January 30, 2012
What's going on here? Noisy, chaotic congestion during (unannounced) overnight work at Atlantic and Sixth avenues
Atlantic Yards Report
It was a very busy Saturday night at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, but the street closure, noise, confusion, and heightened danger were not predicted in the latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 1/16/12, that was distributed by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner).
Though no weekend third shift work was announced, the documentation appears in two postings on Atlantic Yards Watch.
On Saturday afternoon, January 28, trucks dropped off transformers that were later to be lowered into the Vanderbilt Yard. The trucks positioned themselves on the south side of Atlantic, east of Sixth Avenue, thus taking up a lane used as a bus stop.
Uh, normally used as a bus stop.
As noted in the video below, which begins at about 11 pm, the congested traffic led to some untoward consequences.
NoLandGrab: Good practice for what it will be like every time there's an event at the Barclays Center of Brooklyn™.
Posted by eric at 3:20 PM
With transportation plan delayed, Nets finally survey fans about transportation options regarding Barclays Center attendance
Atlantic Yards Report
What a coincidence: a day after a public meeting in which officials revealed delays in the long-awaited Transportation Demand Management plan for the Barclays Center, Nets Basketball on January 27 sent "an important online survey about our move to Barclays Center in Brooklyn next season" to those on its mailing list.
The survey, which offered the opportunity to win "autographed merchandise, courtside seats to a NETS game or a NETS Fan Experience package!," seemed designed to alert people to the extensive public transportation options and deter them from driving.
However, should word-of-mouth or advertising attract drivers to non-arena-related garages or to residential streets in search of free parking, that will hamper the effort to promote transit use.
Last week, Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, for Empire State Development suggested that the delay in the NBA season hampered development of the plan. Perhaps, but there's no reason why those on the Nets' mailing list could not have been previously surveyed.
Posted by eric at 11:21 AM
January 28, 2012
Street changes near arena site: planned "pedestrian refuge" on Atlantic Avenue at South Portland/Sixth provokes concern about eliminating turn from Atlantic
Atlantic Yards Report
At two meetings January 26, Chris Hrones of the New York City Department of Transportation described two planned changes in nearby roadway configurations that were not part of the Atlantic Yards plan, but are relevant to neighbors--and got some pushback about one.
Atlantic Avenue going west of Flatbush/Fourth
At Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush, there are four lanes going west on Atlantic, with one right turn-only lane. The original plan was to make another lane right-turn only.
But that would fuel congestion on Atlantic Avenue, as multiple lanes narrow to two lanes west of Flatbush (and Fourth Avenue). Now, Hornese said, the plan is to to create a 100-foot merge lane on Atlantic west of Flatbush/Fourth, thus extending an existing bus stop space (115 feet) by eliminating five or six parking spaces.
No left on South Portland on Atlantic going east
The other plan is to create a "pedestrian refuge" (mini-median) in the middle of broad Atlantic Avenue at the intersection of South Portland Avenue/Sixth Avenue, across from the northeast corner of the arena block. That would eliminate the eastbound left turn from Atlantic onto South Portland--a turn currently not available because of construction-related traffic changes.
There still would be an eastbound left turn at Fort Greene Place, he said, and one will be restored at Carlton Avenue. (This was also noted on Patch.)
The plan provoked some pushback from Jim Vogel, a representative of state Senator Velmanette Montgomery. "Fort Greene Place is demapped," he said, noting it was privatized for Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls. "In terms of utility to the community, it's more important to have a left turn on South Portland. Eliminating a turn on a through street to favor a private shopping road is going to raise a lot of waves."
Hrones said it was an issue of pedestrian safety, and there was no other opportunity to create that refuge. As for Fort Greene Place, "Forest City is required to keep it open to the public," he said.
Rob Perris, District Manager of Community Board 2, said he agreed with Vogel: "South Portland, the way it connects with the street network, is a much higher utility route than Fort Greene Place or Carlton Avenue."
Posted by steve at 5:37 PM
January 27, 2012
Delay in transportation plan for arena dismays residents, CM Levin; lack of info about area garages hampers efforts to reduce surface parking lot in residential neighborhood
Atlantic Yards Report
The delay in the release of the long-awaited Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan, from once-promised December to now-promised May, has distinct real-world consequences, notably stalling the efforts of Prospect Heights residents to argue for a reduction in the size of the planned 1100-space parking lot on Block 1129, bounded by Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues and Dean and Pacific Streets.
The availability of parking garages elsewhere might buttress their case, but more than five years after the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) was completed, Forest City Ratner contractors are newly analyzing available spaces in parking garages near the project site.
During meetings yesterday of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet (made up of affected agencies and elected officials) and the Transportation Focus Group (including neighborhood and civic groups), representatives of Sam Schwartz Engineering (SSE) did not discuss the emerging plan in great detail, but described the research process (e.g., surveys of attendees), the plan to select a vendor to manage parking, and shared how incentives for mass transit, including marketing, had reduced the number of drivers at other sports facilities, such as the Prudential Center in Newark and CitiField in Queens.
The pre-sale of parking spaces in local garages, plus parking in remote garages (with free shuttle buses), is aimed to steer drivers away from residential streets.
However, several residents expressed qualms about the effect in neighborhoods around the Barclays Center, given the failure, for example, to establish residential permit parking (RPP), which would deter out-of-area drivers looking for free on-street spaces.
NoLandGrab: They've had more than eight years to work on this. Is it any wonder residents around the arena site have zero confidence in the efficacy of the "plan?"
Posted by eric at 11:46 AM
Atlantic Yards Update: No Left Turn on S. Oxford, State Says No to Resident Veto, More
Residents also learn that only 11 percent of apartments in first tower are slated to have two or more bedrooms, compared to the 50 percent promised.
Park Slope Patch
by Amy Sara Clark
Here are a few highlights from yesterday’s meeting of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet, a group of Ratner, state and elected officials that meets bi-monthly:
No Left Turn for S. Oxford
To the chagrin of anyone trying to get to Fort Greene when driving east on Atlantic, there will be no left turn on S. Oxford Street. However, there will be a left turn onto Carlton (once it re-opens) as well as onto Fort Greene Place.
The Department of Transportation has eliminated that turn lane in favor of a pedestrian “refuge” for those who can’t cross all the lanes in one light.
No Resident Veto Power on Traffic Plans:
Afraid of the traffic onslaught when Barclays Arena opens in the fall, neighborhood groups have asked for more input into the traffic management plan.
In response, the Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing the construction, set up a Transportation Focus Group that will give civic groups and block associations to give early input on the plan directly to ESDC and Ratner officials.
Skeptical that the input would have an impact, at last month’s meeting, the groups asked for veto power on the plan. The ESDC’s Arana Hankin said in December the agency would consider the request, but came back this morning with firm no.
Posted by eric at 11:39 AM
Transportation Demand Management plan for arena, originally due in December, then pushed to February, now expected in May; state official: "I think we're going to be OK"
Atlantic Yards Report
The long-awaited Transportation Demand Management plan for the Barclays Center arena has been pushed back a second time, marking a delay of at least five months, officials revealed today at the bimonthly Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting.
So the expected release in May leaves a much shorter window of opportunity for area residents and other stakeholders to offer constructive criticism before the arena opens in late September.
Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, for Empire State Development, acknowledged that her agency, responding to a question at a public meeting last June about the TDM plan, "anticipated" that developer Forest City Ratner would present the plan "to the public for comment in about six months."
The plan involves incentives to reduce use of cars, free MetroCards, cross-marketing with local businesses, remote parking, and more.
...How worrisome is the delay, I asked Hankin.
She pointed out that staffers from consultant Sam Schwartz Engineering (SSE), the firm Forest City hired to work on the plan, had described how they put together a successful plan for the new arena in Newark, the Prudential Center, in ten weeks. "I think we’re going to be OK," she said.
NoLandGrab: As one-time NBA center Joe Barry Carroll once said, allegedly, to a referee who had whistled him for an infraction and, when Carroll protested, told him he thought he'd committed a foul: "don't be thinkin', be knowin'."
Posted by eric at 11:28 AM
Forest City Ratner: Carlton Avenue Bridge "projected completion" early September; arena on schedule (no mention of report on delays); facade company catching up after temporary closure
Atlantic Yards Report
At yesterday's Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, held at Borough Hall, Forest City Ratner officials gave several assurances about the timetable for ongoing work--but also left some questions lingering.
Carlton Avenue Bridge
Construction chief Bob Sanna provided an update on the Carlton Avenue Bridge, which is supposed to be reconstructed before the arena opens in September, thus reopening a long-closed connection between Prospect Heights and Fort Greene.
"The bulk excavation is 95% complete, there’s an extensive storm retention system that’s below the tracks. We have two of the three detention tanks now complete," he said. "The north abutment is about 60% complete, we started working on the south abutments."
"We expect to be able to cut over the yard, transfer trains into the newly laid track in February, and cover the trains over in May," he said, "which will allow us to complete the bridge in the early part of September. So the projected completion of the bridge... is the early part of September.”
That doesn't give them a lot of slack, given that the arena is supposed to open September 28, following several pre-opening events. I wrote earlier this month about the possibility of the schedule slipping, and the non-punitive penalties--a stall on starting a new tower--facing Forest City.
Posted by eric at 11:22 AM
January 13, 2012
Two Atlantic Yards Meetings January 26th
Atlantic Yards Watch
There will be two meetings addressing Atlantic Yards issues taking place at Brooklyn Borough Hall on Thursday, January 26th.
The next Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet will meet from 9:30 am to 11 am. Members of the public may observe the meeting. The agenda has not yet been announced, but given the meeting's timing, it is likely to focus on the transportation demand management plan for Barclays Center.
The second meeting is a follow-up to the December 12, 2011 meeting on traffic issues related to Atlantic Yards. The meeting has the format of a roundtable discussion in which invited community groups can each appoint one representative to participate. Representatives of FCRC and NYCDOT will join the group. The meeting will begin at 6 pm.
Both meetings will be held in the Community Room at Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, From AYW: Two Atlantic Yards on January 26: District Service Cabinet and transportation group
I'd add that there was considerable concern at the meeting last month over the content and timing of the much-promised Transportation Demand Management plan.
Posted by eric at 11:31 AM
POLL: Should Prospect Heights Become a "Slow Zone"?
Designation could cut down on accidents and through traffic using speed bumps and 20 mph speed zones, but it would also mean the loss of some parking spots.
Prospect Heights Patch
by Amy Sara Clark
In the two days it's been live, more than 250 people have signed an online petition to turn Prospect Heights into a “Neighborhood Slow Zone.”
The designation would be granted by the Department of Transportation.
The Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council is spearheading the effort, saying that drivers are speeding down the side streets, which they're using instead of Flatbush and Atlantic in order to avoid Atlantic Yards construction.
...But there is a downside: there would also bea loss of several dozen parking spaces where signs and striping would alert drivers to the zone.
NoLandGrab: God forbid we sacrifice a few parking spots when the only benefit will be saving lives.
Related coverage...
Daily Heights, Will “Slow Nabe” Status Make Prospect Heights Safe for Pedestrians?
Block associations and Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council want to turn Prospect Heights into a “Neighborhood Slow Zone.” The speed limit will drop to 20 mph (down from 30 mph), new speed bumps would be installed, and “slow zone” signs and striping would be painted at neighborhood boundaries.
“Once the Barclays Center opens in September, the influx of “cut-through” traffic from cars avoiding major roads will only make the situation worse,” Danae Oratowski wrote regarding the potential slow zone for Prospect Heights.
Posted by eric at 12:04 AM
January 11, 2012
The Village Voice's "100 Most Powerless New Yorkers" includes Markowitz, de Blasio, AY-area car owners, and, I'd argue, should include the Voice itself
Atlantic Yards Report
The Village Voice has been getting some deserved play for its admittedly arbitrary list of "The 100 Most Powerless New Yorkers," including:
8. Bill de Blasio, Public Advocate
De Blasio is the holder of the most useless office in the city, a position so powerless, it was first held by Mark Green. Since it was created, its budget has been cut nearly in half, and there are repeated calls to abolish it altogether. And though second in line to succeed the mayor, no former occupant has yet to move into Gracie Mansion.
64. Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn borough president
Brooklyn beep Markowitz fancies himself the Most Important Ambassador from Brooklyn the World Has Ever Seen. (Indeed, he has told the courts he needs to promote the borough as far away as Turkey, and we've personally witnessed the aftermath of his glad-handing in Haifa, Israel.) But Markowitz is so powerless, he can't get Apple to build a store in the borough with perhaps the most concentrated population of Mac users in the universe outside of California, and his decision to bring his wife, Jamie (or, as he calls her, "The First Lady of Brooklyn"), abroad with him cost Markowitz $20,000 in fines.
Posted by eric at 6:38 PM
100 Most Powerless New Yorkers
A 'power list' for the rest of us
The Village Voice
by Steven Thrasher
87. Car-owners in Fort Greene
It's not easy to park a car anywhere in New York, but it has gotten especially difficult in Fort Greene. Once the Barclay's Center opens next fall at Atlantic Yards with a mere 1,100 parking spots to accommodate its 19,000-seat capacity, expect streets in Spike Lee's home 'hood to become gridlocked with cars looking for nonexistent parking spaces during some 200 planned events a year. A plan to grant street-parking permits for residents is considered dead on arrival in Albany.
Related coverage...
Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch, Fort Greene Car Owners No. 87 on List of '100 Most Powerless NYers'
Attention car owners endlessly circling the block for an open space in Fort Greene: you are in good company.
Unfortunately, come September when the Barclays Center is scheduled to open, things are only going to get worse. And there's little, if anything, that you can do about it, according to a list published in this week's Village Voice.
Posted by eric at 11:26 AM
January 10, 2012
After vandalism of street sign, a replacement installed, but no concrete response by NYPD and FCR; ESD would like FCR to put in place new measures
Atlantic Yards Report
Fear not — Atlantic Yards maintains its perfect record of zero accountability.
So, after a driver and construction worker--quite likely working at Atlantic Yards, but that's not confirmed--uprooted a "No Standing" sign on Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues on January 6, what's the aftermath?
No concrete action--other than the installation of a replacement sign, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch--and a lot of questions.
First, the New York Police Department, which presumably had the driver's license number, has not issued a statement, and I have not received a response to an inquiry posed yesterday afternoon.
State and FCR response
Are there any measures Empire State Development (ESD) can or will take regarding this, I asked Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, for ESD, the state agency overseeing the project.
"ESD does not condone this behavior and will request that FCR [Forest City Ratner] take disciplinary action with this particular worker and put in place measures to prevent it from happening again," Hankin responded.
FCR, however, is not there yet, perhaps because the identity of the worker and his association with the project has not been publicly confirmed. Spokesman Joe DePlasco said that "our response to that was that the information and video should be shared with the police."
Posted by eric at 11:41 AM
January 9, 2012
Will Carlton Avenue Bridge reopen in time for arena? Maybe, as double-shift work continues. But evidence suggests it's delayed, and penalties are toothless.
Atlantic Yards Report
Evidence--including a delayed start and a search for funding--suggests that the reconstruction of the Carlton Avenue Bridge is behind.
And that's provoked an accelerated, double-shift pace (as announced in the 12/19/11 Construction Alert) to complete the work by the time the Atlantic Yards arena is deemed substantially complete by 8/30/12.
Maybe it'll get done, even as deadlines for the arena and site work have already been pushed near their limit.
But if it doesn't--a potential "surprise" that I predicted last week--the impact likely would hit the local community far more than it would damage developer Forest City Ratner, which faces no direct penalties.
The hazards
If the arena opens without the bridge, that would set up some hazardous, frenzied conditions in Prospect Heights, notably two-way traffic on narrow Sixth Avenue bordering the Barclays Center and a bottleneck on Carlton Avenue.
Sixth Avenue, which for years was a one-way street, was converted to two-way service when the Carlton Avenue Bridge was closed.
Sixth Avenue
is supposed to be converted back to one-way servicewill remain two-way, and the burden will be greater, obviously, if the Carlton Avenue Bridge doesn't reopen.The question is when that reopening will happen.
Photo: Tracy Collins
Posted by eric at 11:11 AM
January 6, 2012
Caught red-handed on video: Atlantic Yards construction worker uproots newly installed "No Standing" sign on Pacific Street
Atlantic Yards Report
Ok, city and state officials overseeing Atlantic Yards, get a load of this.
There's a No Standing sign on the south side of Pacific Street, between Sixth and Carlton avenues, that doesn't sit well with construction workers looking for convenient parking at the nearby Barclays Center and railyard sites.
They apparently uprooted one sign in mid-December. A week later, its replacement was again uprooted (photo at [right] from Atlantic Yards Watch).
But documentary evidence compiled this morning shows exactly how it's done. Late yesterday afternoon, AY Watch contributor 700PacificW commented on the newly installed sign (photo at right):
Newly installed MTP "red no standing" sign could be destroyed within 1 day of installation again.
That prediction was quite accurate.
This morning's vandalism
As shown in the video posted below, at about 6:15 am today, a construction worker--as noted wearing a hardhat in a photo posted to AY Watch--parked next to the sign.
(Is he definitely working at the Atlantic Yards site? I can't be absolutely certain, but this is where AY site workers seek to park, and hundreds of others workers seen on that block work at the site. A witness saw this worker walking toward the arena site.)
He got out. At 1:10 of the video, he began rocking the sign with his hands, ultimately dislodging it.
At 3:16 of the video, he began moving the sign to the north side of Pacific Street near the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard, as shown in the screen shot at left.
And now he has free parking.
Related coverage...
In tearing down the sign the worker creates 4 or 5 illegal spaces used by Barclays Center construction workers on a regular basis.
Streetsblog, How to Make Your Own Free Parking Near the Atlantic Yards Site
...here’s a variety of parking scofflaw that we’ve never come across before on Streetsblog.
...And you thought placards were the ultimate in free parking entitlement.
Prospect Heights Patch, Video Catches Driver Pulling Down 'No Standing' Sign Across From Atlantic Yards
The videographer caught the man's SUV's license plate number, and we're waiting to hear back from the police about whether they are trying to track him down.
Posted by eric at 1:02 PM
January 5, 2012
Carlton Avenue/Pacific Street signal light knocked down for at least the third time
Atlantic Yards Watch
  |
For at least the third time since construction began on Barclays Center, a signal light at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street has been knocked down. The photo above left is from last week. To the right is a photo of the signal light damaged (but not knocked down) in July. At the bottom of the story is a sequence showing an Atlantic Yards construction delivery truck in July working its way around the corner with the assistance of flaggers.
The signal light is a victim of trucks using Carlton Avenue to enter Pacific Street instead of at Vanderbilt Avenue as is described in the Barclays Center Delivery Truck Rules and Regulations. Carlton Avenue is not a designated truck route, but Atlantic Yards construction trucks often use it. The intersection at Pacific Street is too narrow to provide an adequate turning radius for many longer-length trucks, putting the signal at risk.
Posted by eric at 12:04 PM
December 30, 2011
A traffic light down at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street; trucks regularly ignore the staging area and use Carlton improperly
Atlantic Yards Report
As if saying goodbye to 2011, Atlantic Yards Watch reports that the traffic light on the southwest corner of Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street was knocked down December 28, apparently by one of the several trucks that ignore the Pacific Street staging area and improperly use Carlton Avenue, then make a left.
 |
Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
December 29, 2011
Brooklyn's largest subway hub will be co-named (not re-named) for Barclays arena (timing, name not yet announced)
Atlantic Yards Report
To clarify a report on About.com (picked up by the Brooklyn Eagle) that Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street Station Goes Corporate, Will Now Be Renamed Barclays Terminal, the MTA confirms that it will be a co-naming, not a renaming.
Neither a precise name nor timing have been announced, but I doubt the co-naming would occur until the arena opens. The official opening date is 9/28/12, but there should be a soft opening in August.
The first-ever sale of station naming rights was announced in 2009, for $200,000 a year over 20 years--a bargain, I'd contend.
Related...
Posted by eric at 10:25 AM
December 21, 2011
Residents Brace for Barclays Center Traffic With Concern and Trepidation
The Brooklyn Ink
by Cristabelle Tumola
Atlantic and Fourth Avenues in Brooklyn have at least two things in common.
First, both are among the most dangerous roads for pedestrians in downstate New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, according to a 2010 report released by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a non-profit organization committed to reducing car dependency.
Second, both streets bound the Atlantic Yards project, the future home of the Barclays Center and the New Jersey (soon to be Brooklyn) Nets. That has made the streets the subject of still more ills, among them clogged traffic, illegal parking and noise. And that is only since the arena construction began in March 2010. Local residents fear much worse after the arena opens in September 2012.
They have plenty reason for concern.
Posted by eric at 11:50 AM
December 19, 2011
Miami Marlins Risk Dropping the Ball on Transit
The Atlantic Cities
by Eric Jaffe
The Miami Marlins, who may have defrauded investors in building their new ballpark, are also sans transportation plan less than four months from opening day. And, oh yeah, there's no transportation yet for the Barclays Center, either.
Next season the Miami (nee Florida) Marlins will move into a new $634 million baseball stadium. Judging by its most recent player acquisitions, the team is willing to spend whatever it takes to lure fans into the seats. They recently signed shortstop Jose Reyes to a $106 million contract. They followed that up with a $58 million deal for left-handed pitcher Mark Buehrle. Although they lost out on free agent prize Albert Pujols, the team's offer — north of $200 million — was not exactly shabby.
Exactly how those fans will get to the seats is a another matter. With the season just a few months away, the stadium's transportation plan remains noticeably incomplete. Most fans will drive: roughly 5,000 garage spaces are intended for season ticketholders, and another 4,000 or so offsite spots will be available nearby. Still parking alone can't fill the 37,000-seat stadium, and the team expects a considerable number of fans to arrive by public transportation; its executive vice president of ballpark development recently said as much: "Everyone wants people to use public transit." But as of right now the team's transit strategy has received far less financial attention than its free agent signings.
...Considering the poor state of the stadium transit plans, the team's assertion that a large percentage of fans will arrive by public transportation strikes Transit Miami blogger Tony Garcia, who was at the October meeting, as "downright dishonest."
I have to wonder why these people believe that anyone would go through the trouble of transferring two or three times to get close to the stadium, to then walk a mile from Culmer or Civic station or take a shuttle. Are they nuts? Both of the closest stations are about a mile, without taking into account the treacherous 3′ sidewalks, dangerous intersections, and completely lacking pedestrian amenities along the way.
Posted by eric at 9:54 AM
December 16, 2011
Barclays Center traffic changes screwed Boerum Hill, residents say
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
The city’s efforts to tinker with the traffic flow around the Barclays Center to reduce congestion near the under-construction arena have not only failed, area residents say — they’ve actually made things worse on Third Avenue in Boerum Hill.
The city started tinkering with the traffic lights on Third Avenue between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues in August, when traffic on the stretch increased after changes were made to traffic flow to accommodate the coming Prospect Heights arena.
Residents said that the adjustments — including shunting Flatbush Avenue-bound Fourth Avenue traffic to Pacific Street or Third Avenue — has resulted in massive backups not only on Pacific Street, but all the way to State and Schermerhorn streets.
“In order to cross, you really have to weave in and out of traffic,” said Martha Kamber, the executive director of the YWCA on Third Avenue. “There’s also a lot of honking and cars regularly run red lights. It’s very messy.”
Messy, and perhaps unsolvable.
There may simply be nothing that the city can do, given the amout of traffic that is trying to get into and around Downtown.
Related coverage...
Carroll Gardens Patch, Efforts to Reduce Congestion Around Barclays Center Are Not Working, Residents Say
Posted by eric at 11:32 AM
December 13, 2011
At community meeting on Atlantic Yards transportation issues, call for "buy-in" on Forest City Ratner's (delayed) plan, frustration that so little is in place, new study of baseline issues announced
Atlantic Yards Report
Funny that Forest City can put double- or triple-shifts on for construction (keeping nearby residents up all night), but the same urgency is absent when it comes to completing a transportation plan that might be those residents' only chance of avoiding an arena-generated traffic nightmare.
A long-awaited meeting last night on community input regarding Atlantic Yards transportation issues--a prelude to a Transportation Working Group (TWG)--generated significant community frustration that so little was in place less than ten months before the Barclays Center arena begins operations.
“This project, and its arena, opens in ten months,” declared Gib Veconi, an activist in the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council and BrooklynSpeaks. “We just heard we haven't figured out where the satellite parking lots would be. By the same token, we don't know what happened with the sidewalk plan that shows narrower sidewalks, fewer travel lanes... We don't know what the parking plan for Block 1129 is, which is in the middle of a residential neighborhood..”
He further asked how Traffic Enforcement Agents (TEAs) would be deployed, and how the three police precincts that touch on the site would divide their work.
“Early next year,” responded Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, for Empire State Development, the state agency in charge of the project. About 30 people attended the meeting at Brooklyn's Borough Hall.
But Hankin faced considerable criticism that too little had been revealed, and that a crucial Transportation Demand Plan (involving incentives to reduce use of cars, free MetroCards, cross-marketing with local businesses, remote parking, and more) would be made available “in the first quarter,” rather than, as promised earlier this year, by the end of 2011.
Community approval?
Indeed, Veconi galvanized the audience by proposing that the Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan--which, unlike the forthcoming arena security and operations plans, requires approval by ESD and the city Department of Transportation (DOT)--be subject to community buy-in.
Many in the audience clapped, and Veconi suggested that the vote could be by those present, or by nominees of elected officials representing the neighborhoods around the project site.
“We can think about it,” Hankin said with a smile, in response to Veconi’s initial proposal.
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Civic Groups Ask DOT, State for Veto on Atlantic Yards Traffic Plan
Atlantic Yards-area civic leaders asked state and city agencies to give them veto power over Forest City Ratner’s plan to help reduce the traffic onslaught when Barclays Arena opens next fall.
The request came after area community groups were invited by the Brooklyn Borough President’s office to participate in an Atlantic Yards “transportation working group.”
Posted by eric at 1:33 PM
December 11, 2011
At Borough Hall tomorrow, an invite-only meeting on AY-related transportation issues (and, apparently, without Forest City Ratner)
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember how City Council Member Letitia James and others have asked, at the bi-monthly meetings of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet, for a once-promised Transportation Working Group?
Well, there's a meeting tomorrow at Borough Hall that seems to be a start, though it looks like a one-off, and without the participation of developer Forest City Ratner.
Luke DePalma, Transportation Policy Analyst in the Brooklyn Borough President's Office recently sent a notice to community organizations in the areas near the Atlantic Yards project site:
Your organizations are invited to participate in a meeting with elected officials (or their representatives) and Empire State Development to discuss community transportation concerns associated with the Atlantic Yards project / Barclays Center.
In the interest of keeping the meeting productive with so many participants, please designate only 1 representative from each of your respective groups to participate in the round-table discussion and RSVP to me...
I was told the meeting was open to the press but not, as with the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meetings, open to cameras.
Posted by steve at 10:08 PM
December 6, 2011
From street trees to illegal parking; photos show Atlantic Yards' adverse effect on 6th Avenue
Atlantic Yards Watch
They cut down paradise and put up an (illegal) parking lot.
  |
Illegal parking on sidewalks, primarily by 78th Precinct employees, has replaced street trees on 6th Avenue between Dean and Pacific Streets. The photos above are one example of how Atlantic Yards construction has reversed the development progress of some areas of the community adjacent to the project site. The photo on the left was taken in December 2007. The photo on the right was taken November of 2011.
In March 2008, prior to the start of water main and sewer work, the Parks Department gave Forest City Ratner approval to cut down 86 trees adjacent to the project footprint in order to facilitate construction. The trees, like most street trees, were public property overseen by the Parks Department's forestry division.
The now empty tree beds are currently still visible under the tires of the 78th Precinct employees' cars. Because there are currently no plans to replace these trees until construction is complete, this area may not see them restored until Building #15 is built. In the 2006 project plan, Building #15 was anticipated to be the sixth non-arena building completed, and would have been finished less than three years after the opening of the arena. Under the current Project Agreements FCRC can take 25 years to complete Building #15.
Photos: Tracy Collins (L) & N. Wayne Bailey (R)
Posted by eric at 1:05 PM
December 5, 2011
What's going on here? Trucks keep idling on Pacific Street rather than wait in staging area
Atlantic Yards Report
OK, the video below, as published on Atlantic Yards Watch, does not represent the most scintillating viewing.
But it provides yet another example of trucks idling on a residential street when they should be in a staging area.
Three dump trucks are filmed at 6:30 am, across the street from a residential building, on the middle of Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues. The arena site is a half-block away, and the railyard site is around the corner.
In both cases, they're supposed to be staged on Pacific between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues, a formerly public street demapped and turned into a staging area. For example, at 4:43, a construction worker seemingly gives directions to the drivers, two of whom leave at 9:37, and the third at 10:20.
What happened? As noted on AY Watch, either the trucks were released too soon from the staging area, or they avoided it completely, bypassing the truck route and entering Pacific Street from Carlton Avenue.
Why? Because there's too little oversight and/or the drivers and their bosses don't think it matters.
Who loses out? People who are living there.
Posted by eric at 10:21 AM
November 28, 2011
Permit Parking Splits Brooklyn Politicians
City Hall News
by Stephen Witt
Yes, even that Stephen Witt can play it straight when he wants to.
[Councilmember Letitia] James, who has long advocated permit parking in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, argued it is needed more than ever, with out-of-district drivers sure to be looking for parking during events at the Barclays Center arena when it opens at the Atlantic Yards development site.
But [Councilmember Al] Vann said permit parking would hurt the bordering working-class neighborhoods.
“I fear that residential parking permits for the area directly surrounding Atlantic Yards would have a significant negative impact on neighborhoods slightly further away, like Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights,” Vann said in a statement. “It would create an incentive for commuters to park in these neighborhoods as an alternative, and would also open the door to requiring New Yorkers to pay for parking in their own communities and throughout the entire city.”
NoLandGrab: Had Al Vann thought of that earlier, maybe he could have spoken out against Atlantic Yards and the traffic and parking problems it will surely create.
Posted by eric at 11:31 AM
November 23, 2011
Restore some LIRR service
Newsday
The Long Island newspaper's editorial board thinks the MTA should use a small current-year fiscal surplus to move basketball fans.
Looking down the tracks, certainly there will be a need to restore service to Brooklyn after midnight. The borough is bustling and a new arena opens in the fall at the Atlantic Yards terminal.
Posted by eric at 9:47 AM
November 21, 2011
On transit improvements at Atlantic Yards
2nd Ave. Sagas
by Benjamin Kabak
 |
At the crossroads of Atlantic Ave. and Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn rests one of the borough of Kings’ busiest subway stations. Over the next few years, it’s only going to get worse, but proposals to expand and adapt the station to new uses from the Barclays Center and, eventually, Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards complex have yet to see the light of day.
The brouhaha over the Atlantic Yards is a well-covered story. Under heavy pressure from local politicians, the MTA, as we know, sold out the air rights over the Vanderbilt Rail Yards to Bruce Ratner for well below-market.
...So what happens when the Barclays Center and, eventually, the Atlantic Yards complex opens? Right now, the station has a variety of entrances from various street corners. There’s an entrance to the 4th Ave. platform at 4th Ave. and Pacific St., an entrance to the LIRR and the local Manhattan-bound IRT station in the Atlantic Center and an entrance to the Brighton Line off of Hanson Place. It isn’t perfect, but it works.
