes altered without informing the public.
So far, the agency has denied The Paper’s request.
Posted by eric at January 26, 2010 11:16 AM