Meanwhile, changes are in store. As the renderings for the Barclays Center show, work on the arena includes a new street-level entrance to the Atlantic Ave./Pacific St. station that will go from the plaza outside of the arena to, well, somewhere, and the fact that the “somewhere” is undefined is concerning. Over the past few weeks, I’ve asked the MTA for renderings of the subway improvements, and although the arena and work on subway access has been long-planned and will open in ten months, the MTA doesn’t yet have renderings. They have only schematics that have yet to be released to the public, and we have no idea how the flow of people will be improved or addressed at a major subway location in Brooklyn.
When the Atlantic Yards project was first negotiated, transit improvements were part of the deal. To add so many people to a small area right on top of an already-busy subway station was simply inviting transit capacity disaster, and Ratner pledged to improve the Atlantic Ave./Pacific St. subway station and also the LIRR terminal. So far, all we know for sure is that the subway stop will bear Barclays’ name when the arena opens. Anything else is conjecture.
Image: SHoP Architects
Posted by eric at 12:26 PM
November 17, 2011
B/Q Service Announcements
Brooklyn Community Board 14
Bruce Ratner brings transit-riding Brooklynites a different kind of "Black Friday."
Shuttle buses will replace all B & Q subway service between Pacific Street and Prospect Park from 10:00 pm Friday, November 25 until 5:00 am on Monday, November 28th. This is due to ongoing construction work for the Atlantic Yards Arena. Check www.mta.info for further updates.
Posted by eric at 12:24 PM
November 14, 2011
Traffic barriers and signs on Pacific Street are restored
Atlantic Yards Watch
After nearly six months, missing traffic barriers, parking regulation signs and traffic signs have been restored to Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton Avenues. The "MPT" (Maintenance and Protection of Traffic) measures were the victim of the heavy use of that block by Atlantic Yards related construction trucks. The parking regulation signs were apparently removed to enable illegal construction worker parking.
 |
The barriers and signs are "temporary" measures implemented for the period the Carlton Avenue Bridge is closed. They are designed to delineate for drivers the current mid-block shift of Pacific Street from a westbound one-way to a two-way between 6th Avenue and the entrance to the LIRR ramp into Vanderbilt Railyards. LIRR vehicles must enter the ramp from the west due to its angle to the street. With the re-opening of the Carlton Avenue Bridge, Pacific Street between 6th Avenue and Carlton Avenue will be returned to a two-way for the full-length of the block.
These measures have had to last longer than anticipated because the Carlton Avenue Bridge, originally anticipated to be closed for two years, will have been closed for four and a half years if it opens on the current schedule. They were restored because a community member raised the issue with NYCDOT. Although NYCDOT approves MPT measures associated with Atlantic Yards, it is FCRC's contractors who install and maintain them.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Atlantic Yards Watch: Finally, NYC DOT restores missing traffic barriers, parking signs to Pacific Street
If there weren't an Atlantic Yards Watch and watchful Atlantic Yards neighbors, how much oversight would there be?
After all, only activism from the latter has restored "missing traffic barriers, parking regulation signs and traffic signs... to Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton Avenues," according to Atlantic Yards Watch.
Who's responsible for the vandalism? Apparently construction workers trying to find convenient parking by breaking the rules.
Posted by eric at 7:45 PM
November 11, 2011
Millman: Parking Permits 'Not Coming Anytime Soon'
Champion of legislation in Albany clearing the way for RPPs predicts a long road ahead.
Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch
by Paul Leonard
Golden to Arena Neighbors: "Drop Dead!"
If there were any doubts that the already heated debate over the prospect of Residential Permit Parking in Brooklyn was just beginnning, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, D-Cobble Hill, dispelled them at Wednesday night's Community Board 2 monthly general meeting.
"It's not so cut and dry. If it has to happen, it's not happening for awhile," said Millman, who first proposed legslation in the Assembly clearing the way for RPPs in Brooklyn Heights in 2008.
Millman's remarks made it increasingly unclear about whether any parking permit system would be in place in time for the scheduled opening of Barclays Center in September.
...This week, state Sen. Martin Golden, R-Bay Ridge, joined other legislators from South Brooklyn in slamming the idea of parking permits on Brooklyn streets.
Posted by eric at 11:00 AM
November 10, 2011
Potential Roadblock for Permit Parking Plan
State Sen. Marty Golden and other southern Brooklyn pols are against the idea of permit parking for residents.
Park Slope Patch
by Jamie Schuh
The plan for residential permit parking, lauded by some residents who live near the Barclays Center arena, may not have a chance in Albany, if state Sen. Marty Golden, R–Bay Ridge, has his way.
The Brooklyn Paper reports that though City Council approved the proposal, Golden has called the idea of a voluntary permit parking system “another tax on our communities.”
NoLandGrab: Marty Golden, however, was more than happy to spend a billion dollars of taxpayer money on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by eric at 10:55 AM
November 8, 2011
Daily News opposes residential parking permits, but would consider an Atlantic Yards exception
Atlantic Yards Report
In an editorial this morning headlined City council parking permits might turn out to be ‘hunting licenses’ that impose a fee for what is now free, if annoying, the Daily News came out against residential parking permits (RPP) for pretty much the same reasons the Department of Transportation (DOT) is wary, but allowed for an exception:
In very limited cases, something like neighborhood permits might make sense: as in the immediate orbit of huge arenas like Yankee Stadium and the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which will get flooded with cars on game nights. The city Transportation Department is studying the feasibility of reserving some curbs in those areas for residents and expects to have the results, including pros and cons, in January. Never mind, we can’t wait, says the City Council — which has passed a home-rule message asking Albany for permission to make the change.
Will Albany agree? Not if Republicans like Brooklyn Sen. Marty Golden have their way.
...But anyone opposing RPP around crowd magnets like sports facilities has to come up with a better plan, not just say no.
Related content...
NY Daily News, City council parking permits might turn out to be ‘hunting licenses’ that impose a fee for what is now free, if annoying
The latest brainstorm for reengineering city streets, most of which already work just fine: Why, I know — whaddya say we grant people residential parking permits?
NoLandGrab: If the Daily News's editorial writers actually believe that most New York City streets "already work just fine," they really ought to get out from behind their windshields once in a while.
Posted by eric at 10:07 AM
November 7, 2011
More gridlock in the North Slope--and some after rush hour
Atlantic Yards Report
Wonder what streets in North Park Slope and Flatbush Avenue near the Atlantic Yards site look like during and after rush hour? Check out these videos filmed on the morning of Wednesday, 11/2/11--a follow-up to a video filmed about two weeks earlier.
Here's one of them — "A 'wall of traffic along Flatbush,' about 10 am":
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
City Council Takes to the Streets
Gotham Gazette
by Gail Robinson
The Wonkster tackles residential permit parking.
The other bill — a home rule message actually — could set in motion a plan for residential parking permits in the city. In some other parts of the country — Washington, D.C. — for one, residents of a particular neighborhood purchase a parking sticker that gives them priority for parking places close to their homes. The impetus for the resolution, SLR14, came from people living near the new Barclay Arena at Atlantic Yards, who worry they won’t be able to find parking once the Nets begin playing there next year, as well as residents of the Yankee Stadium area who already complain of difficulty parking.
...Councilmember Letitia James, who represents areas near Atlantic Yards, said the parking could serve as a “disincentive” for people to drive to the new arena. “Individuals who come to Barclays Arena should use mass transit,” she said.
Posted by eric at 10:37 AM
November 4, 2011
Full Council approves ‘pay-to-park’ plan
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
The full City Council overwhelmingly approved a controversial plan on Thursday to sell parking permits to neighbors of the Barclays Center arena, despite objections from southern Brooklyn lawmakers who say that charging for residential street parking amounts to a tax for something that has always been free.
The Council’s 40–8 vote came one day after the legislature’s State and Federal Legislation Committee approved the measure, which supporters say will prevent basketball fans and other arena-goers from hogging parking spaces in neighborhoods around a 19,000-seat arena that will have parking spaces for just 1,100 cars.
NoLandGrab: How's this for the height of arrogance: State Senator Marty Golden and City Councilmember Lew Fidler shilled for Atlantic Yards though it's miles from their districts, yet they oppose a measure that might provide a little bit of relief to the people who will bear the burden of the traffic the arena will generate.
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, POLL: Residential Parking Permits for Brooklyn?
What do you think?
Would you like to see resident-only parking come to your neighborhood?
a. Yes, we need to stop commuters and sports fans from using our streets as parking lots
b. Yes, but only during game days
c. No, it's a backdoor tax and my friends won't be able to park when they visit
Bayside Patch, Would You Pay to Park on Your Block?
“I can tell you right now, I am very much opposed to the street parking permit because it’s just another way the city will be taxing middle class homeowners,” said [Bob] Friedrich, who is President of Glen Oaks Village.
NLG: We're going to go out on a limb and guess that Bob Friedrich from Glen Oaks Village in Queens never attended any Atlantic Yards hearings, signed any petitions opposing Atlantic Yards, or donated any money to DDDB's legal fund. Are we right, Bob?
F**ked in Park Slope, CITY MIGHT OFFER BARCLAY CENTER VICTIMS PARKING PERMITS
Parking in the slope is already a bitch, yet some fear that with
Bruce Ratner's revengethe Barclay Center on it's way to completion, shit will get a whole lot worse. The city projects that the new arena, with more than 200 events planned a year, will bring in about 5,000 additional cars into the area. And they're all going to want to park somewhere for free.
Posted by eric at 10:52 AM
Councilmember Lander's Statement on Dire Need for a Residential Parking Program for Atlantic Yards
BradLander.com
Brooklyn badly needs a residential parking program in place for the area surrounding Atlantic Yards before Barclay's Center opens next year. That's why I'm pleased to support a resolution discussed at a City Council hearing today in support of legislation in Albany that would authorize the City to create such a program.
The area around Atlantic Yards is already gridlocked much of the time, especially at rush hours. This problem will grow dramatically worse on Nets game, concert, and other event nights at Barclay's Center, when thousands of people head there. Even the environmental impact statement prepared by the developer projects a traffic nightmare.
Without RPP, thousands of people are likely to drive to games and events, seeking free parking on neighborhood streets. Traffic will choke local streets, and nearby residents will find it impossible to park.
A residential parking program won't solve the problem, but it will help.
Posted by eric at 10:47 AM
November 3, 2011
Council Member James: Cuomo must muscle support from Golden (and state Senate) for residential parking permits
Atlantic Yards Report
Despite the success yesterday at a City Council hearing for advocates of residential parking permits (RPP), the effort faces a major roadblock: state Senator Martin Golden, a Republican from southern Brooklyn who told the New York Post it was "just another tax" and that the Republican-controlled Senate would not accept it.
And while the measure has significant backing, Mayor Mike Bloomberg, once a supporter (as part of his congestion pricing package), is on the fence, according to the Post. Similarly not taking a position is Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner, as well as the agency in charge of Atlantic Yards.
“As I left the hearing, ironically, I ran into Bruce Ratner outside, who indicated to me he was agnostic on the plan," Brooklyn Council Member Letitia James, an advocate for RPP, said at this morning's Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, a bi-monthly gathering of affected agencies, held at Brooklyn's Borough Hall.
"Five minutes later, I ran into state Senator Martin Golden, who said it was dead on arrival," James continued. "I would urge ESDC [Empire State Development Corporation] to work with the governor to bypass the objections of Senator Golden to get residential parking permits implemented. DOT yesterday indicated they were willing to do it in two communities, in and around Atlantic Yards and Yankee Stadium."
James appeals to Cuomo
"This is the time for the governor to basically negotiate this bill and use his popularity to get this bill passed. Senator Golden's objections basically were that this is a backdoor tax," James said. "I just want you to know that 95% of the constituents that have emailed me, called me, stopped me on the street, support this, and are willing to accept a minimal fee and hopefully we can work out provisions for those who are on fixed incomes or low incomes... and some of the businesses that have expressed concerns."
"Right now, our major obstacle to getting this passed is the Republican and Tea Party Senator Golden," James concluded. "I hope that ESDC will join me in moving him out of the way.”
NoLandGrab: Or Bay Ridge voters could do us all a favor and send this clown to retirement.
Posted by eric at 1:30 PM
Keep circling
Pol: I’d KO parking permits
NY Post
by Rich Calder, Joe Mollica and Bob Fredericks
There already wasn't much good to be said for South Brooklyn pol, and Bruce Ratner stooge Marty Golden, who's been an outspoken booster of Atlantic Yards. And now this...
A Republican lawmaker vowed yesterday to kill a proposal that would make it easier for New Yorkers to find a parking spot in their neighborhoods.
“I have serious concerns and can’t support it,” said Brooklyn state Sen. Marty Golden about a plan that would require drivers to pay for a permit to park their cars on the streets where they live.
“I see this as just another tax and you shouldn’t be taxed for the privilege to park your car in New York City,” said Golden, who said the idea would never get through the GOP-controlled Senate. “You should be able to park wherever you want. It’s picking the pockets of drivers.”
...The parking permit plan -- which the City Council will take up today -- would also extend to other residential neighborhoods where residents wage daily battles with commuters and visitors for precious parking.
“This bill should not be killed in an Albany back room. Communities that want [permit parking] will get it, and those that don’t, won’t,” the bill’s co-sponsor, state Sen. Daniel Squadron (D-Brooklyn Heights), responded to Golden’s vow to quash it.
Posted by eric at 1:14 PM
Residential permit parking passes Council committee, with support from most arena neighbors, but not without DOT opposition (to bill, not concept)
Atlantic Yards Report
A packed City Council committee hearing room yesterday was evidence that parking problems--especially but not merely linked to Yankee Stadium and expected Barclays Center crowds--frustrate a lot of New Yorkers.
To the satisfaction of many in the crowd--though not the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT), which urged caution--a Council committee approved a resolution requesting the New York State Legislature to pass bills that would authorize a residential permit parking (RPP) program in New York City.
RPP, for a not-yet-established fee, would restrict up to 80% of non-metered residential street parking to residents during certain hours, thus preventing commuters and event-goers from monopolizing already scarce space. It would not guarantee a space, and commercial streets would be excluded.
“It’s not enough, but it's one meaningful policy step,” suggested Council Member Brad Lander, who called the traffic and parking situation around the arena “already a nightmare.” He urged that RPP be put into effect before the arena opens next fall.
The full Council will consider the resolution beginning today. The state bills were introduced by Senator Dan Squadron and Assembly Member Joan Millman, both of Brooklyn.
...Bronx Council Member Helen Foster, who chaired the hearing, began by saying “my constituents can't find parking, and parking lots around Yankee Stadium are going bankrupt." Not only do fans monopolize street parking, she said, they are not ticketed when they park on sidewalks or at hydrants.
Fisher thanked Brooklyn Council Member Letitia James, who represents the arena site and a good part of its surroundings, for putting the issue back on the table.
Related coverage...
The New York Times, Plan to Issue New Permits for Parking Is Debated
Nine blocks from the steel shadow of Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, Gib Veconi circles Prospect Heights nightly in his 13-year-old Volvo wagon looking for a parking spot, like a buzzard scouring for a meal.
Parking can be a blood sport in New York City, nowhere more so than along the crowded streets around the half-built Barclays Center in Downtown Brooklyn, centerpiece of the Atlantic Yards project. When it opens next fall for concerts and Nets basketball, the competition will get fiercer.
Jiminy Crickets, New York Times. Once and for all, Atlantic Yards is not in Downtown Brooklyn.
Fearing for pedestrian safety and pollution, while hoping to preserve the scarce parking spots left, local leaders like Mr. Veconi, the treasurer of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, have long advocated residential parking permits, or R.P.P. The cost of a permit has yet to be determined.
“It is a problem that is already a significant one, and by putting an arena on top of it, it would absolutely cause the streets to burst open with cars,” Mr. Veconi, 48, said. “If R.P.P. is not implemented by the time the arena opens, there’s going to be an outcry from those neighborhood associations like something you’ve never heard before.”
Park Slope Patch, City Council Moves Forward on Residential Parking Permits
“Sometimes I get home from work and I have to wait two hours to get a parking spot,” said a woman from Prospect Heights who lives on Dean Street a block from the construction. “This is going to get worse and worse. There’s going to be noise, air pollution. I have 21-month-old twins. This is going to be ridiculous.”
The Brooklyn Paper, Parking permitted! Council panel approves ‘pay-to-park’ plan for Barclays neighbors
Meanwhile, lawmakers in southern Brooklyn, where car ownership is far more widespread, lambasted the plan as a tax on drivers, who have always enjoyed free on-street parking.
“The idea that someone would have to pay to park in front of their own home is ludicrous,” said state Sen. Marty Golden (R–Bay Ridge). “This is nothing more than another tax on our communities.”
The plan was criticized along similar lines by Councilman Lew Fidler (D–Marine Park), who lobbied unsuccessfully to postpone Wednesday’s vote.
NoLandGrab: Both of these unrepentant hypocrites Golden and Fidler, whose districts are nowhere near the Barclays Center, were outspoken supporters of Atlantic Yards. Of course.
Posted by eric at 12:05 PM
Pedestrian Struck on Classon Avenue
Incident occurred at the intersection of Flushing Avenue Wednesday morning
Bed-Stuy Patch
by Paul Leonard
A vehicle struck a pedestrian at the corner of Classon and Flushing Avenues earlier this morning.
According to the New York City Fire Department, the victim was found lying on the ground at 10:23am and transported to Woodhull Hospital.
The victim suffered minor leg injuries, fire officials said.
Increased commercial traffic down Classon Avenue from the Atlantic Yards construction has been the subject of concern in recent weeks, as many residents have begun to complain about noise, safety and obstruction.
Posted by eric at 11:33 AM
November 2, 2011
Council Committee Endorses Residential Parking Permits Over DOT Objections
Streetsblog
by Noah Kazis
The budding nightmare also known as the Barclays Center of Brooklyn™ was the primary impetus behind today's City Council hearing on Residential Parking Permits.
A City Council committee took the first step toward bringing residential parking permits to New York City neighborhoods this afternoon. Details haven’t been worked out yet, but committee members signaled their desire to move forward on a system that would restrict a portion of curbside parking space to use by local residents.
While most council members wanted to see residential parking permits brought to neighborhoods across the city, the Department of Transportation opposed RPP except perhaps in the areas immediately around stadiums.
...Letitia James, whose district includes the Atlantic Yards site, said that RPPs would ease congestion, protect pedestrians and reduce air pollution.
Related coverage...
WNYC, Residential Parking Permits Get Nod from Council Committee
An Albany bill that would allow the city to establish on-street parking permits for neighborhood residents has won the support of the City Council's transportation committee.
Brooklyn councilmember Letitia James, who represents neighborhoods around the Atlantic Yards development, said drivers from outside the city are taking up too many parking spaces, and the problem is going to get worse when the Barclay's arena opens next year.
"A residential parking permit program would discourage all-day parking by commuters who use neighborhoods, as is the case in downtown Brooklyn, basically as a parking lot," she said.
NY1, Parking Concerns Rise Alongside New Brooklyn Arena
Trying to get a parking spot around Downtown Brooklyn most of the time is futile, but ask residents and they will say it's nearly impossible.
"It used to be we could always find a spot on our block a few years ago. And now it's pretty rare," said one Park Slope resident.
With the Barclays Arena set to open next September, residents are bracing for even more gridlock. More than 200 events are planned at the arena every year.
"With more people coming, more people working in the area, it's just going to get worse," said one Park Slope resident.
Posted by eric at 6:45 PM
Fearing Atlantic Yards arena traffic crunch, locals seek neighborhood parking permits
City Council hearing on parking permit bill set for Wednesday
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
Neighbors around the Atlantic Yards project are pushing for residential parking permits to deal with the thousands of cars set to flood the area when the new Barclays Center arena opens.
The permit system, which needs approval from city and state lawmakers, could start with pilot programs in the blocks around Atlantic Yards and Yankee Stadium, sources said.
Most of the spaces in the area would be set aside for motorists who live in the neighborhood and pay a modest annual fee.
Residents and advocates say parking has already gotten scarce and streets have become more congested around the construction site, and predict the situation will only get worse when the arena opens.
“If nothing changes, we know that there are going to be about 6,000 cars driving to the arena. If they’re human, they’re going to be looking for free on-street parking first before they go to a parking lot,” said Danae Oratowski, chair of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council. “What we’re concerned about is the incredible amount of congestion.
“If you look at arenas in major cities all around the country - Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston - they all have residential permit parking as a way to deter cars from driving into the neighborhood,” Oratowski said.
The City Council is set to hold a hearing Wednesday on a state bill that would allow the city to mandate parking permits.
Related coverage...
Carroll Gardens Patch, Atlantic Yards-Area Residents Get Hearing on Residential Parking Permits
The Barclays Center, which is scheduled to open in September 2012, will attract “as many as 5,600 cars” from visitors who drive to the arena, according to the Empire State Development Corporation.
"If nothing is done before to mitigate this volume of traffic, there will be an increased risk of vehicular, pedestrian and bicycle accidents that already make Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn's most dangerous road," said Councilwoman James in a news release.
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
November 1, 2011
Reserved parking
Pols eye permits for neighborhoods
NY Post
by Rich Calder
City residents may soon get the exclusive right to park on the streets where they live.
After years of false starts, state and city legislators are seriously looking at a plan to establish residential parking permits in the Big Apple.
Drivers who live in designated neighborhoods and pay for a permit would be the only ones allowed to park in 80 percent of the spots.
The latest push came after Brooklyn residents began complaining that people attending events at the Barclays Center in Prospect Heights, which is set to open next year, would monopolize most of the parking spaces in their neighborhood.
The new 18,000-seat arena will only have 1,100 designated parking spots — and parking is already tight in the surrounding area.
But the push isn’t limited to those living near the future home of the Brooklyn Nets.
...Sources said that with the arena close to opening, there is now a groundswell of support for the council to back the plan after years of indifference by many of its members on the topic.
Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn), who arranged the hearing, said the permits are crucial in neighborhoods near the arena like Fort Greene and Park Slope because they would discourage arena patrons from driving to events -- thus reducing traffic congestion.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, On Wednesday, a City Council committee hearing on residential permit parking
The Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council alerts us to a hearing on residential permit parking, to be held tomorrow, November 2, at 10:30 am by the New York City Council Committee on Federal and State Legislation.
The location: 250 Broadway 14th Floor (allow time to go through security).
NBC New York, Residential Parking Permit Plan Revived
“Permit parking is long overdue in downtown Brooklyn, western Queens, upper Manhattan and other communities where residents must circle for hours trying to find parking near their homes,” state Sen. Daniel Squadron told the Post.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Speak up in support of residential permit parking around the Barclays Arena
Got a car? Walk the streets and sidewalks? Breathe the air? Then this hearing and issue impacts you.
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
October 31, 2011
Speak up in support of residential permit parking around the arena
Atlantic Yards Watch
by Danae Oratowski
WHAT: Hearing of the New York City Council Committee on State and Federal Legislation
WHEN: Wednesday, 11/2 at 10:30AM
WHERE: 250 Broadway, 14th Floor
According to the Empire State Development Corporation, when the Barclays Center opens in September 2012, an expected 35-40% of arena patrons will arrive for events by car. That means as many as 6,100 cars travelling to the site for each of the more than 200 events anticipated to be held each year.
This barrage of traffic is expected to cause significant delays at more than half of the intersections within a half mile of the arena. It will add to the vehicular, pedestrian and bicycle accidents that have already made Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn's most dangerous road. And it will result in up to 3,000 arena patrons taking curbside parking spots5 in Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, and Prospect Heights, clogging already-congested residential side streets.
Among all of the impacts to neighborhood character and quality of life that will come from locating Atlantic Yards' arena within residential communities, none are of greater consequence to more residents than the traffic generated by arena events. But there is a way to reduce the demand for our local streets. It's called "residential permit parking," or RPP, and it's been effective in other cities, like Boston and Chicago, where sports facilities are located in densely-populated areas. By limiting on-street parking during arena events to local residents, RPP will create a disincentive for arena patrons to drive, reducing congestion and making streets safer.
New York City requires authorization from the State legislature before it can implement RPP. On Wednesday, 11/2 at 10:30AM, the City Council will hear testimony on legislation authorizing the City to enact residential permit parking programs in the five boroughs. The Atlantic Yards Watch sponsors urge you to participate in this critical hearing and make your voice heard.
You can also sign a petition supporting RPP here.
Posted by eric at 11:07 PM
From Atlantic Yards Watch and CLEXY Block Association: concern over "Future Stadium Event Traffic on Classon Avenue"
Atlantic Yards Report
A message on Atlantic Yards Watch, headlined Future Stadium Event Traffic on Classon Avenue, from CLEXY Block Association (Classon, Lexington, and Quincy):
Over 500 people have signed the petition to address the traffic issues on Classon Avenue created by the Atlantic Yards.
Classon Avenue is clearly being targeted as the main means of egress for future event traffic to the BQE. Classon Avenue is almost exclusively a residential street, yet current levels of illegal truck usage from the Atlantic Yards (Classon is not a truck route [map excerpt above], Bedford Avenue is the designated truck route) are creating serious health and safety risks for all who live, work and travel on Classon Avenue. These unsafe conditions will be greatly exacerbated by the increased traffic associated with the Atlantic Yards events. The CLEXY Block Association is petitioning for:
1. No Left Turn designation from Atlantic onto Classon Avenue
2. Clear and prominent signage along Atlantic designating Bedford as the route for the eastbound stadium traffic to access the BQE.
3.Addition of signage reinforcing Classon Avenue as prohibited to all truck and traffic excluding those making local deliveries.
4. Addition of a bike lane on Classon Avenue from Bergen to Dekalb.Here's coverage on Brownstoner and Patch. Below, a map for context.
 |
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Block Association Petitions for Street Safety on Classonlink
Bed-Stuy Patch, Block Assn. Wants Fewer Trucks on Classonlink
Posted by eric at 12:21 PM
October 25, 2011
Developer Removes Crossing Signal Obstruction At Atlantic Yards
Forest City Ratner also identifies other problem signals elsewhere at the massive construction site.
Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch
by Paul Leonard
Pedestrians can now cross one of Brooklyn's busiest throughfares with a bit more confidence.
In response to our story Monday on construction netting blocking a crossing signal at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner sent workers out this morning to investigate the issue.
"We did find that there were problems with visibility... so we made changes," said a Forest City spokesman.
On a visit to the highly trafficked intersection Tuesday, those changes included cutting out a section of the construction barrier to allow the crossing signal to be clearly seen by commuters, students and shoppers heading southbound across Atlantic Avenue.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, After Patch points out sidewalk crossing problem caused by Atlantic Yards construction, FCR makes a fix
Posted by eric at 10:59 PM
Don't Walk: Crossing Signal Obscured at Atlantic Yards
Construction netting latest hazard for pedestrians at busy intersection.
Park Slope Patch
by Paul Leonard and Amy Sara Clark
Pedestrians crossing Atlantic Avenue southbound at Flatbush Avenue are already used to dealing with cars, trucks and construction equipment streaming past one of Brooklyn's busiest thoroughfares.
Now they have to deal with yet another obstacle: black construction netting obscuring a crossing signal at the notoriously tricky intersection.
That means southbound pedestrians such as Crown Heights resident Sandra Marshall crossing Atlantic Avenue at Flatbush were essentially "walking blind"—with the signal at the southeast corner of the intersection either completely or partially covered by the top portion of a construction barrier installed by workers at the quickly-rising Barclays Center site.
"It makes you feel like you have a death wish trying to cross here," Marshall said. "I just try to run as fast as I can."
Posted by eric at 12:04 PM
October 21, 2011
Traffic Calming Measures on Classon Avenue Inch Forward
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Mary Shell
Over the last several months, members of the Classon, Lexington, and Quincy Block Association, known as CLEXY, have noticed with mounting concern the new signs indicating no left turns off Atlantic Avenue onto Vanderbilt and Washington Avenues – leaving Classon Avenue as one of the few Clinton Hill streets to remain open to traffic coming from Atlantic.
“It has become clear,” said Laura Benko, president of CLEXY, at the group’s meeting last Thursday evening, “that Classon Avenue has been targeted as the primary means of egress for future Atlantic stadium traffic.”
After Community Board 2’s Oct. 12 approval of traffic calming measures on Classon Avenue, CLEXY members said last Thursday that they still worried about traffic from the planned Barclays Center arena on Atlantic Avenue, pedestrian safety, and signage on Classon Avenue.
Posted by eric at 11:43 AM
October 20, 2011
Surveyors near arena blocks: are they measuring sidewalk capacity?
Atlantic Yards Report
As noted on Atlantic Yards Watch, workers have been surveying the sidewalk on streets in Prospect Heights, mainly those that would serve as pathways between the planned surface parking lot and the arena. Below, Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues.
 |
Beyond that, work was spotted on Dean Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues; on Carlton between Dean and Pacific; and on Vanderbilt (west side) between Dean and Pacific. Only the latter, which constitutes the eastern border of the parking lot, does not constitute a direct path to the arena.
What's the purpose?
"This is not ESD," said Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project for Empire State Development, in response to my query.
I'd bet it's more likely consultants--working for Forest City Ratner or a subcontractor?--trying to test sidewalk capacity. As I've written, on Dean Street at least, it's a very tight fit.
Posted by eric at 12:52 PM
October 18, 2011
Gridlock on Flatbush, sluggish on Sixth: congestion wrought by AY changes (and an improper truck route)?
Atlantic Yards Report
Um, isn't Forest City Ratner supposed to be paying for additional Traffic Enforcement Agents?
Do traffic changes and congestion created by Atlantic Yards construction have spillover effects? One North Park Slope resident thinks so, and posted the video below, showing gridlock on Flatbush Avenue and Sixth Avenue yesterday morning.
The resident says that congestion on Flatbush, exacerbated by Atlantic Yards-related vehicles, has prompted additional traffic on side streets looking for shortcuts.
Moreover, the closing and demapping of Fifth Avenue north of Flatbush for the arena block has pushed additional traffic onto Sixth Avenue, which is now two ways north of Flatbush, as it always was below Flatbush.
Sixth Avenue a truck route?
The resident said he's seen many large trucks now using Sixth Avenue, especially demolition trucks coming south from the Atlantic Yards site. A police officer told him that the rules had been changed due to Atlantic Yards and that residential Sixth Avenue is now a permitted truck route.
Well, the Department of Transportation (DOT) lists mainly arteries like Flatbush, Atlantic, and Fourth avenues as truck routes, as well as a small stretch of Fifth Avenue and Bergen Street near the arena site.
NoLandGrab: Don't worry, we're sure it'll be fine on game nights.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Watch, Video captures morning gridlock in north Slope
Traffic appears locked at the intersection of Flatbush, Sixth Avenue and St. Marks Avenue. The cameraman then walks down Sixth Avenue to show further gridlock at the intersection of Sixth and Prospect Place. He reports these conditions have become an everyday occurrence.
Posted by eric at 12:51 PM
ESDC's flawed analysis of sidewalk widths highlights risk in privatizing arena planning and oversight
Atlantic Yards Watch
Rarely does a day go by that the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement, and corresponding reports, isn't proved increasingly worthless.
In response to an AYW story showing the effective sidewalk widths on the arena block are going to be narrower than ESDC's 2006 environmental analysis has assessed, the agency's environmental monitor HDR submitted a Technical Memorandum to the Department of Transportation revising effective sidewalk widths and reassessing the sidewalks' level of service.
But HDR's Technical Memorandum about the arena block's sidewalks is flawed as well. It incorrectly applies its own formula for assessing effective sidewalk widths. As a result of that mistake the Technical Memorandum overstates the effective widths of numerous sidewalks on the arena block by several feet. And HDR uses outdated pedestrian numbers from the 2006 FEIS even though the sidewalk conditions being analyzed should be based on the 2009 Modified General Project Plan.
As a result, the level of service calculations (which relate the number of pedestrians anticipated to use a sidewalk in a period of peak use to the sidewalk's capacity) are invalid and should not be accepted.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, From Atlantic Yards Watch: "privatizing arena planning and oversight" leads to flawed analysis of sidewalk width, capacity
The problem: private planning
From AY Watch:
In arguing for the approval of FCRC's plans for bollards on the arena block at the DOT hearing October 5th, Assistant Vice President Sonya Covington stated that the plans followed two years of coordination with government agencies and that the Technical Memorandum had been produced to address changes to sidewalk widths from what was originally anticipated in 2006.
The reality is the opposite. At a critical time in which the operational, demand management and security plans for Barclays Center are being developed behind closed doors, the bollard plans provide a small window into how and who is shaping the plans.
We're still waiting for the Department of Transportation to respond, and for Empire State Development (Corporation) to convene the once-promised Transportation Working Group.
Posted by eric at 10:38 AM
Over 3,300 New Daily Visitors to Our Neighborhood?
My Little O [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
The New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) is in the process of negotiating a 20-year lease to occupy six floors (400,000-square-feet) of the telecom building at 470 Vanderbilt Avenue. If approved, HRA will consolidate over 1,700 employees from two current locations (210 Livingston Street in Brooklyn, and 330 W. 34th Street in Manhattan).
...In addition to the 1,700 staff, the two agencies will service about 1,600 clients each day. This will bring over 3,300 new daily visitors to the area. A presentation by representatives of HRA at last night’s Community Board 2 general meeting was not received well by both members of the board and the community. The primary concern is that the neighborhood’s infrastructure (parking and public transportation) is not equipped to handle the influx of that many daily visitors. CB2 board member, Mr. Andrew Lastowecky said, "The Clinton/Washington A and C subway stop cannot handle an additional 3,000 people each day during peak hours." If employees and clients do drive there are no parking facilities or roadside parking in the area to accommodate them either. Board members also expressed concerns about the potential traffic congestion that will occur if there's a significant increase in cars during the development of Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 9:37 AM
October 12, 2011
470 Vanderbilt moves toward renovation; did the state really consider impact of workers and visitors to new offices?
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Times article today on 470 Vanderbilt, Unconventional Financing Helps Deal for Brooklyn Space, casts new attention on the former tire factory and telecom space--circled in the Empire State Development Corporation map at right; click to enlarge--that is being renovated across broad Atlantic Avenue from the northeast section of the Atlantic Yards site:
But late last month, the New York City Human Resources Administration signed a 20-year, 400,000- square-foot lease for six floors of the 10-story building — the largest deal in Brooklyn this year and the culmination of more than two years of negotiations. Along with a second, smaller deal, 470 Vanderbilt is now 85 percent leased. In conjunction with a residential tower that the developers hope to build on an adjacent parking lot, it could speed the transformation of the area, which lies between Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.
Any impact on AY traffic or pedestrians?
The Empire State Development Corporation has claimed that the change in use would have no new significant adverse impact, in a document summarizing the 6/14/11 public meeting on traffic issues, posted and also embedded below. However, as I explain below, there are reasons for doubt.
NoLandGrab: We've obtained an exclusive photo of the AKRF team that compiled the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement.
Related coverage...
The New York Times, Unconventional Financing Helps Deal for Brooklyn Space
Posted by eric at 12:33 PM
October 6, 2011
At DOT hearing on bollard plan, a challenge to claim that an effective width of 5'2" would not create sidewalk bottleneck outside arena
Atlantic Yards Report
Clearly New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) hearings on "revocable consents"--permission to install structures on city property--are typically pro forma affairs, held in a small conference room in a Lower Manhattan building.
Well, yesterday's hearing, which included consideration of the bollard and street furniture plan for the Atlantic Yards arena block, was a little different. DOT staffers were faced with detailed testimony that took issue with a just-produced claim that a smaller sidewalk, with an effective width of 5'2", would make no difference to pedestrians.
After all, as testimony from the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC) indicated, the official analysis was based on 2006 pedestrian counts, not those generated by 2009 changes in the project plan which could deliver more people to the south side of Atlantic Avenue west of Pacific Street.
Will those comments make a difference? Unclear, but DOT will accept further comments through October 15 (via Emma Berenblit at eberenblit@dot.nyc.gov) and will review these in consultation with other DOT divisions or other agencies.
No deadline has been set for the agency's decision, though the latest Atlantic Yards Construction Alert indicated that a reconfiguration of Flatbush Avenue MPT (Maintenance and Protection of Traffic)--which recently began--would set the stage for bollard installation and facade work.
Posted by eric at 10:34 AM
October 5, 2011
Sidewalk bordering arena would have effective width of 5.2 feet, says ESD consultant, but that won't be a problem (really?)
Atlantic Yards Report
Would Forest City Ratner's plan to install security bollards around the Atlantic Yards arena block--subject of a hearing today at 2 pm--lead to a diminished effective sidewalk width compared with the width disclosed in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS)? How would that affect pedestrians?
A memo produced by an Empire State Development (ESD) consultant, and submitted to the Department of Transportation, which is holding the hearing, offers the answers: yes, and not much.
In other words, even if the effective sidewalk width--the width minus obstructions--is just 5.2 feet on the south side of Atlantic Avenue west of Sixth Avenue, it's OK, people will manage. That will be interesting to see tested in reality.
Posted by eric at 12:09 PM
AY Check-In: Residential Build, Rats and Traffic
Brownstoner
Yesterday Community Board 2 sent out a comprehensive update on all things Atlantic Yards. A few things of note: the first residential building, which Forest City Ratner filed permits for in August, is currently known as “B2.” Design is under way, though there’s still no decision on whether it will be built using traditional or modular construction. As the Observer noted yesterday, Forest City says it will have something more to report by the end of the year, and construction is slated to begin shortly after. In response to previous rat complaints near the site, the city Health Department singled out three to four “hot spots” on Dean Street, between Sixth and Carlton avenues. There are also a few problem areas on Fourth Avenue and Pacific Street; the Pacific Branch Library, the Church of the Redeemer, and a catch-basin at that corner.
...Finally, DOT reported on the traffic changes implemented this July and August. Traffic improved on Flatbush but slowed on 3rd and 4th avenues. DOT plans to adjust the signal timing on Fourth Avenue to reduce the jam of vehicles at Atlantic Avenue.
...DOT is also holding a public hearing today, 2:00 pm at 55 Water Street, Room 707, on the revocable consent for the security bollards and other features surrounding the Barclays Center.
Posted by eric at 11:18 AM
October 3, 2011
Glut of parking spaces in city
Ancient zoning rules force developer to overbuild. But reforms could reduce number of empty parking spaces.
Crain's NY Business
by Jeremy Smerd
The Department of City Planning knows its 1950s-era parking requirements are outdated and is preparing to issue recommendations for Manhattan and “inner-ring” neighborhoods, such as those in western Brooklyn and Queens. But transportation advocates worry that reforms will fail to dent what they deem an oversupply of parking at large developments.
“We've asserted that limiting parking supply can be a valuable tool to encourage mass transit,” said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives. “[The city's] point of view is people will own cars and drive, no matter what.”
...Transportation advocates worry that the glut at Yankee Stadium will be replicated at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, which is to have 3,670 parking spots when residential buildings are completed in the project's second phase. Until then, much of the space next to the site's arena, the Barclays Center, will be a blacktop parking lot.
“If the economic conditions change and phase two of the project doesn't go forward, you will have this big empty space in the middle of Brooklyn,” said Kate Slevin, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.
NoLandGrab: All the more reason to a) significantly cut the number of parking spaces planned for Atlantic Yards, and b) divide the parcels up, set development guidelines, and auction them off to different bidders.
Posted by eric at 11:28 AM
September 27, 2011
6th Avenue to have fewer travel lanes than analyzed in the 2006 environmental impact statement
Atlantic Yards Watch
The 2006 Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) assumed 6th Avenue would be widened between Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues in order to "facilitate traffic circulation at the project site and provide an alternative route for traffic diverted as a result of the closure of 5th Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues." (FEIS, 12-65) [PDF]
However, it has emerged this summer that 6th Avenue from Flatbush to Atlantic will not be widened at the time of the arena opening as described in the FEIS. Instead, not only will there be fewer north-south travel lanes at the time of the arena opening than analyzed in the FEIS, there will actually be fewer north/south travel lanes through the project footprint than existed before the street closures that created it in 2010.
The change will surely affect traffic circulation around the arena block, and congestion in the vicinity of the arena may be increased....
It is unclear if the change is temporary or permanent.
Posted by eric at 1:06 PM
September 23, 2011
Not just Thursday: video from this morning shows trucks stacked up on Pacific Street and other violations
Atlantic Yards Report
Earlier today I described videos (posted on Atlantic Yards Watch) that showed trucks stacked up at the southeast corner of Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street rather than queuing a block away as required.
This morning the same thing happened, according to Atlantic Yards Watch, along with dump trucks illegally idling next to the Newswalk building on Pacific Street (see screenshot) and the continued failure to follow the "Stop Here on Red Light" sign.
Click through for video and more.
NoLandGrab: There's a reason they call it dope.
Posted by eric at 9:32 PM
Early morning violations of truck protocols contrast with FCRC statements at Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet
Atlantic Yards Watch
Lying was much easier before smart-phone cameras and the Internet.
The protocols for construction trucks described "as significantly improved" yesterday by FCRC's Adam Schwartz at the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet are documented being repeatedly violated earlier yesterday morning and today by multiple incident reports filed on this website.
Only hours before Schwartz spoke at Brooklyn Borough Hall, project-related trucks were advancing before the receiving gate was ready, idling, standing in no-standing and no parking zones, ignoring a stop sign, driving the wrong way on a one-way street, and not obeying NYCDOT designated truck routes.
At the District Service Cabinet FCRC's Schwartz stated, "the guard does not release trucks from our site until the gate is ready to receive them." The guard is located at Pacific Street and Carlton Avenue. In following this protocol the trucks enter the project site from Vanderbilt Avenue and line up inside the project footprint on the former Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues. This is apparently done in the hope of lessening impacts on the residents who live along the stretch of Pacific Street between Carlton and 6th Avenues that would not ordinarily be a truck route.
But this protocol was not followed.
NoLandGrab: We would ask "what are they smoking?" — but we know the answer already.
Posted by eric at 9:18 PM
Are new procedures "very effective" in managing truck traffic at arena site? Videos show cluster of trucks on residential street
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday, less than four hours before a Forest City Ratner official declared that new procedures had been "very effective" in preventing trucks from approaching entrance gates at the Atlantic Yards site before workers were ready to receive them, a resident shot videos that show exactly the opposite.
The videos shot beginning at 6 am were included in two postings (1, 2) on Atlantic Yards Watch made by a resident of the Newswalk building along Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues.
That stretch sits between the professed staging area--now a private street--on Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues and the arena entrance west of Sixth Avenue.
Clearly lots of trucks are jumping the gun--and ignoring both site rules and violating parking regulations.
Click thru for the videos.
NoLandGrab: Maybe it wouldn't be so hard to follow what would appear to be simple rules if they cut back a little on the wacky weed.
Posted by eric at 5:11 PM
September 21, 2011
How will congestion on Dean Street affect the firehouse? State document says police will step up when events are scheduled and that impacts "were discussed" (not quite)
Atlantic Yards Report
The other day I was at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Dean Street, catercorner from the in-construction Barclays Center arena.
A fire truck assigned to the firehouse just east of the corner--Engine 219/Ladder 105--was temporarily parked in the left lane of the street. Cars were parked along the right lane. A city bus tried to get through, but it was stymied.
It took more than a minute--probably more than two--to untangle the knot. So, what happens if the arena's open? It turns out the state is optimistic, as explained in 68 questions and responses from the 6/14/11 public meeting on traffic issues has posted (also embedded below) by Empire State Development (aka Empire State Development Corporation).
Traffic bottlenecks?
The question:
62. On Dean Street the church double parks every night. The police and fire department park on the sidewalk. You don’t take that into account. Where do these cars go? How does the fire engine company get out in an emergency?
The answer:
Enforcement of double parking prohibitions is the responsibility of the New York City Police Department, which will have an active presence in the Arena vicinity before and after Arena events. Potential impacts on emergency vehicles were discussed in Chapter 5 of the FEIS (e.g., pages 5-10 through 5-12).
How much enforcement is there now? Not much. Apparently ESDC is optimistic it will change.
NoLandGrab: If ESDC's optimism is as fruitful as Bruce Ratner's hopefulness that the Islanders will play their home games at the Barclays Center, we're in big trouble.
Posted by eric at 12:21 PM
Lay-by lane capacity at Barclays Center to be less than analyzed in 2006 environmental review; change may increase congestion around arena block
Atlantic Yards Watch
At the time the Sam Schwartz mitigation plan was detailed to the public in June, AYW reported that Barclays Center will have less in place at the time of the arena opening than anticipated in the 2006 FEIS: "fewer travel lanes for traffic, fewer lay-by lanes, and narrower sidewalks for pedestrians."
Thanks to the bollard plans before NYCDOT, it is now possible to see more clearly how this is so in relation to the arena block. In publishing the bollard plans several weeks ago, we wrote about the reduced effective widths of many of the sidewalks around the arena. The state of the lay-by lanes at the time of the arena opening will be similar, with one permanently changed and others with no construction schedule.
The function of lay-by lanes is to take traffic stopped for loading or unloading out of travel lanes. Fewer lay-by lanes mean there is a higher degree of risk for vehicle/vehicle and vehicle/pedestrian conflicts. It also potentially means increased congestion around the arena block.
The original 2006 project plan included lay-by lanes accommodating approximately 61 vehicle spaces on the arena block. This included 14 spaces in two lay-by areas on Flatbush, 7 spaces on Dean Street, 6 spaces on 6th Avenue, and 34 spaces on Atlantic Avenue. An additional lay-by-lane was to be located on Pacific Street adjacent to Site 5 within one year. Soon thereafter, lay-by lanes were to appear nearby in the second phase of the project which was to be completed in ten years. But the timetable of delivery of lay-by lanes changed in 2009 when the project plans were renegotiated to provide the developer up to 12 years to complete its obligations on the arena block as part of the first phase of the project's development.
 |
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, On the eve of AY District Service Cabinet Meeting, new information from AY Watch about reduced capacity of lay-by lanes
Will this be on the agenda of the meeting tomorrow? Can't say. The agenda's not publicly circulated.
Posted by eric at 11:55 AM
September 13, 2011
Truck deliveries procedures are revised at the site; a new system is introduced with a colored ticket required for entry at some truck entrances
Atlantic Yards Watch
Following months of reports on Atlantic Yards Watch about trucks driving illegal routes, idling, and traveling with uncovered loads in the neighborhoods around Atlantic Yards, a new system of organizing truck deliveries appears to have been put in place by Forest City Ratner this week.
The new system involves a colored ticket which is picked up by drivers on Pacific Street at Carlton Avenue. The drivers then proceed to the gate with the sign that matches the color of their ticket. The ticket is required to enter the gate.
Posted by eric at 9:17 PM
September 2, 2011
After "continuing violations regarding truck protocols," state to issue first-ever "notice of violation" to Forest City Ratner, posing potential fines
Atlantic Yards Report
Is Empire State Development (ESD, aka Empire State Development Corporation), the state agency overseeing the Atlantic Yards project, finally cracking down on contractors and developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) not following the rules at the construction site?
Well, slightly, which in the context of widespread complaints marks a step forward.
Errant trucks
On 8/25/11, after I saw the Atlantic Yards Watch post, Not an isolated incident: truck use of residential Clermont Avenue is widespread, I asked ESD to comment.
Agency spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell responded two days ago, on 8/31/11:
In general, the identified instances of non-compliance have been corrected. ESD is able to fine the developer for persistent violations, but most violations have been episodic instances of non-compliance by one of the contractors working on the project. ESD plans to issue a notice of violation to FCR for several continuing violations regarding truck protocols.
What's that mean? Mitchell responded:
A “notice of violation” is a letter from us to FCRC stating that FCRC has not complied with the MEC [Memorandum of Environmental Commitments]. FCRC has 30 days to comply with the MEC, and if they do not, ESD is able to require them to pay a fine of $1,000 per day.
Yesterday she clarified that it was the first notice of violation.
Note that it's not clear what "several continuing violations regarding truck protocols" describes. It could refer only to the mis-use of truck routes, but it sounds broader. So it also might apply to the failure to cover trucks with a tarp to suppress dust or perhaps apparently improper deliveries.
What does it mean?
Given that there have been periodic--and seemingly persistent--blatant violations, with ESD calling them isolated incidents, it's notable that the state has finally, belatedly acted.
NoLandGrab: Pardon our French, but what the f**k is so hard about throwing a tarp over a truck and not driving on streets you're not supposed to drive on? Or about actually enforcing those rules?
And we're supposed to count on these people to manage game-day traffic and other complex issues?
Posted by eric at 10:24 AM
September 1, 2011
Incentives to avoid driving to the arena? Transportation Demand Management Plan expected by mid-December; will it extend beyond Nets games?
Atlantic Yards Report
Today's question involves how the developer, city, and state will try to reduce driving to the Atlantic Yards arena.
We've known since 2006 about plans for remote parking and incentives for public transit, but the devil's in the details; note that, in 2006, transportation consultants criticized the plan for focusing on on Nets games rather than the panoply of arena events.
Transportation Demand Management
The question:
41. There is nothing about any type of strategy to control on-street parking by Arena patrons. The potential for a catastrophe of congestion on residential streets is frightening. What is your solution? FCRC and ESD should present a parking plan detailing the locations, number and pricing of spaces where Arena and non-Arena project-generated cars will park, as well as any shuttle services which will be provided. Consider these factors in developing interim traffic mitigations, roadway improvements and the demand management plan.
The response:
The FEIS requires the development and implementation of a Transportation Demand Management program for Arena opening. The Transportation Demand Management Plan under development per this FEIS commitment will include a comprehensive strategy to encourage the use of mass transit (and remote parking) by Arena patrons and a parking management plan for those who do drive. The plan will detail the specific locations of off-site parking garage, pricing of off-site and on-site parking spaces and the mechanisms for encouraging the use of off-site parking garages and remote parking. Remote parking will be encouraged with free shuttle service to the Arena and parking spaces priced at half the price of the market rate at garages closer to the Arena. The plan will also specify the routes by which shuttle buses will travel from remote parking locations to the Arena and the pickup locations for the return shuttle trip to the remote parking location. The Transportation Demand Management Plan will include a cross-marketing program with local businesses that would serve to stagger arrival and departure times, a 400 bike parking area adjacent to the Arena, and a requirement that at least 600 of the on-site parking spaces be HOV parking (requiring the purchase of three or more tickets). The Transportation Demand Management Plan is under development by FCRC, the Nets, and the Arena operations team and FCRC’s traffic and parking consultant Sam Schwartz Engineering (which has prepared these kinds of plans for Citi Field, among others). ESD and NYCDOT will be reviewing the Transportation Demand Management Plan as it is developed. It is anticipated that FCRC will be prepared to present the Transportation Demand Management Plan to the public for comment in about six months.
Surely some restaurants and bars will be eager partners and, thus, arena boosters. But if this covers only Nets games then how can it work?
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
Another Awful Thing About the Barclays Center: Its Sidewalks Will be Really Narrow
The L Magazine
by Ross Barkan
When you walk over to the Barclays Center to catch an inevitably disappointing Nets game, you might have to start tiptoeing on the sidewalk, or pinching in your elbows to avoid a tractor trailer. Forest City Ratner, never a community favorite, is still igniting local opposition. According to Atlantic Yards Report, in July FCR submitted a plan to the Parks Department to install 206 bollards around the arena, which revealed that several of the sidewalks surrounding Barclays will be much narrower than what FCR originally analyzed in their 2006 environmental impact statement that ultimately helped FCR win approval from the state.
NoLandGrab: That the Department of Transportation, not Parks, but the point holds.
Posted by eric at 11:12 AM
August 31, 2011
Coming after the arena opens, a follow-up study about traffic conditions
Atlantic Yards Report
The Empire State Development Corporation has posted (also embedded below) 68 questions and responses from the 6/14/11 public meeting on traffic issues.
I've already highlighted some of the questions and responses, including the capacity of sidewalks on Dean Street, plans for the surface parking lot, and the impact of traffic on the Dean Street Playground.
Post-Arena Opening Traffic Study
The question:
3. When will the scope for a follow-up study be established? Will local Stakeholders (electeds, Community Boards and Community Members) have input into the scope? If there are additional changes that will affect traffic or pedestrian flow, what is the timeline for them and what processes will be used to consult the public?
The response:
As required by the FEIS, after the Arena opens, a traffic study will be done to provide information about traffic conditions in the area. The purpose of the study will be to optimize the implementation of the mitigation identified in the FEIS and to identify any further or different opportunities to improve traffic conditions. The study will evaluate the effectiveness of the Arena’s Transportation Demand Management Plan, an FEIS-required traffic mitigation measure that seeks to divert automotive traffic away from the Arena by encouraging the use of mass transit and parking at remote locations. The study will also consider the actual data about conditions after the Arena opening (the FEIS was able to consider only projected traffic conditions) to identify opportunities to improve traffic conditions and to optimize the implementation of any FEIS mitigation measures not implemented prior to the Arena opening. For example, in light of data about actual (rather than projected) traffic conditions after the Arena opens, it may be possible to improve upon signal timing recommendations made in the FEIS, as is common in other NYC projects that have a long lead time between the preparation of the FEIS and the construction of certain project elements. The study will also evaluate pedestrian issues in affected areas. This will be a public process, led by ESD and NYCDOT, and the public and other stakeholders will have an opportunity to review and comment on the scope of the study and its results and recommendations. At this time, FCRC is implementing most of the FEIS traffic mitigation for Phase I of the Project, while postponing implementation of certain traffic measures (such as the widening of 6th Avenue between Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue and the construction of additional lay-by lanes on 6th Avenue on the Arena block) at the direction of NYCDOT until after the Arena opens and data can be gathered as to how best to implement or improve upon the FEIS-required traffic measures. ESD has not approved changes to the FEIS traffic measures at this time.
Posted by eric at 10:35 AM
Nets Fans Get No Assist From Atlantic Yards’ Shrinking Sidewalks
Streetsblog
by Brad Aaron
 |
In June we wondered whether Forest City Ratner would make the most of the Barclays Center’s potential as a destination for pedestrians, transit riders and cyclists. Recent developments are less than encouraging.
Gib Veconi noted a couple of weeks back on Atlantic Yards Watch that a July proposal from Ratner to NYC DOT regarding bollard placement shows that sidewalks around the arena may be much narrower than what Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation originally led the public to believe.
...Veconi notes that the sidewalk on the south side of Atlantic Avenue east of the arena entrance now has an effective width of 5.5 feet, or 40 percent of the 13.5 feet presented in the EIS. “This sidewalk will presumably be traveled by large groups of arena patrons leaving the Atlantic Avenue exit en route to arena parking to the east, and borders busy Atlantic Avenue. No bollards are shown to be installed along this section of sidewalk.”
In addition, Veconi points out that the Dean Street bike lane will be situated between a thru-traffic lane and parking bays designated for pick-ups and drop-offs, putting cyclists in the path of merging vehicles.
Posted by eric at 10:24 AM
August 30, 2011
From ESD: increased vehicles/pedestrians on Dean Street not "anticipated" to provoke adverse effect on safety
Atlantic Yards Report
Empire State Development (aka Empire State Development Corporation) has posted (also embedded below) 68 questions and responses from the 6/14/11 public meeting on traffic issues. I've already highlighted some of the questions and responses, including the capacity of sidewalks on Dean Street and plans for the surface parking lot.
No problems from traffic/pedestrian increase?
This one jumped out:
10. Since the introduction of Astroturf to Dean Playground, activity at the playground has significantly increased. Will the increase in traffic and pedestrians make the playground less safe? Will parents still be able to watch their kids play from the sidewalk during league games on the weekends?
No adverse effect on safety in or around the playground is anticipated.
None? Is that why there will be extra cops and security guards around the perimeter of the arena and, presumably, adjacent streets?
As another response explains, there will be about 3000 additional pedestrians traveling between the accessory lot and the arena. It's unclear what fraction will use Dean Street, but it's a main route.
The word "anticipate," as I've documented, has a lot of flex to it.
Posted by eric at 10:50 AM
August 29, 2011
Video shows that, after criticism was raised publicly, trucks as of August 26 stopped using residential street as shortcut
Atlantic Yards Report
I can't say the video below documents riveting action, but it does seem to confirm that those working at the railyard site finally paid attention to criticism aired on Atlantic Yards Watch and this blog: trucks previously seen using Clermont Avenue, a residential street, in violation of city law and site rules, as of Friday, August 26, were no longer doing so.
Posted by eric at 6:54 PM
August 26, 2011
Not an isolated incident: truck use of residential Clermont Avenue is widespread
Atlantic Yards Watch
by Danae Oratowski
More than a dozen videos, taken over the course of a single week, document repeated illegal use of Clermont Avenue by fully loaded dump trucks leaving the project site from the Carlton Avenue brige exit. As the videos show, trucks exiting the Carlton Avenue bridge site on to Atlantic make the first left on to Clermont, departing from NYC's designated truck route. Clermont Avenue is a residential street of three story townhouses and a public housing complex and is the location of two public playgrounds (one is part of the Atlantic Terminal Housing; the other, the Cuyler Gore playground, is at intersection of Clermont and Lafayette).
The videos were recorded on three days, August 15, 18 and 19 (There is an AY Watch incident report for each day; while each day's report documents mulitiple violations.) Most of the trucks had ‘LMC Trucking - USDOT: 1501837’ as vehicle identifiers.
The use of a residential street as a truck route violates NYC City law as well as the Barclays Center Delivery Truck Rules and Requirements, which is part of the project's of Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments, to be enforced by ESD and Forest City Ratner.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, From Atlantic Yards Watch: trucks continue to leave railyard site and use residential street
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
"Surface" parking lot to have a modular second floor deck?
Atlantic Yards Watch
NetsDaily reports that a company called More Park is claiming its prefabricated parking system will be used by the "Brooklyn Nets". More Park's web site describes its parking system as "the lowest-cost parking deck available," and a "green parking solution" that can be assembled (and disassembled) without heavy construction equipment.
 |
A rendering of More Park's parking solution from its web site appears above left. The design of the platform would appear to be consistent with the renderings that were supplied by the ESDC in December 2010, which show a second level of cars parking on block 1129 visible above a fence on block 1129 along Dean Street and Carlton Avenue (below left).
The use of modular parking platforms on block 1129 may affect not only the impact of the facility on the surrounding streets (which are located in the Prospect Heights Historic District), but also the opportunity to landscape the interior of the lot. Although interior landscaping of surface parking lots is required under New York City zoning, Forest City Ratner has stated publicly that it believes it is exempt from such requirements.
Posted by eric at 11:08 AM
August 25, 2011
Track outages in two weekends (September/October) due to "continuing construction work at Atlantic Yards"
Atlantic Yards Report
Speaking of changes in our transportation infrastructure, Bruce Ratner will be knocking out subway service for a couple weekends this fall.
Meanwhile, construction does have consequences: subway closures.
The latest Atlantic Yards Construction Alert provided this ambiguous information:
Track Outages (General Orders)
IRT and BMT Tunnel inspections have taken place and repair work will be implemented during scheduled NYCT track outages during evenings and weekends. An IRT GO is scheduled for Saturday, August 27th to perform ceramic tile work. The next BMT GO’s will take place in September and October and are currently being scheduled with NYCT. Minor repair and cleanup work will occur on selective evenings under scheduled NYCT flagging protection.
Brooklyn Community Board 14, recipient of a message from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, provides more detail:
Weekends of September 23-25 and October 14-16, 2011:
From Friday beginning at 10:00 PM to Monday ending at 5:00 AM, for these two weekends B & Q service will be suspended between Pacific Street and Prospect Park, due to continuing construction work at Atlantic Yards. Shuttle bus service will be provided at Pacific Street, 7th Avenue, and Prospect Park B & Q stations.
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
Group Hug, Everyone: Girding for a More Crowded Brooklyn
The NYC Department of Transportation is making safety and mobility improvements, particularly in the growing, high-traffic areas of Atlantic Yards and downtown Brooklyn
Park Slope Patch
by C. Zawadi Morris
Over the last ten years in Central Brooklyn and its surrounding neighborhoods, housing and commercial development has accelerated at lightening speed.
As residents squeeze in tighter to make room for these changes, the New York City Department of Transportation is making safety and mobility improvements, particularly in the high-traffic areas of Atlantic Yards and downtown Brooklyn.
Details about these changes to the area at and around the intersections of Flatbush, Atlantic and Fourth avenues are posted on FCRC’s Atlantic Yards Web site. The changes are being made in accordance with steps detailed in the project’s 2006 Environmental Impact Statement.
Beginning July 31, 2011, the City began reviewing these measures and will continue to monitor these steps after they are implemented.
Click thru for a list of the changes.
Posted by eric at 10:56 AM
August 22, 2011
Traffic, including bicycle lane, to be squeezed by Dean Street excavation between Flatbush and Sixth; new removable fencing to be installed to hasten work
Atlantic Yards Report
According to a Supplemental Report (below) to the two-week Atlantic Yards look-ahead dated August 15, prepared by developer Forest City Ratner and distributed by Empire State Development, some 40' to 60' of the 16’ high fence on Dean Street between Flatbush and Sixth avenues will be removed, and replaced by "temporary 8 foot tall barrier consisting of plywood on Jersey barrier."
The reason? A safer and more portable fence is needed, over 30 to 45 days, to be moved daily to accommodate excavation for water and sewer piping.
Given that the excavation for the water and sewer piping will require a 25-foot trench from the face of the foundation to Dean Street centerline, traffic will be squeezed.
The upshot: part of the bicycle lane will be displaced:
Temporary traffic controls signage will be provided to alert bicycles and vehicles to “share the road”. Some parking on the south side of Dean Street will be removed for the duration of the work.
The 16’ high fence will be reinstalled after the piping is installed.
Posted by eric at 9:48 PM
Barclays Center will be much closer than 20 feet from street above ground level (though more at sidewalk); also, new documents reveal bollard plan, suggest effective width of sidewalk less than disclosed, creating bottleneck
Atlantic Yards Report
A must-read on security and sidewalks from Norman Oder.
Newly revealed security-related transportation documents for the Atlantic Yards arena indicate that, contrary to previous suggestions that no bollards would be needed, 206 such bollards--178 fixed, 28 removable, one foot in diameter--would be installed at the facility's perimeter.
Moreover, despite previous claims by Forest City Ratner that the arena would be 20 feet from the street, new city documents confirm that the structure would be considerably closer--less than 12 feet--above ground level along Atlantic Avenue, a configuration ambiguously disclosed previously in state documents and obfuscated by the developer. (Click on graphic to enlarge.)
The above graphic, excerpted from a New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) document (below), shows the bollards and tree pits on the Atlantic Avenue sidewalk bordering the north side of arena. It also indicates that the arena's "overhead canopy" essentially meets the property line, which is 11'8" (11.5 ft) from the street.
Further complicating the situation, the new documents reveal that, in the strip of Atlantic Avenue sidewalk just east of the arena, the sidewalk is 9.5 ft wide. Given typical buffer zone subtractions, the effective width of the sidewalk would be 5.5 feet, much less than disclosed in the environmental review and likely a bottleneck for arena-bound pedestrians, as noted by Atlantic Yards Watch.
The DOT is accepting comments on the plans through Thursday, August 25 by email to Emma Berenblit at eberenblit@dot.nyc.gov.
...The security issue
Would Brooklyn face a situation akin to Newark, where streets surrounding the Prudential Center are closed on game days? The ESDC said "there are no plans to close streets," which does leave some wiggle room.
As the New York Times reported 11/27/07:
[Forest City Ratner spokesman] Mr. [Loren] Riegelhaupt confirmed that this meant that at all points, the arena would be set back at least 20 feet from the street.
...That is the same distance as the Newark arena is from its neighboring streets. So what’s different about the Atlantic Yards arena? That, Mr. Riegelhaupt said, is a security question, to be directed to the Police Department. The Police Department has said that its policy is not to comment on such matters.
Riegelhaupt's answer may have been narrowly true--at all ground level points, the arena would be set back at least 20 feet from the street, but the question should be: what about when the arena is less than 20 feet from the street above ground level?
Forest City Ratner and the New York Police Department have surely had many high-level discussions on security. But shouldn't they explain, at least in outline, why the Brooklyn design is safer than the one in Newark? Or make the case that Newark is overreacting?
After all, plans have already changed. A NYPD spokesman told the 11/30/07 Brooklyn Daily Eagle that "the department doesn’t foresee any street or land closures, sidewalk widening around the arena or the instillation [sic] of bollards."
Posted by eric at 11:32 AM
Article suggests Forest City has chosen low-cost, stackable modular system--perhaps untested domestically--for Block 1129 surface parking
Atlantic Yards Report
"Modular" — it's not just for 34-story apartment buildings anymore.
According to an 8/20/11 article in the Williamsport (PA) Sun-Gazette, headlined City authority explores new type of parking facility, Forest City Ratner is considering an inexpensive, fast-to-assemble pre-fab parking solution (which, I'd add, is apparently little tested domestically, if at all):
Williamsport Parking Authority is exploring a less all-concrete type of parking facility, designed to be demountable, semi-permanent and more environmentally friendly.
It's called More Park System, a "bump-up parking deck," which is made of removable pre-cast concrete platforms secured by galvanized steel beams that can be assembled in a few weeks - as opposed to several months of construction - and is available in airports in Europe and soon to be providing parking for the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA's new franchise team.
Neither the Nets (not a "new" franchise) nor Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner have made such an announcement, but it's plausible that the developer would aim to save money and time.
Could it be that Bruce Ratner's threatened promised 1100-spot surface parking lot could morph into a 2200-spot bi-level lot? This sci-fi/horror flick raises the possibility.
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
In contrast with 2009 statement by FCR, ESDC says surface parking lot will initially be used for arena events only, not to satisfy general demand (but there's an asterisk)
Atlantic Yards Report
The Empire State Development Corporation has posted (also embedded below) 68 questions and responses from the 6/14/11 public meeting on traffic issues. I've highlighted some of the questions and responses, including the capacity of sidewalks on Dean Street.
Parking lot open 24/7?
This one jumped out:
43. Is the parking lot open 24 hours – 7 days a week?
No. The on-site parking lot on Block 1129, in the Arena-opening condition, is for Arena events and will therefore be open only before, during and after Arena events. The parking lot hours may change as additional buildings are constructed on the Project site and the parking lot is used for the residential and office uses on the Project site.
That does not address the use of the parking lot in the pre-Arena-opening condition, when it could be open for construction workers on multiple shifts, and perhaps others. Also, the post-Arena-opening condition, as stated above, could increase hours.
So the answer "No" refers to a very specific time frame.
Posted by eric at 10:29 AM
August 19, 2011
Arena block sidewalks proposed to be narrower than analyzed in 2006 environmental review
Atlantic Yards Watch
In July, Forest City Ratner submitted to the NYC Department of Transportation plans to install 206 bollards on the sidewalks surrounding the Barclays Center arena. The plans appear to mirror the renderings of Barclays Center submitted by ESDC in December 2010 with its response to a State Supreme Court remand order. However, the plans reveal for the first time that several sidewalks surrounding the arena, including one in front of an arena entrance on Dean Street, will have narrower effective widths than were analyzed for the 2006 environmental impact statement under which the project was approved.
Gee, there's a surprise.
The sidewalk along the south side of Atlantic Avenue east of the arena entrance has very narrow effective width in order to accomodate the site for Building 4 and a protective security wall and fence. The effective width of 5.5 feet is only 40% of the 13.5 feet anticipated in the 2006 FEIS, and is barely more than the U.S. DOT suggests for a sidewalk bordering a residential street. This sidewalk will presumably be traveled by large groups of arena patrons leaving the Atlantic Avenue exit en route to arena parking to the east, and borders busy Atlantic Avenue. No bollards are shown to be installed along this section of sidewalk.
...The FCR plans also highlight a potential challenge for cyclists traveling to arena events. Cyclists coming from the west and desiring to park in the arena bicycle lot would presumably travel on Dean Street in the bicycle lane. Because the bicycle lane separates the lay-by lane in front of the Dean Street arena entrance from the roadway, cyclists on their way to the bike lot will need to stay alert while dodging cars dropping off arena patrons.
Click thru for diagrams and more info.
Posted by eric at 11:52 AM
August 11, 2011
Atlantic Terminal at the end of an underground passageway from the Barclays Center? Not for suburban train passengers
Atlantic Yards Report
From the ever-arena-boosting Net Income, in Nets Daily, Could Atlantic Terminal Lure Isles?:
We haven't seen NHL commissioner Gary Bettman wandering around Atlantic and Flatbush in a construction helmet, carrying a measuring tape. Things have calmed down a bit regarding an Islander move to Brooklyn.
Still, there are some out there, like the Brooklyn hockey fans the Daily News found Tuesday, who want to see the Isles move 22 miles to the west despite a smaller capacity and questionable sightlines.
In the calculus, however, one thing isn't getting a lot of attention: the Long Island Railroad's new Atlantic Terminal, at the other end of an underground passageway from Barclays Center. Opened in 2010, it accommodates 25,000 LIRR passengers daily, many of whom switch in Brooklyn for subway rides to the Financial District. Some are suggesting that a return trip in the evening, with time out for a hockey game, could be a big lure for the Islanders and their fans.
One reason why it hasn't gotten a lot of attention is that the "underground passageway" is only for subway riders, not suburban train passengers.
That means those Long Islanders coming from work in New York City could get to the arena from the subway. However, they couldn't get to the LIRR from the arena. Nor could Long Island fans coming from home get to the arena from the LIRR.
Posted by eric at 9:55 AM
August 9, 2011
ESDC: new process to crack down on errant truckers began Friday; none have received "two strikes;" no answer to question about systemic problem
Atlantic Yards Report
I got some but not all answers today to questions posed last Friday regarding the Empire State Development Corporation's new plan to crack down on truckers who leave the railyard site uncovered.
My questions begin after the bullet points, and the ESDC's answers are interpolated:
- When did the process go into effect?
Last Friday, August 5.
- Is this one contractor, or more than one?
McKissack -- the site of the problem.
- Have any truckers been removed? Are those individual drivers, or subcontractors?
No truckers have been removed because none have received two strikes.
- And isn't it systemic, in a sense: if "Outgoing trucks shall be inspected at the gate," as per the environmental commitments memo, it seems to me there should be some leverage over the firm as a whole, not just the drivers. Does the firm, or whoever's in charge of inspections, face any penalties?
[No answer was received.]
Posted by eric at 3:51 PM
August 5, 2011
Not isolated incidents: via Atlantic Yards Watch, more trucks seen to leave project site with material uncovered
Atlantic Yards Report
Though the Empire State Development Corporation on July 22 suggested that a truck leaving the Atlantic Yards site with its contents uncovered was an "isolated incident," the evidence, thanks to Atlantic Yards Watch, continues to mount that it wasn't.
...On July 25, I wrote about how there appear to have been three additional violations that previous week.
On July 26, I cited three additional episodes over the course of two days.
The latest
Yesterday, two more instances were posted on Atlantic Yards Watch.
Posted by eric at 11:19 AM
August 2, 2011
Atlantic Yards Project Causes Traffic Woes
NY1
New Atlantic Yards traffic patterns are thus far a big hit with motorists.
Drivers at a busy Brooklyn intersection are dealing with a new traffic pattern because of the ongoing Atlantic Yards project.
Vehicles going north on Fourth Avenue can no longer turn left on Flatbush.
The idea was to reduce traffic tie-ups, but residents said Monday that it's making the problem worse.
"I would say the whole situation we have going on with the new sports stadium and the rerouting of the traffic and everything is a whole mess. It's terrible,” said one resident. “I'm a native of Flatbush, Brooklyn, and I hate it. I hate the whole Atlantic Yards project, it’s just a travesty."
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Upon first implementation, traffic changes at Fourth Avenue and Pacific Street are apparently confusing drivers
It's too soon to tell the full effects of the Forest City Ratner-devised, Department of Transportation-accepted plan to divert northbound traffic on Fourth Avenue so drivers can't make a left on Flatbush Avenue, but initial reports indicate confusion and frustration.
Drivers heading west must go left on Atlantic and right on Third Avenue to reach Flatbush, while those heading to the area around Atlantic Terminal must make a right on Pacific Street, which has reversed direction, then a hard left at Pacific Street.
Atlantic Yards Watch, An eventful morning around the Barclays Center construction site
During an overlapping period this morning, a major piece of Sam Schwartz's traffic mitigation plan was tested against weekday traffic for the first time, a job action disrupted construction work at the arena, and a lane of traffic on Atlantic Avenue was closed in order to conduct random radiation tests.
Brownstoner, New AY-Area Traffic Change Slowing Traffic?
Posted by eric at 12:45 PM
Incident Report Saturday documents steel deliveries to Barclays Center that ignore ESDC's published truck regulations and appear to violate NYC law
Atlantic Yards Watch
Another day, another example of Forest City's utter disregard for the law.
The video above from Saturday shows a Barclays Center construction-related truck disobeying both NYC traffic laws and the ESDC's published truck rules on Pacific Street between 6th Avenue and Carlton. The truck crosses the 6th Avenue intersection while the north/south traffic on 6th Avenue has a green light, attaches a load waiting in the travel lane and then drives against traffic to block 1129.
This one truck trip is part of a series of steel deliveries on Saturday that were not consistent with either the Barclays Center Truck Rules and Requirements made public by the ESDC, or NYC traffic law.
Posted by eric at 12:28 PM
August 1, 2011
New Traffic Patterns Cause Confusion Near Atlantic Yards Project
CBS New York
Some drivers in Brooklyn were left scratching their heads around the Atlantic Yards project after new traffic patterns went into effect Monday morning.
The most significant change is an end to northbound traffic on the one block of Fourth Avenue between Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues.
...“Yet more problems in Brooklyn,” one driver said.
“I like to go straight, it’s more easier,” another driver said.
Click thru for the audio, replete with honking horns.
Posted by eric at 2:03 PM
July 28, 2011
Signs stating sections of Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street will be closed July 30-31 and August 6-7 from 8 am to 4 pm are incorrect; there will be no closures this weekend
Atlantic Yards Watch
Atlantic Yards Watch has corrected the street-closing information it posted earlier today.
 |
The new temporary closures were due to renovations on the Newswalk building, not Atlantic Yards. Apparently, the closures have been suspended for this upcoming weekend because the contractor failed to meet public notification requirements. When further information is available, it will be posted here.
NoLandGrab: We're sticking with our original theory, however — Bruce Ratner is throwing neighborhood residents the block party to end all block parties. In fact, it's likely to be a superblock party.
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
Police Begin Ticketing Illegally Parked Cars Near Atlantic Yards
Cops have given out 69 parking tickets in the past two weeks, the Daily News reports.
Park Slope Patch
by Amy Sara Clark
After months if not years of complaints, police have finally started ticketing some of the dozens upon dozens of illegally parked cars near the Atlantic Yards construction sites, according to the Daily News.
Cops have given out at least 69 parking tickets in the past two weeks for such violations as parking in a bus stop, on the sidewalk, in front of a hydrant and in No Stand Zones, the News reports.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Watch, The Daily News reports the NYPD is now ticketing construction worker cars parked illegally
As part of what will be an ongoing initiative Atlantic Yards Watch will post a review of existing construction worker parking strategies in a few weeks.
Posted by eric at 9:53 AM
July 27, 2011
Police crack down on illegal parking around Atlantic Yards construction
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
Cops have finally cracked down on the rampant illegal parking around the Atlantic Yards construction site.
The Daily News reported this month that construction workers, city employees and others were parking illegally and using bogus placards around the busy project site with no fear of enforcement - but now the NYPD is handing out the tickets.
Cops have issued 69 parking summonses in the last two weeks in the blocks around the site, an NYPD spokesman said. The spokesman said the violations "run the gamut" and include parking at a bus stop, on the sidewalk, in front of a hydrant, and in No Standing zones.
Empire State Development Corp. project manager Arana Hankin said when she visited the site last week, she saw NYPD brass directing a ticket blitz.
"All the cars were being ticketed," she said. "They were being threatened that they would be towed." ...
Wayne Bailey, 56, who had complained about the parking problem, said in addition to the NYPD ticket blitz, the Sanitation Department has been targeting alternate side parking violators.
"I want to give credit where credit is due. They're doing a good job," he said. "They don't park on the sidewalk anymore. ... Our streets are getting cleaner."
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Daily News: parking summonses rise around Atlantic Yards site; now, what about cops themselves? what about trucks with contents uncovered?
Unclear is whether the actions of police officers themselves are being targeted.
What next?
The illegal parking was blatant, thus relatively easy to respond to. Equally blatant, it seems, is the periodic departure of trucks from the Atlantic Yards site without tarps covering dirt and dust, as required by the Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments.
Will Hankin's agency step up to stop that?
Posted by eric at 11:02 AM
July 26, 2011
"Isolated incident"? Two more instances yesterday (and one today) of trucks leaving Atlantic Yards site with contents uncovered, violating environmental commitments memo
Atlantic Yards Report
OK, it's time to shut this construction site down until they can demonstrate even the smallest shred of competence.
Though the Empire State Development Corporation last week suggested that a truck leaving the Atlantic Yards site with its contents uncovered--a violation of an environmental commitments memo signed by developer Forest City Ratner--was an "isolated incident," the evidence is mounting that it wasn't.
Yesterday I wrote about how there appear to have been three additional episodes last week.
Beyond that, the incidents continued, as new photos were posted on Atlantic Yards Watch yesterday morning and afternoon, as well as this morning.
Click thru for yet more photographic evidence.
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
July 25, 2011
VIDEO: A Change Of Direction
Local residents respond to the new traffic patterns around the Atlantic Yards construction zone.
Park Slope Patch
by Patrick Conti
The streets, they are "a-changing"—direction, that is.
...Anticipating voluminous crowds of cars and pedestrians at Barclays Center, developer Forest City Ratner proposed a series of changes to the area's traffic patterns. The first of those changes kicked off Sunday with the reversal of direction on Pacific Street, which went from one-way westbound to one-way eastbound between Fourth and Flatbush avenues.
Posted by eric at 1:24 PM
Some Atlantic Yards Traffic Changes in Place
Brownstoner
Yesterday some of the traffic pattern changes planned for the streets around Barclays Center had been implemented, with Pacific Street between 4th Avenue and Flatbush switched from a westbound to eastbound street. A new traffic light was also in place on the corner of Flatbush and Pacific. According to a traffic cop on the scene, the other big change—which involves turning 4th Avenue between Atlantic and Flatbush into a one-way, southbound road—will be in effect next weekend.
Related coverage...
All About Fifth, Changes to Traffic Near Atlantic Yards
It isn't clear how this will affect Fifth Avenue, but we thought we would pass this information on.
Photo: Brownstoner
Posted by eric at 12:27 PM
July 22, 2011
Atlantic Terminal Traffic Changes Go Into Effect Sunday
The major traffic changes are being implemented in anticipation of Atlantic Yards.
Prospect Heights Patch
by Georgia Kral
Will this weekend mark the start of Brooklyn's very own Carmaggedon?
In anticipation of car crowds at the new Barclays Nets arena, developer Forest City Ratner has proposed a series of changes to traffic patterns.
The major changes go into effect on Sunday and include:
- Conversion of Fourth Avenue into a one-way street going southbound between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues only.
- Reversing Pacific Street from one-way westbound to one-way eastbound between Fourth and Flatbush avenues.
- Installation of a traffic signal at Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue, as well as a crosswalk.
- The ability for motorists to make a right or left turn from Pacific Street to Flatbush Avenue.
- Truck traffic will be barred from Pacific Street. Northbound Fourth Avenue truck traffic will be diverted to Third Avenue via Atlantic to get onto Flatbush.
Posted by eric at 10:22 AM
July 19, 2011
Do you commute thru Atlantic Yards/Barclays Arena Project Footprint?
This news about a research project hit our in-box this morning.
311NYCX is looking for civic minded cyclists that commute thru the Atlantic Yards/Barclays Arena Project Footprint!
The funding & duration for this project is scheduled to continue until December 2014!
311NYCX is looking for 10 to 15 or more civic minded bike commuters willing to wear a helmet cam that holds 4-5 hours of video. Ideally we will start with 6 riders that travel thru 4th Ave to Washington via Dean Street with emphasis on the bike lane from 5th Ave to Vanderbilt anytime from 5am to 10pm and the same route via Bergen. You will exchange SD cards between 6th Ave & Carlton Ave on Dean St 24/7 so no need to upload to FTP etc.
Your participation will be totally anonymous if you desire.
There will be 1 mandatory training meeting, interested? Please send an email to 311NYCX@gmail.com with your contact info & your commuting route details.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
July 15, 2011
Brennan Ditches Push for More Atlantic Yards-Area Parking
After plans to draft legislation requiring more on-site arena parking, residents were upset the move would draw more vehicles to the neighborhood.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
After Assemblymember Jim Brennan initially announced that he would introduce legislation to “compel” Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner to provide more on-site parking for the Barclays Center, after coming under fire from constituents and commenters on this site and others, Brennan has ditched any such plans.
“Mr. Brennan believes that the most important matter related to Atlantic Yards at this time is the lawsuit victory regarding the EIS,” said Lorrie Smith, the Legislative Director for Brennan’s office, reffering to Wednesday's decision that the ESDC, which oversees the project, needs to conduct another review of the project plan. “He will be urging ESDC not to appeal, but to perform a meaningful assessment of the area.”
...“He does not want to leave the impression that he was encouraging automobile traffic to come to the arena. He will now be looking at mass transit alternatives to assist in bringing people to the area,” said Smith.
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
July 14, 2011
Can sidewalks on residential Dean Street handle (some of) 3000 pedestrians coming from arena parking lot? "Sidewalks are expected to be sufficient," asserts ESDC
Atlantic Yards Report
The Empire State Development Corporation has posted [PDF] (also embedded below) 68 questions and responses from the 6/14/11 public meeting on traffic issues.
Over the next few days, I'm going to highlight some of the issues raised.
Sidewalks on Dean
This one jumped out:
31. Are sidewalks on Dean between 6th and Carlton sufficient to handle crowds coming from parking lot?
Pedestrians will use Pacific Street, as well as Dean Street. Sidewalks are expected to be sufficient.
Unlike in the rest of the document, the ESDC did not fall back on statements like "As disclosed in the FEIS [Final Environmental Impact Statement]," "The FEIS did not recommend," or "The FEIS did not assume."
Why? Because they never studied it.
Dean Street, not Pacific
Also note that Dean Street, not Pacific, has been considered the prime route, since there is an arena entrance on Dean Street, but not one on Pacific Street.
Posted by eric at 11:04 AM
July 13, 2011
Brennan Drops Plan for More Atlantic Yards Parking, Will Push Transit Instead
Streetsblog
by Noah Kazis
Assembly Member James Brennan has abandoned the idea of implementing additional parking minimums at Atlantic Yards. That plan would have led more people to drive to the arena while failing to keep on-street spaces open for area residents.
Wrote Brennan in an email to Streetsblog:
I understand the concerns raised about my idea of compelling Ratner to provide off-street parking. I agree completely that the correct policy is not to encourage automobiles coming to the area, so I am dropping any notion of initiating legislation on this subject. You should know that my intention was not to increase parking, but to compensate for the fact that the Empire State Development Corporation eliminated Ratner’s obligation to provide 2300 units of underground parking at the arena as part of the deal to delay completion of the project until 2035. My focus next session will be to find incentives for mass transit.
That’s encouraging news. Atlantic Yards is going up at the site of Brooklyn’s biggest transit hub — precisely the space not to induce more auto trips with government-mandated parking.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, From Streetsblog: Brennan Drops Plan for More Atlantic Yards Parking, Will Push Transit Instead
Note that only 1100 spaces are supposed to serve the arena, with the rest of the approximately 3600 aimed at the apartments. In other words, there were never "2300 units" for arena-goers.
Posted by eric at 11:41 AM
Video and photography show dump trucks lining Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton this morning
Atlantic Yards Watch
Video and photographs showing dump trucks lining Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton Avenues were attached to incident reports submitted to this website this morning.
The two videos, titled "5:45 am Atlantic Yards/FCR no flaggers + illegal idling," and the photographs show a line of trucks waiting underneath the 170 unit Newswalk building to enter one of the Barclays Center truck entrances at Pacific Street and 6th Avenue.
The trucks are lining up on the wrong block of Pacific Street. The video and photography illustrates an ongoing problem long brought to the attention of ESDC and FCRC. If the protocols outlined in the Barclays Center Delivery Truck Rules and Requirements for the use of a flagger at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street are not kept, the public Pacific Street between Carlton and 6th Avenues quickly becomes an extension of the construction site. The goal of the use of a flagger in this location is to avoid trucks lining up on this block.
The complaint details the trucks lining up for an hour beginning at 5:45 am, and the photos contain time tags placing them between 6:10 and 6:37 am. NYC law allows idling for no more than 3 minutes. Construction hours for the Barclays Center begin at 7:00 am.
NoLandGrab: Is it possible that everyone building this mess, from the ESDC and Bruce Ratner down to the guys filling and driving dump trucks, are just a bunch of incompetent dumbasses?
Posted by eric at 11:22 AM
July 8, 2011
Illegal parking rampant around Atlantic Yards construction zone in Brooklyn
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
Illegal parking and phony parking placards are rampant around the Atlantic Yards construction site, locals and advocates say.
A recent survey by a local block association and Transportation Alternatives found 87 cars in no-parking areas on about four and a half blocks near the arena - and only four had legitimate placards that allowed them to be there.
Of the 83 illegally parked cars, a dozen had construction equipment displayed in the dashboard and another 11 had phony placards from police, fire, and construction unions, the survey found. None of the cars had been ticketed.
Neighbors and advocates point the finger at the massive construction site and the nearby 78th Precinct - saying parking rules are almost never enforced.
...Meanwhile, the illegally parked cars block sidewalks, bus stops and fire hydrants and make it impossible for streets to be cleaned properly, Dean Street Block Association president Peter Krashes said.
"It's bad for the community. It's unsafe," he said. "I've never seen any tickets given to anybody."
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Daily News follows up on "rampant" illegal parking around Atlantic Yards construction zone; AYR video shows NYPD placards on Sixth Avenue
The parking problem closest the Atlantic Yards arena site seems more the province of public safety agencies than anyone else--which means the Empire State Development Corporation and Forest City Ratner don't have much clout.
The video below, shot on Tuesday (7/5/11), shows most cars parked in front of No Standing and No Stopping signs on Sixth Avenue between Dean and Pacific streets had police department placards, with a few having fire department placards and some without any obvious placards.
Posted by eric at 11:48 AM
For the Really Bad Idea File: Jim Brennan Proposes More Parking for Ratner Arena
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Yesterday Park Slope Patch reported on this really bad idea Assemblyman Jim Brennan is floating to force Ratner to provide more arena parking than the 1,100 spot surface parking lot the developer is already planning.
Posted by eric at 10:39 AM
July 7, 2011
Jim Brennan Wants to Force Ratner to Build More Atlantic Yards Parking
Streetsblog
by Noah Kazis
More on Jim Brennan's really bad Atlantic Yards parking idea.
According to Tonice Sgrignoli, a legislative aide for Brennan, the legislation is still being researched and no details are available at this point. According to Sgrignoli, ESDC eliminated a requirement to build underground off-street parking that had been in an earlier agreement with Forest City Ratner and this legislation would likely undo that change.
When Streetsblog asked why Brennan thought that Atlantic Yards should have more parking in the first place, Sgrignoli replied that “Anyone who’s ever tried to drive a car and park it in that area will understand why it’s important to provide parking.”
Hopefully, Brennan himself has a more sophisticated understanding of parking policy. As former Boerum Hill Association president Jo Ann Simon said, no conceivable amount of off-street parking is going to free up on-street spaces so long as they are cheaper than going to a garage and available to anybody. “If people drive there, they will always try and find something free on the street,” she said. What happens on-street — many in the area, including Simon, have long pushed for residential parking permits — Simon said, “is entirely irrelevant to whether there should be more off-street parking to serve the arena.”
Simon’s argument is borne out by the reality at Yankee Stadium. There, despite a whopping 9,000 off-street spaces, area residents still complain that on-street parking is impossible on game day, according to a Crain’s report.
Moreover, building extra parking will simply mean that more people are able to drive to the area instead. “Brennan’s proposal to compel more off-street parking in one of New York City’s most transit-accessible locations betrays a terrible lack of understanding regarding transportation and mobility,” said University of Pennsylvania parking expert Rachel Weinberger. “His idea will invite more traffic through his district, more traffic in adjoining districts, and by requiring all of that parking, other development is preempted.”
Posted by eric at 11:55 AM
Lessons for the Brooklyn arena from Streetsblog: don't make parking easier
Atlantic Yards Report
Now that Assemblyman Jim Brennan's thinking of requiring more parking near the Atlantic Yards arena, it's worth looking at an extensive 6/15/11 Streetsblog analysis, Can Brooklyn Build a Pedestrian-Friendly Arena at the Atlantic Yards Site?
Noah Kazis writes:
The fundamentals for a smart solution are there: The Atlantic/Pacific hub makes the area better-served by transit than almost anywhere else in the United States. Right now, though, the picture is more mixed. The state recently released its transportation plan for the arena, a plan largely in line with past promises from both the Empire State Development Corporation and the developer Forest City Ratner, which is intended to mitigate the increased traffic that the crowds heading to an arena event will bring to the surrounding neighborhoods. Many of the features, like free subway fares for certain Nets ticket holders and 400 secure bike parking spaces, will help make the Barclays Center more transit-oriented and bike and pedestrian-friendly.
But the developer is planning to build an 1,100-space surface parking lot, killing street life and inducing driving. And with some of the borough’s deadliest streets left in place as enormous traffic arteries, walking and cycling will remain overly dangerous, potentially keeping features like a temporary plaza from being much more than a hard-to-reach traffic island.
In other words, the argument is for fewer parking spaces, not more.
Posted by eric at 11:41 AM
Canadian truck carrying prefabricated Barclays Center seating blocks local street's bike lane while idling
Atlantic Yards Watch
A Canadian truck carrying prefabricated Barclays Center seating blocked the Dean Street bicycle lane at Vanderbilt Avenue for over an hour last night. The truck was headed to block 1129 where the seating is stored before being installed in the arena.
According to the local resident who supplied the video above, he first encountered the truck in the location shown in the video around 6:00 pm. The video was filmed over an hour later when he returned from dinner. At both times the truck was idling and sitting in the same place in the bicycle lane.
The truck was apparently violating NYC law. Not only is Dean Street not a NYCDOT designated truck route, in NYC trucks are only allowed to idle for 3 minutes. Blocking a bicycle lane is also not allowed.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Video from Atlantic Yards Watch: idling Canadian truck carrying arena seating, improperly using Dean Street, blocks bike lane for an hour
The need for an Atlantic Yards ombudsman--er, community relations manager--remains, as Prospect Heights residents continue to notice apparently improper construction activities.
Shouldn't someone official be proactively responding, telling us, You're wrong, this isn't a problem, or Thanks for pointing this out, we're taking action so it doesn't happen again?
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
July 6, 2011
More parking spaces for the Atlantic Yards arena? Brennan idea said to be "very preliminary," draws immediate fire; isn't the issue demand management?
Atlantic Yards Report
More parking spaces for the Atlantic Yards arena? According to Patch, Assemblyman Jim Brennan aims to introduce legislation that would “compel Ratner to provide more parking” near the site.
One commenter on Patch wrote:
Jim: You are wildly out-of-touch on this issue. Community groups have stated very clearly: We want residential parking permits and an extremely limited on-site parking supply at this new arena. This is the way to ensure less gridlock, pollution and cruising for parking on our neighborhood streets.
Maybe that's why a Brennan aide told Patch the legislation is “very preliminary.”
...It's the job of Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation, presumably in consultation with local bodies, to develop a demand management strategy, one that already has several element, as described below.
A refined version of the plan is due in about six months, with opportunity for public comment.
Posted by eric at 10:41 PM
Brennan to Push for More Atlantic Yards Parking
Assemblymember Jim Brennan plans to introduce legislation to force Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner to provide more parking.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
This could be the worst Atlantic Yards idea yet, which, as anyone familiar with the project could tell you, is really saying something.
Those already drafting their contingency plans for a parking nightmare once Barclays Arena opens may soon have something to look forward to.
While the Department of Transportation is still only “considering” residential parking permits to cope with the impending parking pain once the 18,000-seat arena opens for the 2012 basketball season, Assemblymember Jim Brennan is drafting his own plan to keep game-goers from taking up precious neighborhood parking spaces.
Brennan is gearing up to introduce legislation that would “compel Ratner to provide more parking,” he said last week.
Brennan said that the 1,100 parking spaces Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner plans to provide for the arena is insufficient given the size of the space. Residents have long worried that on game days, parking in the neighborhood will be nearly impossible and have pressed the city to initiate residential parking permits.
“We’re going to force them to provide more off-street parking,” said Brennan. “There is no reason that Forest City Ratner should be allowed to not provide parking.”
NoLandGrab: Actually, there is every reason that Forest City Ratner should be allowed to not provide parking. If you build it, they will drive [PDF].
Posted by eric at 2:05 PM
July 4, 2011
The need for an ESDC ombudsman--er, community relations manager--and responses to Atlantic Yards Watch concerns about truck routes
Atlantic Yards Report
Given reports on Atlantic Yards Watch of apparent improper construction activities, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) had better fill its job opening soon.
The ESDC has publicly posted the job opening (embedded below) for the position formerly known as Ombudsman, formally termed Manager – Community & Government Relations, Atlantic Yards Project.
The job description states:
The basic function of this position is to foster and manage communications and relationships with local elected officials and community groups/leaders within the Brooklyn community relating to the Atlantic Yards Project; and assist in mitigating the effects of construction by coordinating all relevant parties.
That may be an accurate description of the tasks faced by the former occupant, Forrest Taylor (who left last month after 3.5 years), rather than the formal definition of ombudsman, which is someone "who investigates complaints and mediates fair settlements."
Posted by eric at 11:09 AM
July 3, 2011
Barclays Center contractor Laquila regularly sends trucks down local streets and passed Dean Playground
Atlantic Yards Watch
Illegal Atlantic Yards contructions truck on Dean from tracy collins on Vimeo.
In the last week construction trucks have been sighted regularly on Dean Street between 6th and Vanderbilt Avenues. A resident of Carlton Avenue from Dean to Pacific Streets also states trucks have lined up there early in the morning.
The trucks on Dean Street largely appear to be associated with Laquila, a contractor working on Barclays Center. Many trucks are loaded with gravel and travel past Dean Playground, down Dean Street to Vanderbilt, turn left on Vanderbilt and left again into the former Pacific Street. They may be delivering gravel to a site on block 1129 where the gravel is sifted and loaded back on trucks.
According to a driver interrupted mid-trip at the intersection of Dean Street and Carlton Avenue on Friday July 1st, no information has been provided to Laquila drivers about the routes to take from the arena block.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Watch, Lack of clarity about truck routes, rules and requirements may lead to unnecessary impacts for the local community
Besides recent complaints about truck traffic on Dean Street, this website has received multiple truck related complaints in the last two weeks including a flat bed truck idling twice in two consecutive days on Pacific Street between Underhill and Vanderbilt Avenues and cement trucks lining Dean Street between 5th and Flatbush Avenues. Another complaint located a stationary truck near an accident at Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.
Lack of clarity about truck routes, rules and requirements may lead to unnecessary impacts for the local community. Current Barclays Center Delivery Truck Rules and Requirements [PDF] rule out queing anywhere except Pacific Street from Vanderbilt to Carlton.
For months the truck requirements on the ESDC website have been out of date, and the information in the construction alerts released every two weeks has had little useful relationship to the actual configuration of truck entrances around the perimeter of the project.
Posted by eric at 6:48 PM
June 29, 2011
Contentious meeting on traffic/parking issues around east end of AY site; ESDC says Forest City's "in violation" without daily on-site community liaison
Atlantic Yards Report
Note: I did not attend the meeting but listened to an audiotape and spoke with a couple of attendees.
Five nights after a contentious meeting (about rats) in the Soapbox Gallery on Dean Street, Prospect Heights residents gathered in the same space last night to express concerns about parking, traffic, and pedestrian issues in the eastern end of the site, notably the planned 1100-space parking lot in the block bounded by Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues and Dean and Pacific streets.
The two-hour meeting was periodically contentious, with residents expressing frustration at vague, incomplete answers, and promises of future solutions.
Beyond that, a representative of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) indicated that developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) was in violation of the Memorandum of Environmental Commitments by not having a daily on-site representative to interface with the community. (I'm waiting for the ESDC to say more.)
The meeting was sponsored by the Carlton Avenue and Dean Street Block Associations, with two ESDC and two FCR representatives present, along with an FCR contractor and a Department of Transportation rep. About 60 people attended.
Dan Schack of Sam Schwartz Engineering led off with the PowerPoint description of changes already announced, changes focused on the north and west edges of the project site. Attendees were far more interested in other issues.
Parking issues
Meeting host Peter Krashes of the Dean Street Block Association repeated the results of a survey of illegal parking around the site done with the help of Transportation Alternatives. Of 87 cars, all but four were parked illegally. Among the rest, twelve had some sort of construction gear. Others, including fire and police offers, had either phony placards or had parked improperly even with the placard.
Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project for the ESDC, said she's spoken to the local precinct at least five times and Forest City at least ten times. The issue of construction workers, she said, "we've tried to solve."
Posted by eric at 2:30 PM
Atlantic Yards: The Future
Transitional New York
The "Atlantic Yards area of Brooklyn?" Really? And the station is already there.
With the completion of the Barclays Center, the Atlantic Yards area of Brooklyn will no longer be just for locals but it will be a place for people of New York, New Jersey, and all visitors. In the development, a new station will arise, Atlantic Yards Barclays Center, which connects 9 lines and the LIRR becoming one of the most accessible venues in New York.
NoLandGrab: "Minutes from the Brooklyn Bridge?" Not on game nights, unless you're on a bike. And why would they lead with the bridge location when it's alleged to be "transit-oriented development?"
Posted by eric at 9:44 AM
June 28, 2011
The traffic on 4th Ave is so bad right now you'd think there's a game at the Barclays Center
@BrooklynSpoke via Twitter
Posted by eric at 10:30 PM
June 27, 2011
Despite nearness to major transit hub, Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Center mall shows contrast with European counterparts transit hub
Atlantic Yards Report
There's still too much parking around the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street transit hub, right?
From a New York Times article today--the lead story in the both the national and New York edition--headlined Europe Stifles Drivers in Favor of Alternatives (and in print, more pungently, as "Across Europe, Irking Drivers is Urban Policy"):
Michael Kodransky, global research manager at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy [ITDP] in New York, which works with cities to reduce transport emissions, said that Europe was previously “on the same trajectory as the United States, with more people wanting to own more cars.” But in the past decade, there had been “a conscious shift in thinking, and firm policy,” he said. And it is having an effect.
...It often takes extreme measures to get people out of their cars, and providing good public transportation is a crucial first step. One novel strategy in Europe is intentionally making it harder and more costly to park. “Parking is everywhere in the United States, but it’s disappearing from the urban space in Europe,” said Mr. Kodransky, whose recent report “Europe’s Parking U-Turn” surveys the shift.
Sihl City, a new Zurich mall, is three times the size of Brooklyn’s Atlantic Mall but has only half the number of parking spaces, and as a result, 70 percent of visitors get there by public transport, Mr. Kodransky said.
That should have been reported as the Atlantic Center Mall, Kodransky confirms with me, as it derives from a 3/17/11 blog post. (Forest City Ratner also operates the Atlantic Terminal Mall, and sometimes conflates the two under the Atlantic Terminal rubric.)
These issues, of course, also apply to Atlantic Yards, which includes a planned 1100 spaces for the arena and additional 2500 or so spots for the announced housing.
NoLandGrab: A less auto-centric newspaper might have headlined the story "Europe Prioritizes Pedestrians" or "For Europe, Urban Future is Now."
Posted by eric at 11:11 AM
June 21, 2011
Parking Permits for Atlantic Yards Area Still a Big ‘Maybe’
The city will divulge little detail on how seriously it's considering residential parking permits.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
Parking in Brownstone Brooklyn is already a headache—and that’s without the extra traffic the Barclays Arena will bring to the area once the 18,000-seat arena opens for the 2012 basketball season.
To cope with the impending parking pain, residents have continually pressed the city to initiate residential parking permits—but the city has given locals little more than an ambiguous maybe.
“The community has expressed an interest in Residential Parking Permits for arena events and we are looking into a number of solutions to deal with the parking concerns in the area,” said Department of Transportation Spokesperson Scott Gastel.
...“I just hope that this idea comes to fruition and it's just not a whole bunch of talk,” said Prospect Place resident Karla Andino, 25. “This stadium will be complete in no time and the city should always look out for the residents first.”
NoLandGrab: If Ms. Andino is not more careful in her word choice, she might get a condescending letter from Marty Markowitz explaining the difference between a "stadium" and an "arena." One thing she's sure to get? A neighborhood overrun by traffic.
Posted by eric at 10:44 PM
Third Avenue Shuffle
Atlantic Yards Watch
by Danae Oratowski
The biggest change last announced last week as part of the traffic plan developed by Sam Schwartz was the re-engineering of the intersection of Fourth, Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, which seeks to untangle the knot of traffic that regularly forms when three of Brooklyn’s busiest traffic arteries converge. Sam Schwartz’s plan removes the northbound lanes of Fourth Avenue between Atlantic and Flatbush, the shortest side of the triangle. Cars going north down Fourth to Flatbush will now get diverted west on to Atlantic and will then turn right on to Third Avenue in order to reach Flatbush - to get to Lafayette. The changes are intended to keep cars moving, prevent them from getting stuck in the intersections and increase pedestrian safety. But in the estimation of many living on or around Third Avenue in Boerum Hill, the plan solves one set of problems by creating another.
Residents in the area believe that a significant number of cars will try to cut over to Third Avenue south of Atlantic, driving through smaller, residential streets along the way and increasing already dangerous conditions for pedestrians. They have reason to be concerned. Third Avenue just south of Atlantic already has high traffic volumes, a history of speeding and has been the scene several pedestrian and bicycle fatalities over the last several years. (Three of the children fatally struck are depicted with ghost-like transparency on a two-story mural that looms over Third Avenue and Butler Place.) According to the 2006 FEIS, there were 610 vehicles in the single northbound lane during morning rush hour. By comparison, there were 1217 vehicles in three lanes of northbound traffic on Fourth Avenue (FEIS, Figures C1-a and b). One resident of the neighborhood described the area as a “ring of fire,” where turning cars and cars stuck in intersections make crossing the street a frightening experience for pedestrians.
Posted by eric at 10:40 PM
June 17, 2011
Sovereign Immunity, Reconfiguration of Brooklyn’s Traffic And The Peculiar Verisimilitude of Government Functions When Forest City Ratner Takes Over
Noticing New York
Here's an excellent Michael D.D. White piece on the abdication of the public role to Forest City Ratner and its consultants.
After I thought about seeing Sam Schwartz’s presentation at Borough Hall the other night it struck me that I had seen something very odd. Yes, the presentation was in the stately courtroom of Borough Hall, the carved woodwork, towering pillars and ornate ceiling conveyed the sense of governmental formality, but here was a man, a consultant hired by and working for a private developer, describing how, as a result of that developer’s project, traffic, was going to be rerouted by him all around the busiest most populous areas of the borough.
While flash animated videos showed the multitudinous streets involved (or at least those to which Mr. Schwartz was extending his formal consideration), Mr. Schwartz casually explained about the little blue stand-ins for real vehicles scooting around in the videos “did not represent the real volume of traffic flow” (which would in real life be considerably heavier) and were there only to demonstrate the sets of theoretical turn off choices drivers would have at specific streets and avenues. Perhaps, by the same token, it should be pointed out that, appearances aside, Mr. Schwartz, standing in Borough Hall showing how so much of the borough’s traffic would be reconfigured (without actually simulating the real volume of traffic flow), did not represent a real public official.
The Private Sector Without Sovereign Immunity
So this is what I am wondering: Although Forest City Ratner and Sam Schwartz as its engineering consultant may seem a lot like the government performing a government function, that is not what they are. Forest City Ratner and Sam Schwartz are private sector entities and however much they have intruded themselves into an assumption of what we would expect would be a government process they are no more actual government officials than a privately hired mall security guard.
So the question is: Can they be liable for their negligence if they do damage in this vastly extensive and impactful reorganization of the borough affecting so many neighbors? As sovereign immunity should not apparently apply to their actions, can these private entities be sued in court if the effect that the new arena and traffic patterns have is to slow response times for the police and fire departments resulting in deaths, physical injuries and property loss when their arrival is consequently delayed?
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Noticing New York on how it looks like Forest City Ratner and consultant Sam Schwartz are performing government functions
Michael D. D. White, in his Noticing New York blog, reflects on the real strangeness of the Forest City Ratner/Empire State Development Corporation session on traffic June 14, given that a private consultant hired by a private developer was explaining--at times not all too well--how public streets would be managed.
...What if they're sued? White suggests:
If they are, it is probable that they would claim that, despite evidence to the contrary, they actually took no actions, that all the actions were taken by exclusively public agencies immune through sovereign immunity.
Posted by eric at 10:28 AM
June 16, 2011
Can Brooklyn Build a Pedestrian-Friendly Arena at the Atlantic Yards Site?
Streetsblog
by Noah Kazis
The excellent Streetsblog reporter Noah Kazis looks at the transportation issues surrounding the Barclays Center, and some best-practices from around the country.
Ready or not, come September 28, 2012, Brooklyn will once again be home to a major professional sports venue. The Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards is scheduled to open by next fall, while progress on the rest of Forest City Ratner’s mega-development is lagging far behind. In the words of local City Council Member Letitia James, “All we’re getting is an arena and a large parking lot.”
James’s conclusion is perhaps a bit premature, as Norman Oder has noted at the Atlantic Yards Report, but the basic premise is right: The arena is moving ahead while the rest of the project languishes, and for a while the arena may stand all alone. The primary transportation planning challenge facing the area is how best to move the tens of thousands of people who will want to watch a basketball game or concert to and from the site in a way that is safe, sustainable and appropriate to an urban environment.
The fundamentals for a smart solution are there: The Atlantic/Pacific hub makes the area better-served by transit than almost anywhere else in the United States. Right now, though, the picture is more mixed. The state recently released its transportation plan for the arena, a plan largely in line with past promises from both the Empire State Development Corporation and the developer Forest City Ratner, which is intended to mitigate the increased traffic that the crowds heading to an arena event will bring to the surrounding neighborhoods. Many of the features, like free subway fares for certain Nets ticket holders and 400 secure bike parking spaces, will help make the Barclays Center more transit-oriented and bike and pedestrian-friendly.
But the developer is planning to build an 1,100-space surface parking lot, killing street life and inducing driving. And with some of the borough’s deadliest streets left in place as enormous traffic arteries, walking and cycling will remain overly dangerous, potentially keeping features like a temporary plaza from being much more than a hard-to-reach traffic island.
Between developer Forest City Ratner, the Empire State Development Corporation and the city government, the capacity exists to make the Barclays Center a standard-setting example for urban arenas around the country, if only they have the will.
Posted by eric at 11:29 PM
Net nabe's 'park' perk
NY Post
by Rich Calder and Wilson Dizard
The dream of city residential-parking permits could become reality for neighbors of the planned Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Christopher Hrones, the Department of Transportation's Downtown Brooklyn coordinator, said the agency is looking to offer the permits as relief to residents living nearby the 18,000-seat Prospect Heights arena, which opens in September 2012 and will be the new home of the NBA's Nets.
The arena -- part of the Atlantic Yards project -- can accommodate just 1,100 cars, and neighborhood parking is already scarce.
"We need to explore how it would work. This is something we will be looking at now, and when the arena opens," Hrones said during an Atlantic Yards meeting at Borough Hall Tuesday night.
Hrones said there are no plans to look at offering the permits in other parts of the city, and it's still unclear how large an area will be studied. Any permit plan would need to be approved by the state Legislature.
Posted by eric at 4:43 PM
A Pile of Questions on Atlantic Yard Traffic Changes
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Lisha Arino
After Tuesday’s public hearing on traffic changes around the construction at Atlantic Yards and the planned Barclays Center stadium, organizers collected a pile of questions from residents on index cards.
But some attendees complained that they left the meeting with few answers.
Peter Krashes, president of the Dean Street Block Association, said that he came with low expectations for the meeting, but was still disappointed by how it went.
“I brought quite a few questions and a host of them weren’t answered, and there were specific details about the plans that weren’t discussed,” he said.
...Before the hearing ended, Arana Hankin from the Empire State Development Corporation acknowledged that many questions had been left unanswered. She said the answers to all the questions will appear on Empire State Development’s Web Site within the next week or two.
Posted by eric at 4:20 PM
June 15, 2011
At forum on traffic, new concerns about unintended consequences of traffic mitigations: spillover onto and around Third Avenue
Atlantic Yards Report
As per usual, Norman Oder has the definitive report on last night's presentation of Atlantic Yards traffic, ahem, mitigation plans, including lots of video and a rundown of all the Q & A.
Before the meeting on Atlantic Yards traffic mitigations last night, held by the Empire State Development Corporation and Forest City Ratner, the main objections expressed, via Atlantic Yards Watch and BrooklynSpeaks, were that the plans focused on Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, doing nothing to address traffic congestion on the eastern end of the project nor to control on-street parking by arena patrons.
Nor do the plans, which begin this month, fully acknowledge the impact of a much attenuated construction schedule.
And last night, as Forest City Ratner consultant Sam Schwartz described the previously announced plan to an audience of more than 100 at Brooklyn Borough Hall, significant new objections arose.
Schwartz also exhibited a shaky grasp of a few of the project's many details, such as the entry points to the planned surface parking lot.
Posted by eric at 10:47 AM
More Traffic Woes for Third Avenue, Courtesy Atlantic Yards
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
Get ready for gridlock.
Construction on a series of major traffic changes in anticipation of the 2012 opening of the Barclays Center arena will get underway as early as today, but residents in the arena’s footprint charge that plans to mitigate the thousands of new vehicles that will crowd the neighborhood on game days just doesn’t cut it.
In expectation of the car crowds the new arena will net on event days, developer Forest City Ratner has proposed a series of changes to traffic patterns – some slated to take effect beginning July 31.
...At a hearing for the plan at Borough Hall on Tuesday night, residents were dumbfounded by the lack of plans for blocks such as State Street and Third Avenue – blocks likely to be affected by massive amounts of traffic spillover, but apparently not close enough to the arena site to be considered in the plan.
“This is a gaping hole in the plan,” said Jonathan Glazer, 51, a resident of State Street near Third Avenue.
..."I'm screwed," said Daughtry Carstarphen, another State Street resident. "Traffic is going to be at a standstill. They're making all these changes on behalf of the people coming to events, they don't give a flying patookie about those of us that live there."
Related coverage...
NY1, Traffic Engineer Tries To Address Potential Atlantic Yards Bottleneck
Schwartz said the real key will be convincing those who come to the arena to take mass transit. So the plan calls for only one new parking lot with 1,100 spaces.
However, those plans were not enough for some who live nearby.
One question that was answered dealt with residential parking, and concerns that arena-goers will take up many of the precious free parking spots on the street.
Posted by eric at 10:40 AM
June 14, 2011
A private developer's traffic plan won't work for Brooklyn
BrooklynSpeaks
This evening at Brooklyn Borough Hall, a consultant hired by Forest City Ratner will present a plan to implement significant alterations to the streets surrounding the Atlantic Yards project in order to manage congestion at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues expected when the Barclays Center arena opens. The elements of the plan are taken from a five-year old environmental study which was also paid for by the Atlantic Yards developer, and which has not been updated to reflect changes to the roadway network over the intervening years. Whether Forest City’s plan will be an effective solution for the worst traffic intersection in Brooklyn remains to be seen, but there is no question it falls far short of what is required to handle the tidal wave of traffic—and stampedes of pedestrians—that its arena will generate. It is certainly not a substitute for the comprehensive transportation plan the City and State owe the people of Brooklyn.
The Forest City plan does nothing to address traffic congestion on the eastern end of the project, which is encapsulated within a residential neighborhood. It contains little information about traffic and pedestrian circulation between the arena and the 1,100 car surface parking lot, and it leaves out mitigations that would increase capacity for cars on streets and pedestrians on sidewalks described in the project’s environmental impact statement. It does nothing to address anticipated spillover traffic through the neighborhoods as drivers attempt to navigate around the project.
An even larger gap in the plan is its complete absence of any strategy to control on-street parking by arena patrons, even though the U.S. Department of Transportation identifies management of free and metered parking as one of the most important factors in a successful demand management program. Although the Atlantic Yards’ environmental study claims the project will include sufficient off-street parking to meet the projected demand on event days, it estimates that 3,000 drivers will opt to park on-street instead. Given the extreme shortage of on-street parking today in Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, Boerum Hill and Park Slope, the potential for a catastrophe of congestion on residential streets is truly frightening, and very likely.
Posted by eric at 2:34 PM
REMINDER: Community Forum on Atlantic Yards Traffic Changes Tonight
From the "Community Notice" issued by the Empire State Development Corporation on May 23rd:
The public is invited to a forum sponsored by Empire State Development and Community Boards 2, 6 and 8 to discuss the above traffic changes. The forum will take place on Tuesday, June 14 at Brooklyn Borough Hall (209 Joralemon St) in the courtroom from 6:30pm until 8:00pm.
There will be a presentation detailing the changes and the public will have an opportunity to ask questions.
Posted by eric at 11:09 AM
June 13, 2011
Sam Schwartz traffic mitigation plan delivers less than was promised
Atlantic Yards Watch
This Tuesday, June 14, Forest City Ratner will present to the public the long- awaited plan to manage traffic resulting from the 19,000 visitors anticipated to come to the Barclay's Arena. The plan was created by traffic consultant Sam Schwartz and can be viewed here at the ESDC website. The public presentation will be held at Brooklyn Borough Hall, (209 Joralemon Street), from 6:30 to 8:00 pm.
Tuesday night will be an opportunity for the public to ask questions, and hopefully get answers, but it is not an opportunity for input from local stakeholders. The plan itself is a fait accompli, approved by ESDC and NYC DOT before the public - and even our elected officials - had a chance to weigh in.
What will you hear on Tuesday night? The plan largely focuses on untying the knot of traffic at the triangle of Flatbush, Atlantic and Fourth Avenues. But for those living in the immediate vicinity of the project, many questions are left unanswered. The plan does not address many of the traffic and pedestrian impacts that will result from 19,000 arena patrons coming to the site. Many of the roadway and sidewalk changes outlined in the FEIS are absent from the plan, having either been rejected with no explanation, or put off into the future. It also fails to include emergency egress or security, issues that greatly concern the surrounding neighborhood.
Posted by eric at 10:55 PM
June 7, 2011
Atlantic Yards CHAOS
My BK State of Mind
The Barclays Capital Arena isn't exactly something I'm looking forward to...traffic wise.
And apparently, the residents of Prospects Heights continue to be unhappy as well. This battle has been going on for years, with the people losing to a big corporation.
Photo: Miss Dominique
Posted by eric at 12:03 PM
June 6, 2011
Traffic changes around AY site delayed from July 15 to July 24 so MPT (temporary change) can begin right after public meeting June 14
Atlantic Yards Report
It has previously been reported that traffic changes around the Atlantic Yards site would begin July 15. Now, according to developer Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation, there will be a slight delay:
On or around July 24, 2011 Pacific Street (between Fourth Avenue and Flatbush Avenue only) will be reversed, changing from one-way westbound to one-way eastbound, toward Flatbush Avenue. To accommodate this change, a new traffic signal will be installed at the intersection of Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue, along with a new crosswalk across Flatbush Avenue. Vehicles will be able to make right or left turns onto Flatbush Avenue at this location. This block can be accessed from both northbound and southbound Fourth Avenue.
Approximately one week later, Fourth Avenue (between Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue) will be converted to one-way southbound to improve traffic flow at the Flatbush Avenue/Atlantic Avenue/Fourth Avenue intersection. Fourth Avenue northbound traffic, including all commercial vehicles, can access Flatbush Avenue by turning left onto Atlantic Avenue, right onto Third Avenue and left onto Flatbush Avenue. Pacific Street will offer secondary access to Flatbush Avenue. No through truck traffic will be permitted on Pacific Street.
Why the change? According to ESDC spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell:
We did not want any roadway changes occurring until after the public meeting on June 14, and there is a MPT (Maintenance Protection of Traffic) plan that must be implemented before construction can begin.
The old schedule had the MPT (this is a temporary traffic change to allow for the street direction to be changed permanently) being implemented on June 1st and the final roadway change to be implemented on July 15. The new schedule calls for the MPT to be put in place on June 15, the final implementation date has been pushed back to July 24.
Posted by eric at 11:38 AM
May 31, 2011
Is the law finally going to be enforced in relation to illegal construction worker parking on Pacific Street?
Atlantic Yards Watch
The NYPD has posted "no parking" signs on Pacific Street from the Newswalk parking garage to 6th Avenue on Pacific Street for Tuesday, May 31st.
Are the police finally going to crack down on the illegal construction worker parking on Pacific Street that regularly occurs on sidewalks and in no standing zones in this location? There are no signs on the 6th Avenue bridge which is also a regular source of free and illegal parking for Barclays Center construction workers.
As has been commented on by community members on this website, the illegal parking in this location has regularly blocked sidewalks and the travel lane, as well as made street cleaning impossible. It has also contributed to a sense that parking regulations in the area are enforced selectively.
NoLandGrab: We thought all the jobs were going to people from the neighborhood. Why would anyone need to drive?
Posted by eric at 1:21 PM
May 30, 2011
Two accidents occur within an hour on Dean Street Monday morning
Atlantic Yards Watch
Two car accidents occurred inside one hour, and within two contiguous blocks on Dean Street Monday morning, May 23rd.
Amy Sara Clark reports in the Prospect Heights Patch that a four car accident took place at 7:30 a.m. on Dean Street between Carlton and 6th Avenues when a driver swerved to avoid a double parked car. The driver was taken to the hospital with unspecified injuries.
Only minutes later at 8:15 a.m., another accident occurred on Dean Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt when a street cleaner driving against traffic hit a car traveling with the traffic. The street cleaner works for Laquila who is a contractor on Barclays Center construction. It is unclear why the street cleaner was driving in the incorrect direction during peak driving time.
 |
Traffic in the area has increased since the street closures took place that established the footprint of the Atlantic Yards Project. The increased traffic on Dean Street has been compounded by the extended reconstruction of the Carlton Avenue Bridge. Along with the increased traffic has come more accidents.
NoLandGrab: Ratner's private street sweeper causing an accident by going the wrong way on Dean Street is a pretty apt metaphor for Atlantic Yards, don't you think?
Photo: Atlantic Yards Watch
Posted by eric at 10:15 AM
May 28, 2011
Atlantic Arena, Traffic Mitigation plans
North Flatbush Avenue BID
Here's further notice of traffic changes due to construction of the new Nets arena:
The following changes are scheduled to take place on July 15th, 2011.
Conversion of Fourth Avenue between Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue into a one-way southbound street.
• Reversal of the direction of Pacific Street between Fourth and Flatbush avenues, changing it from westbound to eastbound.
• Installation of a new traffic light at the intersection of Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue, and a new crosswalk across from Flatbush Avenue, where vehicles will be able to make right or left turns onto Flatbush Avenue.
• Cars and trucks can use Third Avenue via Atlantic to get to Flatbush Avenue. Pacific Street will offer secondary access to Flatbush Avenue, but trucks are not permitted to use it.
The changes mean that Flatbush Avenue-bound cars on Fourth Avenue will either have to turn on Pacific Street, or take Atlantic Avenue to Third Avenue: the Flatbush Two Step is born.
NoLandGrab: Rather than mitigation, this is a plan for aggravation.
Posted by steve at 10:33 PM
May 27, 2011
The Flatbush Two Step! Major street changes coming to Barclays Center area
The Brooklyn Paper
by Gary Buiso
Get ready to dance the Flatbush-to-Fourth Two-Step — whether you like it or not.
The state this week unveiled its plan to ease traffic around the $1-billion Barclays Center at Flatbush, Fourth and Atlantic avenues, permanent changes that its creator predicts will untangle the maze of roadways near the rising basketball arena.
The changes, already ratified by the state and city, will take hold on July 15.
...The plan was first broached six years ago in the project’s environmental impact statement, one that galled critics who claimed the changes splash lipstick on a pig — namely, an 18,000-seat arena surrounded by low-rise residential neighborhoods.
“They want to turn my street into a viaduct,” said Pacific Street resident Jim Vogel, who said he expects mayhem on game nights — when 500-800 cars will traverse Pacific Street between Fourth and Flatbush avenues every hour, according to the developer’s estimates.
Other block residents were equally perturbed.
“What mitigation?” wondered Therese Urban. “You mean the one that doesn’t mitigate traffic and only adds to it. This was objectionable when it was first written six years ago — and it still is.”
Related coverage...
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Traffic Changes Coming to Area Near Atlantic Yards
Dennis Holt reworks the press release.
Posted by eric at 9:37 AM
May 26, 2011
VIDEO: Pedestrians, Bicyclists Sound Off On Planned Atlantic Yards Traffic Changes
Reacting to a recently announced Traffic Mitigation Plan, residents hope for the best... but prepare for the worst.
Park Slope Patch
by Paul Leonard
"It's going to be a complete mess."
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
May 24, 2011
Big Traffic Changes in the Works for Atlantic Yards Area
A mitigation plan proposed by the ESDC will take effect on or around July 15.
Park Slope Patch
by Kristen V. Brown
Motorists just getting used to navigating the maze of construction vehicles, barriers and crossing guards around Atlantic Yards will have to contend with another round of major changes intended to relieve traffic jams through the area.
The Empire State Development Corporation released a Traffic Mitigation Plan on Monday that will alter the flow of traffic through key intersections as Barclays Center construction continues.
...A source at the 88th Precinct, which covers the neighborhoods north of the Atlantic Yards site, said that the most troublesome area in terms of traffic incidents was the crossing between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
Posted by eric at 7:14 PM
ESDC issues Community Notice re traffic changes coming July 15; Community Forum June 14; presentation now online
Atlantic Yards Report
Following up on last Thursday's Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, the Empire State Development Corporation has issued an official Community Notice regarding traffic changes beginning on or around July 15, and a public meeting on June 14, as well as the presentation prepared for the meeting.
Notably, while I and others have emphasized one impact of the closure of Fourth Avenue northbound between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues--the odd right turn on Pacific Street to go east to Flatbush, and then left to go north--the presentation indicates that most drivers heading toward the Manhattan Bridge would instead go left on Atlantic and right on Third Avenue to reach Flatbush.
The changes were prepared by Sam Schwartz Engineering, Forest City Ratner's contractor, and ratified by city and state agencies.
...Animation describing traffic plan
Posted by eric at 12:46 PM
COMMUNITY NOTICE: Permanent Changes to the Roadway Network on Fourth Avenue and Pacific Street
Posted by eric at 12:40 PM
Atlantic Yards: Arena Opening Traffic Mitigation Plan
Arena Traffic Mitigation Plan 52311
Posted by eric at 12:27 PM
Is a planted Atlantic Avenue median the latest design casualty at Atlantic Yards?
Atlantic Yards Watch
When asked about plantings on the raised median planned for Atlantic Avenue east of Flatbush, Forest City Ratner project manager Jane Marshall stated there would only be a poured concrete median. Ms. Marshall said that the existence of LIRR tracks beneath Atlantic Avenue made it impossible to include planting beds on the median. Councilmember Tish James pointed out that Park Avenue in Manahattan has railroad tracks running beneath it from Grand Central to north of 96th Street. Ms. Marshall quickly replied that the supports beneath Park Avenue were stronger.
A planted median certainly seemed possible at the time the EIS was issued. A rendering of Atlantic Avenue looking west from Sixth Avenue shows a row of shrubs and trees separating lanes of traffic on Atlantic Avenue. And an aerial landscape plan also shows trees on the median between Flatbush and Sixth.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, What happened to trees on the Atlantic Avenue median opposite the arena? They were in the FEIS visuals but not in the text
Then again, as Atlantic Yards Watch, via Gib Veconi, points out, landscape architect Laurie Olin, whose firm produced the renderings, left the project more than two years ago.
And it may be that no one expected Olin's designs to be more than "conceptual."
After all, I'd add, there seems to be a discrepancy between the visuals attached to the Final EIS and the text, which, in Chapter 12, Traffic & Parking, mentions a median but not plantings.
Posted by eric at 11:50 AM
When arena opens in 2012, Building 2 still under construction; despite predictions, it doesn't look like another tower will be under way by then
Atlantic Yards Report
According to the Arena Traffic Mitigation Plan prepared by Sam Schwartz Engineering and distributed yesterday by the Empire State Development Corporation, Building 2 (highlighted), the first housing tower, is expected to be under construction when the arena opens in September 2012.
As the gray outline in the graphic suggests, the location for Building 4, at the northeast corner of the arena block, is demarcated, but it's unclear when the building will go up. And a bicycle parking facility will occupy part of the space designed for Building 3.
(Click on graphic to enlarge and clarify)
 |
Schedule slipping
Why is this important? Because in September 2010, Forest City Ratner executive MaryAnne Gilmartin said, "We anticipate having funding in place to start the first building at Dean and Flatbush in the spring of 2011, the second six to nine months later, and the third about the same time after that."
Not only has the first tower been delayed, it doesn't look like the developer aims to get the second building started within six to nine months.
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
May 23, 2011
Forget traffic changes and rats at AY District Service Cabinet, free fare incentive generated news for Post and Brooklyn Paper
Atlantic Yards Report
It's kind of bizarre that, to two newspapers, the main news emanating from last week's Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting concerned not the meat of the discussion--such as traffic changes and rats--but an issue mentioned as an aside and expected to be discussed at a future meeting.
The Post on May 20 published 'Net'roCard on track for Brooklyn hoops fans and today the Brooklyn Paper published Take the train to the game — and then inside.
It's hardly news that arena sponsors aimed to connect game tickets to MetroCards--after all, Chapter 19, Mitigation, of the November 2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement describes a free fare incentive.
Posted by eric at 10:23 AM
May 20, 2011
News from AY District Service Cabinet: Street changes, including Pacific St. reversal, coming in June, fireworks over rats, 60 workers from Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
Get ready for more construction and previously announced changes on streets in the area of the Atlantic Yards project, starting next month, including the reversal of Pacific Street between Fourth and Flatbush avenues and a new left turn from Pacific to Flatbush, thus diverting traffic that formerly went north on Fourth Avenue.
That was the main takeaway from the third meeting of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet, held yesterday at Brooklyn Borough Hall and involving representatives of various city and state agencies and community boards. Official notice of the changes is expected June 7, and a public meeting to describe the changes will be held June 14 at Borough Hall from 6:30 to 8 pm.
Another major issue at the meeting, one of the few flashpoints for tension, was raised by City Council Member Letitia James, who reported significant rodent problems at blocks around the site, though Forest City Ratner, pointing to a slippery slope of responsibility, said its responsibility was limited to the site itself.
There was no mention of timing for the much-promised affordable housing and a Forest City Ratner executive indicated the number of local workers is relatively small: 38 of 500 workers on site come from the three adjacent Community Boards, with a total of 60 Brooklyn residents on site.
Also, Forest City Ratner consultant Sam Schwartz inadvertently highlighted a likely problem connected to the arena surface parking lot planned for the block bounded by Dean and Pacific streets and Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues. He indicated that the sidewalks on Pacific Street leading to the arena site were large enough to handle crowds--but didn't acknowledge that the crowds are expected to use Dean Street, which has much narrower sidewalks.
Also, Forest City Ratner asserted that one of its Community Benefit Agreement partners, Brooklyn Endeavor Experience, was briefed and is distributing information on environmental issues, though there's no evidence that's happening.
...As Forest City Ratner consultant Sam Schwartz explained, construction of certain traffic mitigation measures required in the Final Environmental Impact Statement must begin in June, because they have only two construction seasons to get the work done before the arena opens in the late summer of 2012 and that work at the congested intersection of Atlantic, Flatbush, and Fourth avenues must be done on nights and weekends.
Pointing to the gridlock at that intersection, he said traffic planners decided to take the shortest leg, on Fourth Avenue going north between Pacific Street and Atlantic Avenue, out of circulation.
Thus, Pacific Street would be made one way eastbound, and drivers would have to do what the Brooklyn Paper dubbed the “Fourth-to-Flatbush Two-Step.”
Listening to Schwartz, Jon Crow, a coordinator of the Brooklyn Bear’s community garden at Pacific and Flatbush, shook his head. He later said he had no problem with the direction change, but thinks that allowing a left for traffic going north on Flatbush would create its own gridlock.
NoLandGrab: We're going to go out on a limb here and predict that the rerouting of northbound Fourth Avenue traffic to Flatbush via Pacific Street is going to be an epic disaster that will make the usual gridlock seem trivial by comparison.
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
'Net'roCard on track for Brooklyn hoops fans
NY Post
by Rich Calder
Coming soon to a controversial arena near you: the MetroTicket! Fans headed to the Nets' new Brooklyn arena are on track to use the same ticket to ride to the game -- and get into the stands.
With the Barclays Center’s opening set for Sept. 2012, developer Forest City Ratner and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have begun re-exploring plans to develop a game-day MetroCard that could also be swiped to enter Nets games or a game ticket to be used on subways during game days.
...Another option, officials said, is prepackaging MetroCards and Nets tickets together to fans instead of creating a single card or ticket for dual use.
The distribution of free – or pre-paid -- MetroCards to ticket holders is one of several proposals being explored by the Nets and Forest City to cut down on anticipated car traffic to the Prospect Heights arena.
During an Atlantic Yards meeting at Borough Hall yesterday, it was also revealed that 600 of the 1,100 parking spaces in an arena lot would be reserved for cars with at least three or more riders, and that Nets parking would be pre-paid in advance. Moreover, Forest City says it’s considering having designated parking spaces.
Despite the efforts to limit cars heading to Barclays Center, Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn), a longtime Atlantic Yards critic, said she expects arena events to jam traffic on nearby neighborhood streets and called on Forest City to eliminate all arena parking.
Posted by eric at 11:34 AM
May 19, 2011
Invitation letters to DOT Commissioner Sadik-Khan & Atlantic Yards Director Hankin
Our Streets — Our Stories
The Dean Street Block Association (6th Ave. to Vanderbilt Ave.)
The following letters were sent on May 3, 2011 by the DSBA and the Carlton Avenue Association to DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Atlantic Yards Project Director Arana Hankin.
Both officials were invited to a public meeting hosted by the associations to answer the community’s questions and address concerns about traffic and pedestrian circulation related to the Atlantic Yards project.
...Our immediate area will be affected significantly and in unique ways by the operation of the Barclays Center and the implementation of the Atlantic Yards Project. We are dependent on the effectiveness of the Project’s mitigations and roadway improvements.
The Carlton Avenue Association and the Dean Street Block Association, 6th Avenue to Vanderbilt would like to extend an invitation to an informed representative of the Department of Transportation to attend a public meeting hosted by our associations to directly answer our community’s questions and address our concerns about traffic and pedestrian circulation on our streets. We believe because of the unique way we are impacted by the project, a meeting focused on our concerns is appropriate and necessary.
Posted by eric at 10:26 AM
May 12, 2011
Opinion: Prospect Heights Looks Forward to Shared Streets
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Elaine Mahoney
The New York City Department of Transportation's willingness to work with communities is cited as a stark contrast to you-know-what.
DOT has also designed a plan to improve safety measures down Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, which hosted a total of 319 accidents between 2005 and 2009, according to the same state DMV and city DOT counts. The Community Board 8 Transportation Committee approved the plan two weeks ago, and it goes to vote at the full Community Board this Thursday, May 12. The most recent version of the plan reflected changes to parking recommended by residents and merchants at previous community meetings. The DOT’s openness to amendments is a welcome change to the lingering climate of bitterness surrounding Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 12:00 PM
May 1, 2011
Transit-oriented development? A developer (not Forest City Ratner) says parking minimums in dense districts near transit are unwise
Atlantic Yards Report
Streetsblog has a very interesting interview with Alan Bell, co-founder of the Hudson Companies, about parking minimums (an issue under discussion in the PlaNYC revision):
Bell identified Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue as another design casualty of parking minimums, pointing to buildings like Boymelgreen Developers’ much-maligned Crest and Novo apartment buildings. The large buildings there were required to include parking, but subway lines under the street made putting it underground cost prohibitive. “[Boymelgreen] made the calculation that he’d rather sacrifice having retail on the ground floor in exchange for not putting the parking below ground, it was so expensive,” said Bell. The result is a series of buildings that are utterly indifferent to pedestrian life, presenting blank walls and parking to the sidewalk.
One solution Bell proposed is revising the zoning code so that parking minimums are eliminated in medium- or high-density districts near transit. Said Bell, “Historically, there’s no question, if I’m building near a subway stop, I’m going to attract a lot of people who don’t want a car or need a car. That’s proven in the marketplace.”
The Atlantic Yards angle
So why would Atlantic Yards have 2570 spaces intended for the project's residential component and an additional 1100 spaces for arenagoers?
(Those spaces are ultimately supposed to go underground, but the initial arena parking, as well as some of the residential parking, would remain indefinitely on surface lots.)
Because (take your pick):
ths is a test
high rollers going to arena suites want to drive
- residents of luxury units want to drive too
- Forest City Ratner didn't want to muck around with city policy
- the city wasn't ready to change its policy
- the state wasn't ready to override this aspect of city policy (unlike others)
- nobody really thought through the notion of "transit-oriented development"
Posted by steve at 9:52 PM
April 25, 2011
Atlantic Terminal part of AY complex? Nah.
Atlantic Yards Report
From NetsDaily:
Also, here's a little viewed video of the entry pavilion of the one piece of the Atlantic Yards complex that's complete, the Long Island Railroad/New York Subway terminal across the street (and around the corner) from the arena. The terminal is a one end of an underground concourse that links nine subway lines (used to be 10 but the "V" line has been discontinued), the LIRR and the Barclays Center Transit Connection in front of the arena. The Atlantic Terminal is going to become very familiar to Nets fans.
Actually, the Atlantic Terminal transit hub is not "one piece of the Atlantic Yards complex." Rather, a piece of the latter--an under-construction new passageway--connects to the terminal. (And the V line never went to Brooklyn.)
For more, see my 1/6/10 post, Atlantic Yards revisionism and the belated LIRR pavilion at Atlantic Terminal.
Posted by steve at 12:32 AM
April 14, 2011
New Bike Map Is Out: In Microcosm the Conflict of City Planning Policy Re Car-Oriented Atlantic Yards
Noticing New York
The new 2011 bike map is out. As our constantly changing city shape-shifts into new incarnations, the map presents in microcosm public policy conflicts respecting the transportational characteristics planners want the city to assume in the future.
...The interesting thing about this year’s map is its cover, celebrating brownstone Brooklyn with a picture of the Hoyt Street bike lane going through Cobble Hill. The intersection shown is Hoyt Street and Dean. Dean Street is another street providing bikers with a bike lane route through what is currently brownstone Brooklyn.
Ironically, the Hoyt and Dean intersection is just .6 miles or 3 minutes away from the car-centric (and parking lot-centric) Atlantic Yards megadevelopment proposed by developer (and heavy subsidy collector) Bruce Ratner of Forest City Ratner (now working in conjunction with Russian Oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov). The negligible distance can also be measured as the distance of four long blocks and one very short one.
If this distance doesn’t strike you as short, if it seems enough to put Ratner’s mega-monopoly at a safe and sufficient remove, we can also put things into perspective this way: It is actually less than the .7 mile distance one will need to travel to get from one corner of Ratner’s vast mega-monopoly to the other. Remember also that bikers using the Dean Street bike lane will have their brownstone reveries interrupted for a couple of blocks when they have to travel alongside the intimidating and unprecedentedly dense Ratner/Prokhorov car-oriented Atlantic Yards design (and planning) fiasco. That is, of course, if New York politicians continue to let Ratner/Prokhorov continue building it for the next several decades, piling on a rich slather of disproportionately favorable subsidies.
Posted by eric at 12:28 PM
April 6, 2011
Ratner Arena Will Include 400 Satanic Bike Parking Spots
Streetsblog
by Ben Fried
Well, this doesn’t make up for the eminent domain abuse, inexcusable subsidies-slash-dealmaking, crappy urban design and extensive surface parking acreage, but the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay reminds us that the Brooklyn basketball arena financed by Bruce Ratner, Mikhail Prokhorov, and the taxpayers of New York State will include 400 bike parking spaces.
...With the opening of the 18,000-seat arena less than 18 months away and the Nets saying that it will host 200 events a year, 400 bike parking spaces will come in handy. But what about those oceans of surface parking? There must be a better way to plan for people to get to the arena than to invite thousands of car trips to one of the most transit- and bike-accessible sites in the entire city. Streetsblog will be taking a closer look at the Atlantic Yards transportation equation in the weeks ahead, so stay tuned.
Posted by eric at 10:35 AM
March 30, 2011
Atlantic Yards Causes Bike-SUV Collision
The L Magazine
by Benjamin Sutton
Park Slope Patch reports that shortly after 10pm an SUV hit a cyclist at the intersection of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue after the driver's view of the oncoming rider was blocked by big blue Atlantic Yards construction walls.
The SUV driver, whose windshield was smashed when the cyclist was thrown over the hood in the collision, remained at the scene while the deliveryman was taken to the emergency room by ambulance. The driver told local resident Wayne Bailey when he arrived at the scene that the cyclist ran through a red light. Bailey told the Patch: "He said he didn’t even see the cyclist because of the blue wall where the arena is being built. He said it blocked his view and the bike came out of nowhere."
A police source asserts that "The cyclist was at fault," although, clearly, Bruce Ratner was at fault.
NoLandGrab: In fairness to Forest City Ratner, the construction shed at the corner in question actually has plexiglass panels that allow some visibility, more so than most construction sites we've seen.
Posted by eric at 11:49 AM
March 16, 2011
Yankee Stadium parking strikes out
Bronx outfit faces default on bonds as fans park elsewhere and residents fume
Crain's NY Business
by Hilary Potkewitz
As we, and others, notably Streetsblog, have been warning for years, the Yankee Stadium parking situation is a disaster. Now even Crain's is catching on. When you pave parks to put up a parking lot, everybody loses. Even the people running the parking lots.
The first pitch of the baseball season and the return of thousands of fans cannot come fast enough for most businesses around Yankee Stadium. But one company might prefer that April be postponed this year.
Bronx Parking Development Co., which runs the garages for the new stadium, faces an April 1 due date for a $6.8 million interest payment on bonds issued to fund construction of three facilities. The company had to dip into reserves to make a similar payment in October, and—barring a last-minute renegotiation—all signs point to a default this time.
A default could set up a seizure by bondholders and would leave the garages' future in question. The property, which covers some 21 acres, was part of parkland taken over to make way for the current incarnation of Yankee Stadium.
The potential irony has some in the community seething.
“Our community loves its parks, and we could always use more,” said Pastor Wenzell Jackson, chairman of Bronx Community Board 4, which includes the stadium and the surrounding area. “Now there's just empty parking garages that are not benefiting the community.”
This isn't complicated. Use eminent domain the way it was intended — seize these garages and rebuild a park for the people.
But the geniuses who brought you this disaster in the first place want to pour gasoline on the fire.
Community leaders, including Borough President Rubén Díaz Jr., are planning for what comes next.
“We've been working diligently to bring a top-flight hotel to the area near Yankee Stadium,” Mr. Díaz said in his State of the Borough Address late last month. “As many of you have heard, the Yankee Stadium parking lots are facing severe financial problems ... and we believe one of the garages could be used for the hotel development.”
Because that area has tremendous tourist demand during the 21 hours a day when baseball isn't being played? Or because hotel developers make nice campaign donations?
It's clear that not all the garages are needed. In August, Bronx Parking admitted that the facilities, which contain 9,000 parking spaces, were never more than 60% full on game days. As a result, it said, revenues were insufficient to service the more than $237 million in tax-exempt bonds issued to fund its project, which involved building three new garages and refurbishing several existing ones.
And how do you entice more people to park? By raising the rates by 50%!
Last year, Bronx Parking officials complained that an estimated 800 cars a game were parking at the nearby Gateway Shopping Center. And for good reason: Spaces at the center cost about $4 an hour, compared with $23 a game for a self-park space in the stadium garages (or $35 for valet service). This year, rates will increase to $35 a game ($45 for valet), according to the company's 2011 operating budget.
NoLandGrab: As our pro-Atlantic Yards friends used to chant about people's homes in the project's footprint: Tear it down! Tear it down!
Posted by eric at 11:52 AM
March 11, 2011
Why did Forest City Ratner try to get Carlton Avenue Bridge money from Kruger? Because they're scrounging for it; my queries haven't been answered
Atlantic Yards Report
Why was Forest City Ratner, as of December 2010, trying to get $9 million in state subsidies for the Carlton Avenue Bridge out of state Senator Carl Kruger, charged today along with lobbyist Richard Lipsky in a federal corruption case?
Because the developer still needs to pay for reconstruction of the bridge. (And the money sought from immigrant investors via the EB-5 program, though promoted as going to the bridge, would more likely go to refinance a land loan.)
I've tried several times over the past months to learn more about the bridge, to no avail.
I queried the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) last November 12 regarding an apparently federal earmark as well as the current budget for and progress on the bridge. Despite several follow-up requests, I never got a response.
I posed the same questions to the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet on January 25 via City Council Member Letitia James and Carlo Scissura, the Borough President's Chief of Staff. No answers were forthcoming at the meeting February 10.
The Carlton Avenue Bridge is supposed to cost $40 million. The city in 2007 allocated $7 million. According to a 6/24/10 ESDC document (embedded below), which allowed the disbursal of additional City funds for the bridge:
It is expected that the Carlton Avenue Bridge related infrastructure work will cost in excess of $40 million. The City shall fund $24 million of the cost of the Carlton Avenue Bridge related infrastructure work. The remaining cost will be funded by Forest City.
NoLandGrab: Most unintentionally sincere quote from the 53-page federal indictment of Carl Kruger, Richard Lipsky et al — Kruger: "the bridge is out."
Posted by eric at 12:14 AM
March 9, 2011
Is Prospect Park West bike lane "like Atlantic Yards"?
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Times article today on the dispute over the Prospect Park West bike lane closes:
“Part of it is, people don’t like anything new,” she said. “New is bad. It’s like Atlantic Yards. And dogs off leash. Like there’s nothing else wrong with the world.”
Except a bike lane, aimed in part at traffic calming, is not so much like a project that would increase traffic.
And a good number of those supporting the bike lane, such as the organization Park Slope Neighbors, don't support Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: Full disclosure — this editor of NLG is a co-founder of Park Slope Neighbors. Also, concomitantly, some of those opposing the bike lane do support Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 1:09 PM
February 28, 2011
A Bridge Too Late, and More
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
For those who still remember there was once a Carlton Avenue bridge, its return just moved further out into the future. When it was closed in January 2008 the reopening was scheduled for January 2010. But the date kept moving, and now Norman Oder reports the latest update: April 2012, which would mean the bridge will have been closed more than twice as long as originally promised in the original Atlantic Yards environmental review. Oder suspects, moreover, that fall of 2012 is more likely.
Oder also writes that the entrance to the arena will also be a moving target. When Building 1 is constructed--an office tower plus the "Urban Room"--the entrance to the Arena will be temporarily moved to Sixth Avenue.
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
February 27, 2011
Flashback, 2006: interim surface parking could last "for some time," predicted Brooklyn Views blogger Cohn
Atlantic Yards Report
Architect Jonathan Cohn hasn't been writing his Brooklyn Views blog since March 2007, but he was right on the money when he wrote, on 4/3/06, about the emergence of interim surface parking and the elasticity of "interim."
He wrote:
One change in the Final Scope is the admission that an unspecified amount of “interim surface parking” on the eastern part of the project site will be constructed during Phase I. (P.14). This “use” of the site could be in-place for some time. While the Phase I analysis year is 2010 and Phase II is 2016, schedules for large projects are notorious for being accurate only at the moment they are proposed.
Maybe not even then. Now we know that the interim surface parking could last for decades.
Posted by steve at 6:30 PM
February 24, 2011
Reopening of Carlton Avenue Bridge, closed since January 2008 (supposedly for two years), nudged from April 2012 to "summer 2012"; will it go longer?
Atlantic Yards Report
It was inevitable, wasn't it? We knew that the Carlton Avenue Bridge, closed since January 2008, had to reopen before the Atlantic Yards arena reopens.
And now that "substantial completion" of the arena is August 12, 2012, so too has the city Department of Transportation nudged back the reopening of the bridge from the most recent deadline, April 2012, to "summer 2012."
That's not the first revision of the plan, not by a long shot.
And I'd say there's a good chance that the bridge reopening could be nudged further back to "fall 2012," if the arena opens in the fall.
Closure for four-and-a-half years?
All this means that bridge would be closed for at least four-and-a-half years, more than twice as long as originally promised in the Atlantic Yards environmental review, approved in 2006.
NoLandGrab: This is exactly the kind of outrageous disregard for the community that we can expect for the next three decades — and no one with the power to do anything about it is holding Forest City Ratner accountable.
Posted by eric at 10:41 AM
February 23, 2011
Real public works (transportation), the mis-described "wave of development" (as of 2007), and Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
At the panel Roads to Nowhere: Public Works in a Time of Crisis, last night at the Museum of the City of New York, the discussion focused on the Access to the Region's Core (ARC) train tunnel between New Jersey and New York vetoed by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the Second Avenue Subway, and relatively smaller fixes like Bus Rapid Transit.
All of those are infrastructure projects that drive development. None are mega-projects like Atlantic Yards, run by a single private developer. (Atlantic Yards would add a transit entrance to an existing station, thus mainly serving the arena, and an upgraded but smaller railyard, not previously requested by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.)
Why did Christie act? Jeff Zupan of the Regional Plan Association suggested it was a matter of politics, as he had inherited a project approved by his predecessor: "politicians are always thinking about cutting a ribbon in their terms in office."
Joan Byron of the Pratt Center for Community Development added that Christie was elected by South Jersey drivers, not North Jersey transit riders. She argued that transit advocates had done too little to build a base of public support. (Also see Benjamin Kabak's good summary on Second Avenue Sagas.)
That "wave of development"
I couldn't help but think back on a misguided 1/1/07 New York Times overview, headlined Wave of Development, Cleared for Takeoff:
City, state and federal agencies granted final approvals last month to a half-dozen wide-ranging projects in a political aligning of the stars that will promote New York City's most ambitious economic development agenda in decades.
Approval or financing was given to a Second Avenue subway; an extension of the Flushing Line to the Far West Side; a spur to connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal; financing for tens of thousands of apartments for low- and moderate-income residents; the Atlantic Yards complex near Downtown Brooklyn, which includes a new home for the basketball Nets; and even the bus-stop shelters and public toilets that New Yorkers and visitors have demanded for years.
Yes, the subway and LIRR projects would build important infrastructure to boost economic development, but bus shelters (where) and public toilets (where?) do not economic development make.
Nor does the long-delayed arena. The surrounding office space, once promoted as home to 10,000 jobs, had already been severely reduced, and the one planned office tower is on indefinite hold.
And the Times's curious formulation--"financing for tens of thousands of" subsidized apartments--mis-described a revision in the 421-a tax incentive program, which instead led to a rush to get all market-rate buildings started, and produced hundreds of stalled development sites.
...An AY footnote
At the end of the program, the panelists were asked about their commutes. Byron said her bicycle commute to Pratt had been "severely compromised" by the closing of the Carlton Avenue Bridge for the Atlantic Yards project--an example of the potential tension between real estate development and transportation.
A bike lane footnote
Asked about issues of walking and biking, Zupan commented, "we have the specter of a former DOT [Department of Transportation] commissioner [Iris Weinshall] suing the city because they're putting a bike lane in Brooklyn--that's horrible."
Posted by eric at 10:11 AM
February 18, 2011
There's a sucker fleeced every minute
The Daily Blahg [NYDailyNews.com]
by Filip Bondy
When the Nets return from their road trip for a game at the Rock on Feb. 28 to face the Suns, they may or may not have Carmelo Anthony. But one thing is for sure: parking will only be $25 in the adjacent Edison lot, not $30.
You have to give the Edison people credit: They stick meticulously to their guns, and to the standings. The price of parking has nothing to do with the Nets, but instead with the opponent. When a first-place team comes to visit, the price of parking is $30. For second-place teams and below, the charge is $25.
That has meant parking for the low-buzz Spurs went for $30, while parking for 'Melo and the Nuggets was a mere $25.
I've heard of teams like the Mets going to tier pricing by opponents, but never the parking lots. However, the cost of parking in the Bronx doubles for the Yankee playoffs, even though your car isn't going to watch a single inning.
All of this nonsense -- and I haven't mentioned PSLs in the NFL -- has contributed to the general alienation of fan bases being squeezed for every penny in their change purse. The Nets may be itinerant wanderers now, but when they hit Brooklyn they should install a fan-friendly philosophy about pricing on all fronts, build up some good will.
If nothing else, you have to figure the price of a subway ride to Atlantic Yards won't double when the Lakers are in town.
NoLandGrab: Don't be so sure, Filip. Bruce and the MTA have a very close working relationship.
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM
February 15, 2011
News from the Construction Update: water main work, transit work (and outages), Flatbush Avenue snags continue
Atlantic Yards Report
Here are some highlights from the latest Construction Update (embedded below), dated February 14 and prepared by Forest City Ratner and released by the Empire State Development Corporation.
...There are several track outages associated with repair work:
- Demolition of the TA structures continues. IRT and BMT Tunnel inspections have taken place and repair work will be implemented during scheduled NYCT track outages during evenings and weekends. IRT Track Outages are now scheduled for the weekends of February 5th and 19th. BMT Track Outages are now scheduled for March 5th, 12th and April 19th. Additional GO’s for both the IRT and BMT will be evaluated as the work progresses. Minor repair and cleanup work will occur on selective evenings under scheduled NYCT flagging protection.
Plastic bollards still out
As noted at the last Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting last Thursday, since the post-Christmas storm, the plastic bollards used to implement reversible lanes on Flatbush Avenue below Atlantic Avenue during rush hour were mangled and unusable, and remain as such:
- MPT [Maintenance and Protection of Traffic] @ Flatbush Ave - Maintenance of the MPT has been suspended due to the recent snow storms experienced over the last month. At this time the MPT is still in place but the lane changes are not being performed until the weather condition permit. We have advised the DOT that once the weather permits; the MPT will be restored and maintained.
As shown in the Construction Updates embedded below, this was announced in the previous document, dated 1/31/11, but not in the 1/17/11 one, though this all started after Christmas. I didn't notice until it came up at the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet.
Posted by eric at 12:22 PM
February 12, 2011
Massive Infrastructure Projects Coming to Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway
Prospect Heights Patch
By Amy Sara Clark
Already hit by massive traffic backups caused by the Atlantic Yards construction, Prospect Heights-area residents will soon be facing 18 months of infrastructure projects tearing up both Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway.
Both projects are slated to begin in a few weeks be completed about 18 months later.
At last night’s packed meeting of Community Board 8, which is affected by the projects along with Community Board 2, residents said the projects should have been staggered.
“So these two projects will be happening simultaneously with the Ratner project?” one resident asked incredulously. “There are already waiting times as much as three minutes to clear one block … Why are the projects being done at the same time?”
Posted by steve at 4:57 PM
February 10, 2011
20mph Speed Limit Zone Coming to Boerum Hill?
The L Magazine
by Benjamin Sutton
Last summer the city's Department of Transportation announced plans to test out a (relatively) radical new traffic control plan by creating some pilot 20 miles-per-hour zones, with a few to establishing more if the test areas are deemed successful. Residents of Boerum Hill really want to be guinea pigs for this program.
...Weirdly, the typically anti-car control Post is all for the idea, especially in anticipation of additional traffic in the area once the Atlantic Yards' Barclay's Center is playing host to frequent professional basketball games. More additional traffic to the area is also expected due to upcoming BQE renovations.
Posted by eric at 10:28 AM
February 9, 2011
Nets-nabe speed bump
NY Post
by Rich Calder
Talk about a fast brake!
With the opening of the new Nets arena in Brooklyn nearly two years away, the city is considering lowering the speed limit to 20 mph for drivers in the nearby brownstone neighborhood of Boerum Hill.
Cars and trucks routinely use Pacific and Dean streets and other local streets there as speedy short cuts to and from the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.
Councilman Steven Levin said yesterday he believes reckless driving through the neighborhood “will only get worse” once the 18,000-seat, Prospect Heights arena opens in Fall 2012 -- unless “we take pre-emptive action now.”
The city’s Department of Transportation next year is set to kick off its pilot "slow-speed zone" program in select neighborhoods where 10 mph will be sliced off the city’s 30 mph standard limit.
Posted by eric at 10:40 AM
December 17, 2010
The gap in yesterday's ESDC documents: the new use for 470 Vanderbilt and its impact on traffic, parking, and pedestrians
Atlantic Yards Report
There's one very big gap in the seemingly comprehensive Technical Analysis (embedded below) released yesterday by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) as part of its findings that a 25-year buildout of the Atlantic Yards project would not require a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement.
It's called 470 Vanderbilt Avenue, the former tire plant turned telecom offices turned combination office and housing complex, located just north of the northeast block of the Atlantic Yards site. (Click on graphic to enlarge; highlighting in red is added.)
The plans for 470 Vanderbilt have changed significantly in the past year, as it's slated to house the city Human Resources Administration, with 1880 employees and 1500 clients a day, opening in Spring 2012, just before the arena is scheduled to open.
And the city aims to add parking along Atlantic Avenue, which contradicts a mitigation in the Atlantic Yards plan.
When the City Planning Commission approved the plan in September, it noted that "a letter was received from a resident of the surrounding area suggesting that with respect to this action and Atlantic Yards that a full Environmental Impact Study should be performed by the City under ULURP which is outside the scope of this action."
Perhaps, but the changes are not acknowledged in the ESDC documents. As in the 2009 Technical Memorandum, 470 Vanderbilt is described as:
376 residential units, 115,424 sf retail, 579,645 sf office, 397 accessory parking spaces 7
Build Year 2035Footnote 7 states:
Includes 578,554 sf of existing office and 200 existing parking spaces; project will add 1,091 sf office and 197 accessory parking spaces.
The analysis
There's no mention of the new use. In the new ESDC analysis, 470 Vanderbilt gets a mention under the category of Pedestrians (but not regarding Transit or Parking).
NoLandGrab: Oops.
Posted by eric at 6:41 PM
December 13, 2010
Incentivizing transit ridership with…beer?
2nd Ave. Sagas
by Benjamin Kabak
When the Nets new arena opens at the Atlantic Yards complex in a few years, it will bring with it traffic to a few of Brooklyn’s quieter residential neighborhoods. With Park Slope to the south, Prospect Heights to the east and Fort Greene to the north, the area doesn’t lend itself to the multitude of cars that will throng its streets on game days. Unfortunately, despite sitting atop one of the city’s busiest subway hubs and a Long Island Rail Road, the project will come with more parking than we’d like. To encourage mass transit use then, one advocate has proposed an idea for the masses: free beer.
...Ultimately, though, the Nets and Forest City Ratner should figure out a way to encourage transit use. Whether that includes supporting a residential parking permit program for the neighborhood’s streets or offering MetroCard- and LIRR-based discounts, driving to this arena should be discouraged. I’d drink to that.
Posted by eric at 10:21 AM
December 12, 2010
Who Wants to Turn Brooklyn into a Big Parking Lot?
Change.org
By Zachary Shahan
This blog post points out the folly of building acres of parking in Prospect Heights and suggests signing an online petition to oppose it.
What is one of the absolute worst uses of land, environmentally speaking? A surface parking lot. In other words, the type of parking lot you see in front of Wal-Mart—one level, not above or below any buildings. (They're also just plain ugly...can you think of anything uglier than a large, surface parking lot?)
Where is the worst place to build a surface parking lot? How about in the middle of the downtown areas of one of the most densely populated counties in this nation.
A 1,100-space surface parking lot is being proposed as part of the Atlantic Yards project, a controversial planned $4.9 billion mall, residential development, and sports stadium, in the downtown area of Brooklyn, New York. While the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and project developer Forest City Ratner are portraying this as a temporary parking lot, it has been revealed that the parking lot may sit there for up to 25 years.
The environmental review for the Atlantic Yards project used ESDC and Ratner's initial estimate that the project would take 10 years. With the project expected to last up to 25 years, the environmental review does not meet legal requirements, and, thus, a number of groups are pushing for a halt to the controversial project until this review is adequately performed. The 25-year potential time frame is apparently written into the development contract between New York City and Ratner, but was not revealed in legal battles over the project last November.
Posted by steve at 12:06 PM
December 10, 2010
The PHNDC's forum on traffic: discussion of Atlantic Yards impact, residential permit parking, and warning about turning over planning to FCR (update)
Atlantic Yard Report
The Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council's forum last night on traffic, held at P.S. 9 on Underhill Avenue in Prospect Heights, featured some critical comments on the Empire State Development Corporation's Atlantic Yards oversight from Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, and significant dismay from neighborhood residents regarding current impacts on traffic and yet-to-be-implemented solutions.
Notably, there was both enthusiasm for and resistance to residential parking permits (RPP) for game days at the Atlantic Yards arena. While they would preserve local car owners' options to park, such RPP were seen as an increased cost for residents, and a couple of attendees suggested the cost should be paid by developer Forest City Ratner, since the impact comes from the arena.
Beyond the arena issue, a free RPP presumes that the current access to street parking is a right rather than a subsidy of sorts--the subject of potential significant debate about RPP in general.
Also, a planner from the Tri-State Transportation Campaign warned about the conflict of interest involved in having developer Forest City Ratner and its paid consultant be in effective charge of transportation planning.
...With an arena seating 18,000 for basketball (41 games) and a predicted 225 events, some of which will accommodate crowds up to 19,000, “it's going to be a deluge of traffic, and much of it is going to flow through Prospect Heights,” said Danae Oratowski of the PHNDC, kicking off the session.
Posted by eric at 11:10 AM
Residents Decry Traffic, Parking Problems from Atlantic Yards Project
Some suggest developer Forest City Ratner pay for extra trains to stadium and residential parking permits for those living in the area.
Prospect Heights Patch
by Amy Sara Clark
More than 75 people came to P.S. 9 last night to discuss traffic problems caused by the Atlantic Yards project.
Since several streets including Pacific between Fifth and Sixth avenues was closed Feb. 1, traffic has been brutal along Dean, Bergen, St. Marks, and other streets that still go through, speakers and residents said at the meeting.
"I live on St. Marks Place and it feels like a major highway," said Maggie Williams, a 33-year-old lawyer, before the meeting.
...Jay Crockett, a retired commodities broker said she was pessimistic that there was much the community could do to prevent the onslaught of traffic. But she said she came to the meeting to make a statement.
"I feel it's essential to just show up to say: I do care and it is a problem," she said.
Posted by eric at 7:08 AM
Beer on Bruce? Could be, if you take the subway
The Brooklyn Paper
by Aaron Short
Take the train to a Nets game — and get a free beer!
It’s one idea being floated by transportation advocates as an incentive to get future Barclays Center ticketholders to take the subway and regional rail to the arena instead of driving and parking on congested Prospect Heights and Fort Greene streets.
“Give people a free beer — they’re not driving!” said Tri-State Transportation Campaign’s Ryan Lynch.
Lynch, invited by the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council to present suggestions for easing traffic at Atlantic Yards, demanded that the arena’s developer, Forest City Ratner, commit to subsidize mass transit for game nights such as including mass transit fares into ticket prices and urging additional trains on game nights.”
...Thousands of cars will flood streets surrounding the Atlantic Yards footprint on game nights — which has alarmed residents concerned about traffic and pedestrian safety after games.
NoLandGrab: Sure, Bruce'll give you a free beer — and charge you $9 for the cup.
Posted by eric at 6:57 AM
December 9, 2010
2010 PHNDC Atlantic Yards Traffic Forum
threecee via flickr
Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council
December 8, 2010
P.S. 9
80 Underhill Avenue
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New York
Posted by eric at 4:30 PM
December 7, 2010
Atlantic Yards Traffic Forum in PH; 12/8; PS9; 7:30PM
team tish
Join Council Member Letitia James, Assembly Member Hakeem Jeffries, and the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council at their Atlantic Yards traffic forum at PS9 in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
WHEN: Wednesday, December 8, 2010
7:30- 9:00PM
WHERE: PS9, 80 Underhill Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11238The Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council presents a forum on traffic and transit issues raised by Atlantic Yards construction and the planned opening of the Barclays Center in 2012.
- What impacts are already being felt?
- What is coming from the arena and future construction?
- What does the recent court decision mean to the community?
- What can we do now?
Posted by eric at 11:22 AM
December 3, 2010
Carlton Bridge demo 12-2-10
raulism via YouTube
Wow! Bruce Ratner is finally getting around to finishing the demolition of the Carlton Avenue bridge — almost a year after he was supposed to be finished rebuilding it!
Related coverage...
raulistic via flickr, Carlton Demo 12-2-10
More of raulistic's Atlantic Yards construction videos...
Posted by eric at 10:28 AM
December 2, 2010
ATLANTIC YARDS: BRUCE RATNER, YOU SUCK. YOU REALLY DO!
F**ked in Park Slope
I haven't always followed the whole Atlantic Yards hullaballoo as closely as I should have but I do seem to remember a WHOLE lot of talk about stuff like thousands of units of low-income housing, reciprocal ACORN love, an end to urban blight, lots of jobs...
Yeah, not so much.
Posted by eric at 10:01 AM
December 1, 2010
Atlantic Yards: Home of the Nets and a Massive Parking Lot
Gothamist
by John Del Signore
Developer Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project will bring a beautiful, pristine, blight-free 1,100 car parking lot to Prospect Heights, but where Ratner sees a paved paradise, other neighbors see a lifeless void. On Thanksgiving eve, twenty community organizations led by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) filed a motion with New York State Supreme Court seeking to halt all construction at the project. The court case hinges on the environmental impact statement conducted by the Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC], which analyzed Atlantic Yards as a 10-year construction project. Now it's expected to take a quarter century, and critics say the environmental impact should be reconsidered.
...The motion for a stay follows a November 9th decision from Justice Marcy Friedman, finding that the ESDC "lacked a rational basis for assuming that Atlantic Yards project would be completed in ten years." The lawsuit calls for a new appraisal of the potential environmental impacts of the project, and accuses Ratner and the ESDC of "colluding in their misrepresentations to the Court."
Posted by eric at 10:41 PM
Enough kvetching already. RT @NoLandGrab 1,100 Space Parking Lot at Issue in Latest Atlantic Yards Fight
@ShellySilver via Twitter
If @ShellySilver keeps it up, he will get his giant bobblehead.
But wait, there's more:
Posted by eric at 2:05 PM
Elected officials, traffic planners to appear at PHNDC traffic forum December 8
Atlantic Yards Report
The Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council is sponsoring an Atlantic Yards traffic forum on Wednesday, December 8, 2010, from 7:30 to 9 pm.
The location is P.S. 9 at 80 Underhill Avenue in Prospect Heights.
From the blurb:
Can the traffic really get worse? Unfortunately, the answer is "yes." The Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council presents a forum on traffic and transit issues raised by Atlantic Yards construction and the planned opening of the Barclays Center in 2012.
- What impacts are already being felt?
- What is coming from the arena and future construction?
- What does the recent court decision mean to the community?
- What can we do now?
Speakers include Assemblymember Hakeem Jeffries, Councilmember Letitia James, and Ryan Lynch, Senior Planner with the Tri-State Transportation Campaign.
Posted by eric at 9:53 AM
November 30, 2010
1,100 Space Parking Lot at Issue in Latest Atlantic Yards Fight
Streetsblog
by Noah Kazis
 |
The latest round of the knock-down drag-out fight over the Atlantic Yards project is underway, and it’s all about parking. At issue is a potential 1,100-space surface parking lot that would be located between Pacific and Dean Streets, just west of Vanderbilt Avenue. That lot has been portrayed as temporary, “interim” parking by the Empire State Development Corporation and project developer Forest City Ratner, but could sit there generating traffic for up to 25 years. Last week several groups filed a motion to halt construction until the environmental impacts of the project are studied more fully.
The basic question is whether the environmental review for Atlantic Yards needs reworking in light of the fact that development could take up to 25 years, rather than the ten-year construction schedule originally put forward by ESDC and Ratner. (Be sure to check out the invaluable Norman Oder for all the details.) If construction is really going to take an extra fifteen years, the argument goes, the true impacts on things like traffic, noise, and air quality weren’t ever disclosed, in violation of environmental law. That argument got a boost in the courts a few weeks ago, and the legal battle now hinges on whether or not to halt construction.
Image: Municipal Art Society/Aerial Photo by Jonathan Barkey
Posted by eric at 4:48 PM
November 19, 2010
Extension of the Number 7 Subway Line to New Jersey: An Exciting Infrastructure Idea (With Only One Hidden Big Oops)
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White critiques the mayor's notion to extend the number 7 subway line to New Jersey.
It would be particularly thrilling to see the idea implemented because, according to a story in today’s New York Times, this idea, like the creation of the High Line, was one that officialdom first rejected and ignored when it was identified and promoted by grassroots members of the community.
...We gather from this that in the Bloomberg administration “thinking totally out of the box” constitutes listening to community suggestions.
...If the Bloomberg administration wants to listen there are plenty more community activists willing to offer “thinking” that is “totally out” of the Bloomberg administration’s “box.” The Coney Island community is suggesting that many more amusement area acres be preserved at Coney Island* along with historic buildings that define the area’s heritage. And wouldn’t it be nice, as activists suggest, to see the sun and feel the sea breeze when arriving at the Coney subway station? Then there is the community’s UNITY plan for development of Vanderbilt Yards where, instead, the Bloomberg administration is allowing free rein (free reign?) to the developer-centric notions of Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner that he should have a 30-acre, 40-year mega-monopoly. Among other things the UNITY plan calls for the development of this area to be split up and properly bid out to multiple developers.
(* If more acres were preserved maybe historic boardwalk businesses would not now be getting evicted. In our eyes, recent Coney evictions proclaim that the amusement district was made too small, given that there is no space to share with authentic Coney Island history. And what sense does it make in terms of “economic development” to throw out time-tested and resilient businesses in the middle of an economic recession? A petition on the subject available here.)
Posted by eric at 7:11 AM
November 5, 2010
When was Block 1129 parking increased to 1100 spaces? At Borough Hall meeting on construction issues, the answer (from FCR, not ESDC) is wrong
Atlantic Yards Report
All Forest City and ESDC double-talk aside, Prospect Heights residents are staring at an absurdly large, and life-altering, number of surface parking spots in their near future.
The size of the parking lot on Block 1129, the southeast block of the Atlantic Yards site, was increased to 1100 spaces in a rather non-transparent fashion last year, and the issue was further obscured yesterday at the first meeting of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet.
The cabinet will meet quarterly to discuss construction and other issues. (I'll have a separate report on the meeting later this morning.)
The person designated to answer the parking question, Forest City Ratner (FCR) attorney Melanie Meyers, gave a misleading answer regarding parking.
So no one learned that FCR and the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) agreed to increase the size of the parking lot not once but twice, from 944 to 1044 and then to 1100, a 16.5% increase. Nor that the explanation for the second increase is rather disingenuous.
The first increase was disclosed in the June 2009 Technical Memorandum, but the second wasn't disclosed until the December 2009 Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments, which didn't surface for months.
Posted by eric at 11:35 AM
Dean at 6th in the mist
threecee via flickr
Dean Street at 6th Avenue
looking west along Dean Street
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New YorkNovember 4th 2010
The Barclays Center of Atlantic Yards is under construction at this intersection. The rear of the arena would be along 6th Avenue, the cross street in this video, which runs north-south (right-left). Dean Street runs background-foreground (west-east).
It's difficult to imagine 18,000 arena patrons flooding this residential neighborhood.
Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
October 15, 2010
5 Better Names for the New Jay Street-Borough Hall Station
The L Magazine
by Benjamin Sutton
Did you know that as part of its decades-in-the-making makeover and swallowing up of the nearby Lawrence Street station, the Jay Street-Borough Hall subway station in Downtown Brooklyn will be changing names to "Jay Street-MetroTech"? How cold and quasi-Orwellian does that sound, right? The Post points out that the new A, C, F, N and R superstation has been in the works since 2007, and completion is still a long way off, so maybe they're still taking suggestions for better names than the retro-futuristic "Jay Street-MetroTech."
Because, you know, it's an almost equally massive perpetual construction site down there.
Photo: jag9889
Posted by eric at 11:16 AM
Ratner reneged
The Brooklyn Paper, Letters
Bruce Ratner, Atlantic Yards and residential parking permits figure prominently in this week's letters section.
To the editor,
Bruce Ratner has reneged on all of his promises, instead bringing chaos, noise, dirt and traffic to the community (“Plaza Sweet — Ratner unveils new front for his Barclays Center,” Oct. 1).
He promised 7,200 units of below market-rate housing, thousands of jobs and other public benefits. There was even talk of a school to help accommodate families with children moving in at one meeting I attended. It seems the only people who will benefit live in Russia. A Russian owns 85 percent of the Nets and 45 percent of the area.
Bruce Ratner sold everyone a bill of goods. He took our tax money and will continue to do so. Let him give back to Brooklyn by footing the bill for all the residential parking permits.
Sharron Staton, Windsor Terrace
The facts are a little off (Ratner promised 2,250 below-market units, Prokhorov allegedly owns 80% of the Nets), but you get the point.
Click through for more where that came from.
Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
October 9, 2010
The residential parking permit debate: is parking a neighborhood right, or a scarce resource with a price tag?
Atlantic Yards Report
On-street residential parking is considered a right by New York car owners. The Atlantic Yards development has helped to trigger a debate about residential parking permits.
So, are residential parking permits a good idea? The debate has heated up since 5/21/09, when the Brooklyn Paper opined, in Why parking permits are not the answer, that "neighborhood car-owners alone would still not have enough spaces for their cars even if other drivers weren’t even in the mix."
Moreover, a permit costing a typical $100 per year would be too low:
Only a true market system would create enough revenue to make a parking permit system actually worthwhile while also serving the larger public policy goal: discouraging residents of Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Fort Greene — neighborhoods with the best subway service in Brooklyn — from owning cars in the first place.
Other flaws cited include use of placards by uniformed services to "park anywhere with virtual impunity" and abuse by drivers lying about their addresses.
Now, in reaction to the Atlantic Yards project, City Council Member Letitia James wants such permits in Prospect Heights, so that residents claim streets ahead of arena-goers.
Click on the link to read about different perspectives in this debate.
Posted by steve at 1:18 PM
October 6, 2010
Could the Atlantic Yards arena plaza resemble Gansevoort Plaza or Union Square? Unlikely; they've reduced traffic
Atlantic Yards Report
Only this past Saturday, October 2, did I finish transcribing most of the September 29 presentation on the planned plaza in front of the Atlantic Yards arena. My report is here.
Upon reflection, I thought that architect Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP Architects did a good job articulating much of the rationale for his work.
Not that the solutions proposed will necessarily work--the proof is in the pudding--but such things as paving, lighting, and signage have been approached thoughtfully.
But even a good architect can do only so much with a problematic site. That's why the plan was found Highbrow/Despicable by the New York Magazine Approval Matrix and deemed Eyesore of the Month by James Howard Kunstler.
So I think Pasquarelli just wasn't convincing when faced with a tough question: "What are the examples of traffic islands as credible urban space?"
Click through to be unconvinced.
Posted by eric at 9:39 AM
October 5, 2010
When they say Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues is closed, now they really mean it
Atlantic Yards Report
Here's one street no one will be parking on anytime soon.
Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues--the place, during certain hours, for the staging of trucks for arena construction--has officially been closed since March, as the notice at bottom states.
But the closure hasn't really been enforced by the guards working for Forest City Ratner--until last Friday, October 1.
(Photo by Tracy Collins shows shanty for guard at Pacific and Vanderbilt.)
Guards step up
Prospect Heights resident Patti Hagan told me that she had regularly used the street, but, on October 1, she tried to walk east from Carlton to Vanderbilt on Pacific but was stopped by a cop.
"I could last week," Hagan said. "Why can't I walk there?"
The guard claimed it was "because of electrical voltages."
Later, on her return trip, Hagan tried to walk in the opposite direction. She was stopped by a different guard who told her it's a private street.
Hagan asked what was different since the previous week.
"Since today," the guard said. "Orders came down this morning."
Posted by eric at 11:29 AM
Parking Permit Smackdown: Either way, it's Ratner's fault
YourNabe.com
Point: Parking permits will help, by Letitia James
I recently spoke out in support of residential parking permits for Downtown, specifically in the area surrounding the Atlantic Yards project and the upcoming Barclays Center. I have long been a supporter of these permits; even before this development, I felt that permits offered a viable solution to the “park-and-ride” issue at the Atlantic Center terminal.
In fact, Mayor Bloomberg’s citywide sustainability proposal — PlaNYC 2030 — included a congestion pricing plan that would incorporate residential permit parking. Residents with parking permits would be allowed to park in established parking zones during the day. Residential drivers would be charged an annual fee to acquire resident-only permits, the fee being comparable with similar permit programs in other major cities. In the past, I have strongly supported this proposal.
...I strongly believe that residential parking permits have the potential to reduce traffic congestion, pollution emissions, needless traffic accidents (especially those that lead to pedestrian fatalities), and noise pollution. This would especially be appreciated in Downtown as we face the long-term development of the Atlantic Yards project.
Counterpoint: Tax Ratner for parking — not us!, by Patti Hagan
Why here? Why now? Because Bruce Ratner’s NBA-Russo arena aims to attract some 19,000 people some 300 nights a year to the always impassable intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. Taxpaying residents would have to pay yet another new tax — for the privilege of parking in their own hood? Why not keep outsider’s cars out instead? Or tax them?
A residential parking permit tax seems unfair. Ratner is already causing major traffic problems for the car-driving citizenry, having this year deprived Brooklyn of: one lane and sidewalk of Flatbush Avenue, one lane and sidewalk of Atlantic Avenue, one block of Fifth Avenue (R.I.P.), one Carlton Avenue Bridge, and two blocks of Pacific Street — streets where parking and pedestrianism have been forever free.
Ratner should be the one paying the penalty for encouraging car-dependant hordes to drive to his arena. He should be penalized for not persuading them to take advantage of one of New York City’s major mass transit hubs.
If a millionaire over-developer can just be given public streets, Ratner should be taxed for withdrawing those priceless streets from the grid.
Posted by eric at 11:22 AM
September 29, 2010
Tish: To fix arena parking mess, locals should pay for spots
The Brooklyn Paper
A key opponent to the Atlantic Yards mega-development and arena is now pushing for a parking system that would force locals, many of whom opposed the project in the first place, to pay to park in the neighborhoods around it.
Councilwoman Letitia James (D–Fort Greene) is calling for residential parking permits near the Barclays Center arena, requiring area residents to buy permits so that they, not thousands of sports and entertainment fans, will get the first crack at spots on the residential streets near the 19,000-seat arena.
The permits would also generate revenue for the city — which makes it doubly controversial.
“It’s highway robbery!” said Patti Hagan, a longtime arena and project opponent who lives nearby on St. Marks Avenue. “How many times are we going to get shellacked for this thing?”
James said the yet-to-be-determined fee associated with a residential parking permit was a necessary evil that would mitigate the space crunch after the arena is completed in mid- to late 2012.
NoLandGrab: Neighborhood advocates throughout Brownstone Brooklyn have been calling for years for a residential parking permit program, especially given the prospect of a huge influx of arena traffic. Such a program would have to carry a fee, in order to pay for itself, and a free program would only spread the cost of valuable street space to Brooklyn's non-car-owning majority — certainly less fair than charging a fee for giving over so much of our public streets to privately owned vehicles.
Posted by eric at 8:54 AM
September 27, 2010
On the day of the Atlantic Antic, Flatbush Avenue gridlock (and no DDDB or FCR)
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday, returning home from the Atlantic Antic at about 3:30 pm, I stopped at the southwest corner of Sixth and Flatbush avenues--two short blocks south of the southeast corner of the arena block-- and took out my camera.
The Atlantic Antic, the borough's biggest street festival, closes down the Atlantic Avenue artery west of Flatbush Avenue (the intersection of which is the western tip of the Atlantic Yards site).
Needless to say, traffic was heavy and, as the video indicates, unruly. Without a traffic agent at the corner, some vehicles going northwest on Flatbush blocked the intersection at Sixth, thus stopping southbound vehicles from passage.
While a Sunday afternoon in September is too early for a basketball game, it's surely a good time for a family-oriented arena event. If so, on the day of the Atlantic Antic, then the gridlock on Flatbush--even with traffic agents--likely would be worse than was observed yesterday.
NoLandGrab: And in the case of Atlantic Antic vs. Bruce Ratner, whose side do you think the city will come down on?
Posted by eric at 9:54 AM
September 3, 2010
Barclays Center Construction Forces Pedestrians Onto The Street
NY1
by John Mancini
NY1 reports on the recent constriction of Flatbush Avenue.
Things are tight all over near the basketball arena going up in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn -- so tight that creating a safe path for pedestrians means putting them in an unlikely spot.
"The only way we could achieve that was to put the pedestrians in the roadway, which meant that we had to take a lane of traffic from Flatbush Avenue," says Forest City Ratner traffic consultant Sam Schwartz.
In the best of times, there is congestion between Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street, where six lanes are now five. To keep traffic moving, three lanes flow toward Manhattan in the mornings and pedestrians walk on blacktop between barriers.
...Ratner's goal is to get all lanes open as soon as possible, perhaps as a few months before the arena opens.
Bruised by the long fight, residents are skeptical.
"We've seen more closures of sidewalks, more closures of streets at this point in the project than we were told were going to happen," says Prospect Heights resident Peter Krashes.
article [with video]
Posted by eric at 12:30 PM
August 27, 2010
Why did the Flatbush Avenue lane closure get extended until "Summer 2012"? A not-quite-explanation surfaces
Atlantic Yards Report
So, why did a lane closure on Flatbush Avenue between Dean Street and Atlantic Avenue for the Atlantic Yards project get extended from "early 2012" to "Summer 2012," as we learned last week in a Forest City Ratner mailer?
The answer I got from the Empire State Development Corporation was not quite an explanation, and, as of today, the Department of Transportation (DOT) still states, on its page of Weekly Traffic Advisories (excerpt at right), that the lane closure is expected to "continue through early 2012."
...I asked the ESDC and the DOT if they had any explanation for the change from "early 2012" to "Summer 2012."
I haven't heard back from the DOT.
ESDC spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell responded:
The lanes of traffic may be able to be restored a few months before the transit entrance and the arena open in the second quarter of 2010. We have been told that FCRC will restore whatever they can back to the public domain for vehicles and pedestrians as soon as possible.
That doesn't answer the question. What it sounds like is this:
- Forest City Ratner originally said "early 2012."
- They want some flexibility, so now they say "Summer 2012."
- If work proceeds on schedule, they can beat their goal and be "early."
That recalls... Forest City Ratner's plan to increase projected size of Atlantic Yards, only to garner overstated headlines with a scaleback.
Posted by eric at 9:53 AM
August 23, 2010
What a difference three weeks makes: ads indicate how lane closure time period was extended
Atlantic Yards Report
I wrote about this change two days ago, but the juxtaposition is telling.
(Click on graphics to enlarge. Highlights are added.)
From the July 30-August 5 back page of the Brooklyn Paper:
From the August 20-26 back page of the Brooklyn Paper:
Posted by eric at 10:17 AM
August 20, 2010
"Temporary Change of Traffic Pattern on Flatbush Avenue" now means at least 22 months, not 17 months
Atlantic Yards Report
As traffic patterns change on Flatbush Avenue today, we should know that lanes will close for a lot longer than originally announced: at least five months.
Forest City Ratner snuck a rather significant policy change into a mailer sent out this week to some Brooklynites. (Copy below is via Brownstoner.)
 |
The "temporary" change in traffic pattern on Flatbush Avenue--six lanes becoming five between Dean Street and Atlantic Avenue--will not last from August 1 (as originally announced) or today (the revised plan) until "early 2012," as stated in both community notices embedded below.
Summer 2012, not "early 2012"
It will last until "the new Barclays Center Arena opens in summer 2012." By no stretch of the imagination does summer come "early" in the year.
I had been conservative in my earlier estimate of 17 months. Now it's 22 months to the beginning of the summer in late June 2012.
What if arena's delayed?
But what if the arena opens in the late summer? What if it's delayed?
NoLandGrab: Is Forest City ever honest about anything?
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, More Traffic Inconveniences Around Arena
Traffic on Flatbush Avenue is about to get a whole lot more snarled. According to a mailer that went out this week from Forest City Ratner, the busy thoroughfare will lose a lane of southbound traffic during morning rush hour for the next year or so while "improvements" are is made on the Atlantic Avenue subway station.
Posted by eric at 11:52 AM
August 3, 2010
Flatbush Avenue lane closure delayed until August 20, as contractor wasn't ready
Atlantic Yards Report
Like a death-row inmate getting an 11:59 p.m. call from the governor, Flatbush Avenue users have been granted a stay — but only until August 20th.
On July 26, the Empire State Development Corporation announced a temporary (aka 17-month) closure of one lane of Flatbush Avenue between Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street, to begin on August 1.
Forest City Ratner even bought the back page (right) of the Brooklyn Paper to announce the plan, as well as an interior page of the Courier-Life.
Today, however, the ESDC issue an updated community notice, announcing the work would begin instead on August 20.
Why? The contractor was not ready to commence work, the ESDC said in response to my query. I assume that refers to the contractor working on Metropolitan Transportation Authority vent structures.
Click through for the updated work notice, and a look at the latest Atlantic Yards Construction Update.
Related coverage...
Courier-Life Publications, UPDATE: Flatbush constriction put off for three weeks
Flatbush Avenue will still lose a lane of traffic around the future home of the Brooklyn Nets, but the work won’t begin until Aug. 20, the state announced this week.
Posted by eric at 1:20 PM
July 30, 2010
Wiggle room: In FEIS graphics, ESDC suggested Flatbush Ave. lane closures would be temporary, but text was ambiguous (& referred only to utility work)
Atlantic Yards Report
Wiggle room, or weasel words?
So, did the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) study the impact on Flabush Avenue traffic of the need to build a lay-by lane for the arena and thus upgrade Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway vent structures?
On July 27, when I reported on the announcement of a "temporary" 17-month lane closure on Flatbush between Dean Street and Atlantic Avenue, I suggested no.
That morning, I asked the ESDC if it had been studied in the November 2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) or the June 2009 Technical Memorandum and whether ESDC had documentation on the rationale for the change and estimates of its potential impact.
Yesterday morning, I got an answer, and it deserves a close look.
Essentially, the text of the ESDC documents left enough wiggle room for the closure currently planned, but the attached graphics indicated that Flatbush Avenue lane closures would be temporary.
The asterisk, however, is the FEIS mentioned only the impact of utility work, not the upgrade of vent structures.
Posted by eric at 12:06 PM
July 29, 2010
Atlantic Yards Construction to Make Downtown Brooklyn Less Dangerous?
The L Magazine
by Benjamin Sutton
Not sure how to feel about this one: city-financed and -facilitated Brooklyn
gentrificationreal estate megadevelopment Atlantic Yards is moving along full steam with construction of the Barclay's Arena, which will require the closure of one lane on Flatbush Avenue between Dean Street and Atlantic Avenue for two years beginning August 1st. The Brooklyn Paper is quick to point out what a terrible inconvenience this will be for drivers, reducing the number of lanes from six to five—to ease the blow, buses are being rerouted and traffic officers will be on call at all hours; but for cyclists and pedestrians this is unexpectedly great news.Almost anything to slow the highway-speed traffic in that area where so many walk and ride on their way between north and south Brooklyn is worth it, except, for instance, the destruction of an entire neighborhood. But, since we apparently have no choice but to let Bruce Ratner make billions, a little incidental and much-needed traffic control will be a tolerable side effect.
NoLandGrab: We're all for traffic calming, but there's little about this street reconfiguration that will be beneficial to pedestrians or cyclists. Peds have been reduced to squeezing onto a sliver of sidewalk along the arena site, and Flatbush will likely be nearly impassable to those brave enough to tackle it on two wheels. Traffic will surely be moving more slowly, however — if at all.
Posted by eric at 10:10 AM
July 28, 2010
Legible version of the subway monitoring plan surfaces, shows arena wall less than 7' from subway; if vibrations get too intense, work must stop
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has a must-read exclusive on the MTA's plans for monitoring construction of Bruce Ratner's arena.
How do you build an arena very close to six active subway lines?
Very, very carefully, apparently.
As a recently acquired document (excerpted at left; click to enlarge) shows, the foundation wall of the planned arena, at at the arena property line, would be less than seven feet from the wall of the IRT subway line, specifically the tracks for the 2 or 3 trains going north along Flatbush Avenue toward Manhattan.
That means some very careful monitoring is required, as described in plans first made public here.
Plans initially denied
On May 24, I wrote about a Subway Indemnity Agreement signed by Brooklyn Arena LLC and the New York City Transit Authority, not only must proceed "in a good and workmanlike manner" but also must be subject to a monitoring plan, thus protecting critical transit system assets.
That's crucial, because portions of subway tunnels next to the arena site were described in 2007 as in "critical condition" and required repair "in the immediate future" and the "near future"--repairs Forest City Ratner is now obligated to make, though the cost is unclear (and could generate a request for future public support).
But the plan, at least as reproduced in the document, was illegible.
And, when I filed a Freedom of Information Law request for a legible copy, I was told no such copy exists.
Airing a complaint
So I wrote about that absurd situation and, a few weeks later, unbidden, I received a package from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which contained hard copies of the documents at issue: four huge blueprint-style documents, about 44" by 36".
NoLandGrab: Interestingly, if you add the dimensions of the documents together (44" + 36"), the sum is almost exactly equal to the distance between the subway tunnel wall and the arena foundation. Coincidence?
Posted by eric at 10:53 AM
July 27, 2010
"Temporary Change of Traffic Pattern on Flatbush Avenue" means one lane will be closed at least 17 months; did ESDC bury the real reason for change?
Atlantic Yards Report
The Empire State Development Corporation yesterday sent out a Community Notice (embedded below) announcing a "Temporary Change of Traffic Pattern on Flatbush Avenue" that will begin on August 1 and affect the area between Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street, a western boundary of the Atlantic Yards project.
Temporary? It will last at least 17 months, through early 2012. That's on the extended side of "temporary."
Change of traffic pattern? That means that one of six lanes on Flatbush will be closed. A "reversible center lane [will] provide a third travel lane in the peak direction." Expect new No Standing Anytime signs and traffic agents will be assigned to facilitate the flow of traffic.
(Click on graphic to enlarge)
Burying the real reason?
According to the notice, the work aims "to accommodate upgrades to the MTA vent structures along Flatbush Avenue."
Sure, but that seems to be the secondary reason.
According to the June 2009 Technical Memorandum, excerpted below, the vent structure upgrades were driven by the need to build a lay-by lane, thus allowing for "pick-up/drop-off and loading/unloading activity adjacent to the arena."
Was this predicted?
Was all this expected? Not really (as far as I can tell), which means the impact on traffic was not studied in the November 2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS).
Click here to see a PDF version of the Empire State Development Corporation's "COMMUNITY NOTICE: Temporary Change of Traffic Pattern on Flatbush Avenue."
Additional coverage...
The Brooklyn Paper, Flatbush to get ‘narrow’ minded during arena construction
The area around the new home of the Brooklyn Nets will be anything but a slam dunk for drivers next month as Flatbush Avenue will be narrowed to accommodate construction workers.
The six-lane road will be squeezed to five lanes between Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street, and the center track will run in the peak direction — towards the Manhattan Bridge during the morning rush, and away from it the rest of the day.
...ESDC spokeswoman Beth Mitchell said that traffic agents will be dispatched to make the three block lane loss as painless as possible.
“Traffic agents will be there as long as the [city] Department of Transportation determines they are necessary,” Mitchell said.
Expect those agents to keep busy. The area is constantly jammed, mostly due to car traffic, but congestion has also been exacerbated since the one-block portion of Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues was eliminated. That roadway was a key part of the B63 bus line. Now, Downtown-bound buses must turn from Fifth Avenue onto Flatbush Avenue and then block traffic as they wait to turn left at Atlantic Avenue.
...A southbound bus stop for the B41 and B67 will also be eliminated at Fifth Avenue as part of the construction.
NoLandGrab: This ought to be fun.
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
July 25, 2010
PlaNYC 1950 under reconsideration? Parking minimums in Downtown Brooklyn may be dropped
Atlantic Yards Report
From Streetsblog, “Movement Afoot” to Drop Downtown Brooklyn Parking Minimums
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the Department of City Planning is currently studying the merits of parking minimums in some of New York's transit-rich neighborhoods, like Harlem and western Brooklyn and Queens. And local interests in at least one neighborhood, Downtown Brooklyn, are starting to mobilize around the issue. While the coalition has yet to go public, sources say there have been preliminary discussions about reducing, or even eliminating, parking minimums in the area, which would be a big victory for sustainable transportation.
Right now, parking minimums in Downtown Brooklyn force new developments to include huge garages, effectively subsidizing driving in one of New York City's most transit-rich neighborhoods.
...This round of discussions about parking minimums hasn't reached Community Board 2 yet, said District Manager Robert Perris, but he knows it's been tried before. "I know the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, on behalf of certain developments, and the Brooklyner was one of them, went to DCP and said these figures are crazy here," recalled Perris. "They were not successful in those negotiations." The Partnership refused to comment for this story.
They were also crazy when it comes to Atlantic Yards, adjacent to Downtown Brooklyn (or, if you believe the developer, part of it) and adjacent to a major transit hub, as I wrote in December 2007, calling it PlaNYC 1950.
Posted by steve at 8:45 AM
July 20, 2010
On Pacific Street, truck traffic for arena construction seems to be backed up again
Atlantic Yards Report
More traffic mayhem in Prospect Heights, brought to you by the geniuses behind the Atlantic Yards project.
What's wrong with this picture of Pacific Street between Carlton and Sixth avenues?
Well, according to the Prospect Heights residents who sent me the photo yesterday, the trucks waiting to cross Sixth Avenue and enter the arena construction site were not following the rules as stated in the sign below.
Trucks are supposed to "queue as needed from Vanderbilt Ave to Carlton Street on Pacific Ave only." (The latter two, of course, were described incorrectly.)
Then the "flagger/radio operator at the intersection of Carlton Street and Pacific Avenue will dispatch trucks on an as called for basis from the Arena site radio operator."
...The reason for the rules? Pacific Street between Vanderbilt and Carlton avenues has been closed, so it's a private street used for construction staging. Pacific Street between Sixth and Fifth avenues also has been closed (as has Fifth between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues) for construction.
However, Pacific Street between Carlton and Sixth remains a public street, with the residential Newswalk building occupying a larger portion of the block. So the drivers are supposed to be mindful of their surroundings.
...Of the two dispatchers, one is responsible for managing between Vanderbilt and Carlton and one on the arena block site alerting the first dispatcher when space on the site is available and when to release truck(s) from Pacific and Carlton.
According to the tipster, that wasn't happening yesterday. The photo--as opposed to a video--isn't conclusive, but, according to the tipster, only after dispatchers at Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street recognized they were being watched did one return to Carlton Avenue.
Posted by eric at 9:42 AM
June 11, 2010
Over 3,300 New Daily Visitors to Our Neighborhood?
My Little O
The New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) is in the process of negotiating a 20-year lease to occupy six floors (400,000-square-feet) of the telecom building at 470 Vanderbilt Avenue. If approved, HRA will consolidate over 1,700 employees from two current locations (210 Livingston Street in Brooklyn, and 330 W. 34th Street in Manhattan). The two agencies slated to move are Family Independence Administration (FIA), which provides food stamps and job services, and Medical Insurance and Community Services Administration (MICSA), which provides Medicaid.
In addition to the 1,700 staff, the two agencies will service about 1,600 clients each day. This will bring over 3,300 new daily visitors to the area. A presentation by representatives of HRA at last night’s Community Board 2 general meeting was not received will by both members of the board and the community. The primary concern is that the neighborhood’s infrastructure (parking and public transportation) is not equipped to handle the influx of that many daily visitors. CB2 board member, Mr. Andrew Lastowecky said, "The Clinton/Washington A and C subway stop cannot handle an additional 3,000 people each day during peak hours." If employees and clients do drive there are no parking facilities or roadside parking in the area to accommodate them either. Board members also expressed concerns about the potential traffic congestion that will occur if there's a significant increase in cars during the development of Atlantic Yards.
The board discussed the possibility of withholding support until the NYC Department of City Planning provided more information. But after further discussions, they voted to send a letter of disapproval to the NYC Planning Commission.
NoLandGrab: Maybe they could use some of those 1,100 new surface parking spaces that Bruce Ratner plans as a gift to Prospect Heights, ensuring traffic jams in the a.m. as well as the p.m.? The sad thing is, 1,700 office workers would actually spend money in the community, unlike the basketball fans who'll be encouraged to part with their dollars solely within the confines of the Barclays Center.
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
June 9, 2010
Nobody Could Have Predicted...Oh, Wait, Yes They Did
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
A traffic mess created by street closures and superblocks in the early stages of Bruce Ratner's Barclays Center Arena construction?!? What a surprise.
Posted by eric at 10:34 PM
Traffic is a full-court press near Atlantic Yards, residents say
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
It's a traffic nightmare around the Atlantic Yards site, say residents.
Rush hour brings gridlock that can stretch for blocks on to once-quiet chunks of Dean and Bergen Sts., neighbors say.
The traffic snarls have increased since parts of Pacific St. and Fifth Ave. closed in early March to make way for developer Bruce Ratner's new Nets arena and 16-tower project, pushing more vehicles onto neighboring streets.
"It's crazy here," said Dean St. resident Gwen Orta, 49.
...John Buchbinder, 57, of Pacific St., said whether he's walking, biking, or driving, it's gotten much harder to get around.
"This really has not been thought out," he said. "It's gridlock. It's brutal. I understand they need to do their construction thing, but this is making it quite intolerable for anyone who's around here."
...Matthew Ingle, 41, who has lived on Dean St. for 11 years, said frustrated drivers jockey for position, block crosswalks, and blast their horns. "If it were just traffic, I couldn't care less," he said. "The horn honking is out of control."
NoLandGrab: Who wants to bet that incredibly annoying horn-honking was not even mentioned in the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement? Or the increase in emissions from gridlocked vehicles, in a neighborhood with one of the city's highest asthma rates?
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Daily News follows up on Dean Street traffic issues
The story is headlined Traffic is a full-court press near Atlantic Yards, residents say. There's no credit to previous coverage by AYR.
From the article:
Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco said the developer is working on fixes such as traffic signal timing changes. The Department of Transportation will evaluate how well it's working and request changes if necessary, he said.
NLG: Yes, lengthening or shortening signal timings by two or three seconds ought to fix it. That's the ticket.
Posted by eric at 10:55 AM
June 7, 2010
Was accident on Dean Street caused by increased congestion linked to street closures? Neighbors say yes, as traffic has doubled
Atlantic Yards Report
We know that Atlantic Yards-related street closures have caused an increase in congestion on certain streets in Prospect Heights, but a car accident?
Residents of Dean Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues say aggressive driving, driver frustration, and a long traffic light has made their street more perilous, and they blame the traffic increase in the past two months for a three vehicle accident that occurred May 26 at about 6 pm and blocked the street for some 40 minutes.
(Approximate location of accident marked by oval. Map from mitigation plan. Click on graphics to enlarge.)
That's hard to pin down, and the Empire State Development Corporation says that the accident was not directly related to Atlantic Yards. But it is clear that, at the very least, driving on Dean Street has become much more fraught.
Before the street closures in early March--Fifth Avenue and parts of Pacific Street--it was rare for traffic to back up on Dean during rush hours.
Now that's typical, residents say, with the most intense traffic on weekdays in the late afternoon, as well as in the morning (as per my video) and on Saturday afternoons.
So that's an argument for much closer attention from the authorities.
...The accident
Dean Street resident David Schlesinger reported: "I heard brakes, sliding on pavement, and then the collision. A car smashed into a van, and a third SUV hit the car, I assume while trying to avoid the accident."
..."The accident blocked Dean Street for about 40 minutes. Vehicles used the sidewalks to get around the accident. It seemed like a very dangerous situation for pedestrians and cyclist. The police did not arrive on the scene for at least 30 minutes. The police pulled up just as the vehicles involved in the accident were cleared from the street."
"The aftermath was unreal," his neighbor Matt Ingle added. "First they were going up on sidewalk to Vanderbilt. Then ambulances showed up, and people were driving the wrong way down Dean Street [back to Carlton]."
NoLandGrab: It is obvious to everyone who's observed Dean Street post-street closures that the Atlantic Yards environmental review didn't begin to anticipate the traffic chaos — despite plenty of warning from locals.
Posted by eric at 11:02 AM
June 3, 2010
The Dean Street Squeeze: widening the crosswalks won't help sidewalks never built for arena crowds
Atlantic Yards Report
Call it the Dean Street squeeze.
The main path to the arena from the 1100-space interim surface parking lot in the Atlantic Yards site will be along residential Dean Street.
The parking lot will be located between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues. The arena will be located west of Sixth Avenue.
Between Carlton and Sixth avenues, however, the route would get very tight, given that the sidewalk narrows to less than six feet in places, as shown above and in the photos below.
That's not what the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) says; it describes the "effective width" as 10.5 feet.
The bottom line: people will be tramping in tree beds and walking in the street.
...To accommodate the overburdened crosswalk at Carlton and Dean, the ESDC agreed in 2006 to expand the crosswalk. When the parking lot was expanded last year, the ESDC again expanded the crosswalk.
The parking lot has again been expanded, without any attendant crosswalk revision, but, either way, the exercise is ridiculous.
Like water squeezed in a bag, the flow has to emerge somewhere. And that somewhere is Dean Street.
Posted by eric at 7:37 AM
June 2, 2010
A fire truck barrels west along Dean Street against traffic; won't the potential for conflict increase?
Atlantic Yards Report
Fire trucks leaving the firehouse on Dean Street east of Sixth Avenue frequently drive west, against the traffic on the one-way street. Sometimes they go only a short distance to Sixth Avenue, and turn.
Other times, as in this case (filmed at about 9:15 am on June 1), they go all the way to Flatbush Avenue, along Dean, at the southern flank of the arena block, causing cars to scurry to the curb. The blue fencing begins outside the site of Freddy's Bar & Backroom.
(That's Peter Krashes of the Dean Street Block Association in the video, encouraging documentation.)
Potential for traffic conflict?
As demolition and construction increase at the site--not to mention traffic for an arena--wouldn't the potential for traffic conflict increase?
But that's not what the Empire State Development Corporation's Final Environmental Impact Statement says, in Chapter 5, Community Facilities:
Similar to NYPD operations, FDNY response times are not expected to be significantly affected by the closing of local streets or increased traffic as the project site is accessible by three of the borough’s major thoroughfares and service to surrounding areas is from FDNY facilities that have a broad geographic distribution.
NoLandGrab: What's a minute or two of delayed response to a fire when we're getting the NBA's worst team?
Posted by eric at 10:34 AM
May 29, 2010
Second look: fire truck going the wrong way on Dean Street; clarification: congestion caused more by closure of Pacific Street than of bridge
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday I pointed to Tracy Collins's time-lapse photography of congestion on Dean Street adjacent to the Atlantic Yards footprint.
In the very brief segment below, he's pulled out the sequence in which a fire truck leaving the station at 494 Dean Street (just out of the frame on the left) travels west against traffic on Dean Street before turning right, north, on Sixth Avenue.
A clarification on cause of congestion
Yesterday and in previous coverage of congestion on Dean Street, I suggested that it was caused both by the closure of the Carlton Avenue Bridge, which should reopen in two years, and the permanent closure of parts of Pacific Street.
But the bridge closed in January 2008, and the increase in traffic didn't accelerate until parts of Pacific Street closed in March. So the latter deserves most of the blame.
NoLandGrab: Closed bridge, closed streets, whatever. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Atlantic Yards has significantly slowed down emergency response times, though the ESDC and the city swear it hasn't. What's a few seconds when Bruce's profits are on the line?
Posted by eric at 10:31 AM
May 28, 2010
Traffic on Dean Street: Documentation of three intersections, by Tracy Collins, shows congestion and challenges
Atlantic Yards Report
I've been using a camera as a rather wobbly tool to document traffic and street conditions in and around the Atlantic Yards footprint. Below, Tracy Collins, who's a far more able photographer, has produced some videos with far more clarity.
Dean Street will be the main (only?) route to the massive interim surface parking lot on the southeast block of the project footprint. It's already backed up, both in the morning (as I showed), and in the afternoon (as Collins shows below in the first video).
Some of that is related to the closure of the Carlton Avenue Bridge, which should reopen in two years, but some is related to the permanent closure of parts of Pacific Street.
And the presence of double-parked vehicles could compound congestion; a vehicular accident would make it worse. There's not a lot of leeway.
So perhaps the workers counting traffic for the city (Department of Transportation, presumably) will recommend some fixes.
Click thru for more, including several videos, including the one above.
NoLandGrab: Any "fixes" are likely to be nothing more than lipstick on a hockey mom — Bruce Ratner's superblocks and thousands of parking spaces will surely make an already congested area well nigh unbearable.
Posted by eric at 9:38 AM
May 24, 2010
Brutally weird: There's a monitoring plan to ensure arena construction doesn't damage subways. But it's illegible. Ask for legible copy? Unavailable.
Atlantic Yards Report
The construction of the Atlantic Yards arena, according to a Subway Indemnity Agreement signed by Brooklyn Arena LLC and the New York City Transit Authority, not only must proceed "in a good and workmanlike manner" but also must be subject to a monitoring plan, thus protecting critical transit system assets.
The monitoring plan begins on the 29th page of the document below.
But you can't read it, as the two sample excerpts below show.
It's illegible. [Click for a larger, though no more legible, version.]
So I asked the MTA press office for a legible copy.
My request was ignored.
I filed a request with the NYCTA FOIL officer.
I was told to file with the MTA.
I refiled the request with the MTA FOIL officer and got the following response: In response to your May 20, 2010 [request], please be advised that the MTA does not have a more legible copy of Exhibit A of the Subway Indemnity Agreement. This completes the MTA's response to your FOIL request.
Catch-22
Well, if the MTA doesn't have a more legible copy, then how do we know what's supposed to be in the monitoring plan?
Answer, we don't.
Perhaps some of our elected officials might want to check into this.
NoLandGrab: "Brutally weird?" Norman Oder's too kind. More like completely moronic. But that's our tax dollars at work.
Posted by eric at 9:27 AM
May 17, 2010
How the ESDC quietly increased the amount of (lingering temporary) parking on Block 1129, and why that's an argument for more oversight
Atlantic Yards Report
When the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) posted an updated version of the Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments (aka Memorandum of Mitigation Commitments), signed in December, the amount of parking on the southeast block of the site was apparently increased.
Block 1129, bounded by Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues and Dean and Pacific Streets, was as of 2006 supposed to hold a 944-space parking lot. Last June, when the project began re-approval, the parking lot grew to 1044 spaces. Only after the process was there any notice that the parking lot would hold 1100 spaces.
I tried to figure out why--and didn't get a full answer.
...Surface parking and the need for oversight
Another 650 or so surface parking spaces would be made available on Block 1120, bounded by Sixth and Carlton avenues and Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street, which contains both ground-level land and below-grade tracks.
BrooklynSpeaks pointed out in March that Atlantic Avenue was the borough's most dangerous road and that parking at the site should be reduced.
That hasn't happened, and Gib Veconi of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC) and BrooklynSpeaks suggested that the ongoing issue of traffic and parking demanded greater oversight:
Since its inception, the sponsors of the BrooklynSpeaks initiative have called attention to the traffic and transportation issues raised by the Atlantic Yards project. It is one of our key prinicples underlying an Atlantic Yards that works for Brooklyn. We have specifically attempted to engage the ESDC on the plan to allow nearly 1,700 “interim” surface parking spaces on the Phase II site prior to construction. Unfortunately, the agency’s May 2007 promises to have a substantive and ongoing discussion of this and other traffic issues affecting public safety and quality of life in a “transportation working group” have so far been unfulfilled. We hope that the recent attention on Atlantic Yards’ lack of public accountability will motivate the State to reform its stewardship of the largest development in Brooklyn’s history.
NoLandGrab: Nothing alleviates "blight" like acres and acres of surface parking lots!
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
April 27, 2010
Idling dump trucks block Pacific Street, pinning drivers in: photos
Atlantic Yards Report
A photographer reports from Pacific Street: some 12-15 dump trucks being used for Atlantic Yards were parked idling and lined up throughout the block of Pacific Street between 6th and Carlton Avenues.
This blocked some drivers for up to an hour. Had the fire department needed to use Pacific Street or had mistakenly turned down Pacific, it would have been a dangerous mess, he says.
NoLandGrab: Who wants to bet this type of thing was never mentioned in the "Construction Impacts" section of the Environmental Impact Statement?
Posted by eric at 10:27 PM
March 30, 2010
Klores, whose firm works on Atlantic Yards, tells NPR that Nets move is "gonna be great" (but maybe not the traffic)
Atlantic Yards Report
Dan Klores, whose eponymous p.r. firm handles communications for the Atlantic Yards project, appeared on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show yesterday.
And then, at about 27 minutes in, Pesca brought up the Nets.
A good thing for the city?
"What about the Nets moving to Brooklyn if and when it happens," asked Pesca. "Will that be a good thing for the city?"
"Yeah," responded the Brooklyn-born Klores enthusiastically. "It's a great thing for the city. Y'know, you gotta give those guys credit. I mean, whether you're for it or against it, boy, they stood with it.
Who's they? The developer, the DKC client Klores found no opportunity to mention, that consistently extracted more government subsidies and concessions?
..."And they'll build a team--they'll build a team," he added, mindful of the meme that the Nets are well-positioned, with draft choices and cap space, to acquire better players. "I think it's gonna be great. I don't know what it's gonna do for traffic--but it's going to be great."
Yes, even Klores admits that adding more rush hour traffic to the area around Flatbush and Atlantic avenues might not be a good idea.
Posted by eric at 10:48 AM
March 23, 2010
(Yet More) Sign(s) of the Apocalypse
Brownstoner, Tell Us How You Really Feel
It's news to us, but evidently some people in Prospect Heights have some reservations about the mega-project that's about to take over their neighborhood.
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, Not-so Mixed Messages
An Atlantic Yards protester showed some serious initiative (and skill with a set of bolt cutters) by sabotaging a digital traffic sign this morning.
Gawker, Brooklyn to Bruce Ratner: F— You
Negative role model Joe Biden's four-letter influence has taken hold, at the corner of Flatbush and St. Marks, where mischievous Brooklyn protested developer Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards gentrification party today. Ratner is not amused. But everyone else is!
NBC New York, Anti-Ratner F-Bomb on Brooklyn Traffic Sign
Tell us how you really feel?
Reason Hit & Run, “A spokesman for Ratner didn't immediately return a call for comment.”
Less than two weeks after New York real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner and his buddies in the state and city governments held their big groundbreaking ceremony for the Atlantic Yards boondoggle, an enterprising Brooklyn protester took matters into his or her own hands this morning by hacking into one of the signs redirecting traffic around the construction site.
Posted by eric at 9:49 PM
March 19, 2010
DOT Creates Car Mayhem On Little Old Park Place
Bike Rides in Brooklyn... And Other Matters.
Blogger Matthew Weinstein reports on the traffic disaster that Bruce Ratner's street closings have wreaked on Park Place — traffic impacts that were completely unforeseen in the 4,000-page Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement.
The term Park Place appears in only a handful of places in the gigantic ass-covering document, and only in the context of being an intersection with Vanderbilt Avenue. The traffic studies did not anticipate backups on Park Place — it didn't even analyze possible effects on that quiet residential street — so needless to say, neither did it proffer any remedies.
But take heart, Mr. Weinstein, these non-impact impacts should only persist for 30 years or so.
I'm a bicyclist and the very last person you know who would criticize the DOT for restricting car traffic. Kudos to them for all the new bike lanes in our city and other traffic-calming schemes designed to make our streets quieter, safer and more breathable and to get people out of their cars and into mass transit or onto their bikes or feet!
However! Bruce Ratner recently broke ground for his mega-development and stadium at the Atlantic train yards. Not only is this ill-begotten land-grab-of-a-scheme stinking to high heaven from corruption and public/private malfeasance, it's also creating havoc on our quiet, residential streets due to collusion, I believe, between the billionaire developer and the city to make things go smoothly ... not for you and me but for Ratner and his stadium.
If you live in Prospect Heights, you may have noticed a huge uptick in traffic on little old Park Place, a narrow, residential eastbound-only street. But you may not know the reason. Here's why. If one drives south on Flatbush Avenue - i.e. from the Manhattan Bridge heading toward Prospect Park, there are very few opportunities to turn left (eastbound). Yet, large amounts of people live in our neighborhoods to the east of Flatbush Avenue: in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights and beyond.
If you live in those neighborhoods and want to go east from Flatbush Avenue, once you pass Lafayette Avenue, you cannot turn left for almost a full mile, until you reach Park Place! That's because --
• There's no left on Hanson Place - it was closed permanently a while ago.
• There's no left on Atlantic Avenue.
• There's no left on Fifth Avenue or Pacific Street - closed permanently.
• There's no left on Dean Street - ever! (until last week one could at least make a left after 7 pm and all day Sundays).
• There's no left on St. Marks Avenue.
This traffic nightmare was "designed" by the folks at DOT and it has transformed Park Place from a relatively quiet and traffic-free street into a major eastbound thoroughfare. Long lines of traffic between Flatbush Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue are common - cars very often take several red light cycles to finally pass through the intersection at Vanderbilt.
Posted by eric at 9:41 PM
March 13, 2010
Transit-oriented development? Allegedly. Transit-oriented groundbreaking? Not when Dean Street's "a parking lot."
Atlantic Yards Report
The Atlantic Yards project has been pitched as transit-oriented development because the site borders a transit hub and is near other stations, but, as urban planner Tom Angotti has pointed out, it doesn't add any transit capacity--except, I'd add, a new entrance to the Atlantic Avenue station.
But it would add some 3600 parking spaces--PlaNYC 1950, as I've suggested--and, for an indefinite amount of time, 1044 (or more) surface parking spaces.
So a good number of people would still be driving, and that was quite clear at the Barclays Center groundbreaking on Thursday, which drew perhaps 1000 people, a good number of them coming by car.
That meant traffic was backed up on Dean Street near the site.
...
Among those contributing to the congestion: vehicles like the one at left, ferrying Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.
On Brownstoner, "architect66" commented on the urban design of AY:
It's a lost opportunity. Development over the yards could have been better, could have connected Park Slope with Fort Greene, could have promoted more economic growth by extending and connecting commercial strips on 5th Ave, Flatbush Ave. and Vanderbilt Ave., could have provided thousands of lineal feet of vibrant streets and graceful public places, but no, this design doesn't do that. A squandered opportunity.
Posted by steve at 8:54 AM
March 12, 2010
Atlantic Yards: Making Dangerous Streets More Dangerous
Mobilizing the Region
by Kyle Wiswall
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a member of the BrooklynSpeaks coalition, warns about more traffic mayhem (courtesy of the Atlantic Yards project) and prescribes some potential mitigations.
A report released last month by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign named Atlantic Avenue the most dangerous road for pedestrians in Brooklyn with 9 deaths over the three years from 2006 to 2008. Nearby Fourth Avenue ranked third with 6 pedestrian fatalities in the same period. Both roads ranked among the most dangerous in the entire NY/CT/NJ region, with Atlantic Avenue ranking third overall. With 20,000 additional car trips a day projected to be generated by the Atlantic Yards arena and housing project, which broke ground yesterday, these numbers may get much worse.
Many of the accidents in the report occurred near the Atlantic Yards site. For example, a 58-year-old woman was struck and killed in February of 2008 at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and 5th Avenue, a 37 year old male was killed at Atlantic and Nevins in 2006, and, in 2007, a 4 year old was killed at 3rd Ave and Baltic. All of these intersections could see traffic increases due to Atlantic Yards.
Crossing congested areas like the notorious Atlantic and Flatbush intersection on foot is already tempting fate. A time lapse video posted recently at Not Another F*cking Blog vividly demonstrates the overcrowded and dangerous conditions and the Crashstat.org map below shows a cluster of injuries in this area. Sadly, it appears to be only a matter of time before more lives are claimed along Atlantic Avenue.
Posted by eric at 4:51 PM
March 9, 2010
Brooklyn Streets Close For Atlantic Yards Construction
NY1 News
by Jeanine Ramirez
After years of controversy and delay, some major streets in Brooklyn closed Monday, ahead of the much-anticipated groundbreaking this week for the Atlantic Yards Project.
Fencing went up to block off Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic Avenue, Pacific Street between Vanderbilt and Carleton, and Pacific Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
Traffic officers did their best to help drivers get around.
"You see the traffic on Atlantic Avenue now, it's wild; it's crazy," said driver Austin James, a Fort Greene resident. "I don't know what the solution is. It's going to be a nightmare."
Related coverage...
NBC New York, Streets Close as Atlantic Yards Construction Moves Ahead
Traffic is getting snarled around the site of the planned Atlantic Yards complex in downtown Brooklyn, as streets in the area reportedly begin to close to clear way for construction on the controversial $4.9 million project.
Street closings include Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic Avenue, Pacific Street between Vanderbilt and Carleton, and Pacific Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, New York 1 reports. The area is already backlogged with traffic and many drivers are expecting a traffic "nightmare."
Apparently, that traffic nightmare has already begun.
Atlantic Yards Report, "Turbulence and confusion" as drivers go wrong way on Pacific Street
"I do not expect perpetual gridlock, and my name is 'Gridlock Sam,'" observed Forest City Ratner consultant Sam Schwartz at a meeting on street closings February 24. "I absolutely believe there will be turbulence and confusion the first few days this goes in."
Indeed, even though the street closings plan maintains Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues as one-way westbound, that message, on the second day of changes, has not gotten through, according to the photos forwarded to me of traffic going east. (Click on graphics to enlarge)
[Warning: Take Dramamine before viewing video.]
NoLandGrab: Is there at least a little irony in the fact that it's a New York City garbage truck going the wrong way on Pacific Street? Forest City Ratner-funded Traffic Control Agents helping drivers navigate the new street configuration don't seem to be having much of an affect.
Posted by eric at 1:29 PM
March 8, 2010
Want to fix Fourth Avenue? Slow ‘em down!
The Brooklyn Paper
by Andy Campbell
In all the talk about how to fix Fourth Avenue, a consensus is emerging around one single idea: slow those cars down!
That’s the new message being touted by city planners, transportation officials and residents as more and more people get on the bandwagon to turn at least the Park Slope portion of the Downtown-Bay Ridge speedway into more of a neighborhood street.
...The [New York University] students will present their final proposal [for re-imagining Fourth Avenue] in May. NYU grad student Noah Levine wouldn’t release much until the proposal is finished, but we do know that Borough President Markowitz wants furniture on the sidewalks, a tree-lined portion that mimics Park Avenue in Manhattan and a wide pedestrian walkway.
But he also wants the New Jersey Nets to move to a 19,000-seat arena at the northern terminus of Fourth Avenue, which is expected to be completed in 2012 and would be something of a punctuation mark on the boulevard’s boom, which began with the 2003 rezoning that allowed 12-story residential buildings, a change in zoning that set off a wave of construction, mostly between Atlantic Avenue and the Prospect Expressway.
Posted by eric at 11:47 AM
Brooklyn Streets Close For Atlantic Yards Construction
NY1 News
After years of controversy and delay, streets are closing in Brooklyn, ahead of the much-anticipated groundbreaking this week for the Atlantic Yards Project.
Street closings include Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and 6th, Pacific Street between Vanderbilt and Carleton, and Pacific Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
The project has divided the surrounding neighborhood – with some accepting the long-term goals of the construction, and others taking issue with eminent domain and the possibility of more traffic.
While many say there are some benefits as far as jobs and affordable housing, they say adjustments that could have been made were not and they plan to monitor the project very closely.
"We need to make sure the city and state are responsive, open, and are prepared to make changes when there are complaints that come forward from the community, that we have a mechanism to do so, that our complaints and concerns don't fall on deaf ears,” said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries.
Posted by eric at 11:36 AM
Atlantic & Flatbush time lapse
Not Another F*cking Blog
Photographer Tracy Collins set up his camera at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues yesterday to capture the action. Notice that, despite the presence of a Traffic Control Agent, the pedestrian crosswalks are blocked by cars during nearly every signal movement.
Atlantic and Flatbush time lapse from Tracy Collins on Vimeo.
This intersection would be the northwest corner of Forest City Ratner’s 22-acre Atlantic Yards development and the site of the 18,000-seat Barclays Center basketball arena for the NBA Nets.
Traffic is typically miserable here and would only get much worse if and when Atlantic Yards is built.
NoLandGrab: If traffic control agents can't keep the crosswalks clear now, the building of the Barclays Center does not bode well for Brooklyn's pedestrians.
Posted by eric at 9:59 AM
March 5, 2010
Whither parking maximums for large developments near transit? DCP is moving slowly to implement some obvious recommendations
Atlantic Yards Report
Noah Kazis of Streetsblog has written an important three-part series on the reshaping of New York City and its consequences for sustainability and livable streets.
And while Atlantic Yards is not mentioned, the failures in the planning for this megaproject--some 3600 spaces--fit right into the critique.
There would 1044 spaces for indefinite interim surface parking, plus (ultimately) the 2570 underground spaces intended for the project's residential component and an additional 1100 underground spaces for the arena that would replace the surface parking.
...
In Part 2, The Next New York: How the Planning Department Sabotages Sustainability, Kazis wrote:Density, however, is only one piece of the planning process. Amanda Burden's planning department has laid the foundation for transit-oriented growth, but so far failed to create conditions where walkable development can flourish.
Across the city, mandatory parking minimums are holding New York back from true transit-oriented development. Additionally, the largest development projects in the city tend to sacrifice good planning in order to satisfy demands from developers with little interest in creating walkable places. Even as the Department of City Planning takes steps toward good urbanist principles in its rezonings, planners are sabotaging that very effort.
The department's parking policy is one major impediment. By requiring most new residential developments to include a minimum number of parking spaces per unit, the department is artificially inflating the supply of parking, inducing more traffic and subsidizing car ownership.
While Atlantic Yards is not mentioned--indeed, it's not a city rezoning but an override of zoning--it fits right into the critique.
Posted by lumi at 6:00 AM
March 1, 2010
ESDC COMMUNITY NOTICE: Closure of Sections of Fifth Avenue and Pacific Street
Beginning on Monday, March 8, 2010
On Monday, March 8, 2010 by 6 AM, the following streets in Brooklyn will be permanently closed:
Fifth Avenue (between Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues)
Pacific Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues)
Pacific Street (between Vanderbilt and Carlton Avenues)
Local and emergency vehicle access will be maintained as needed.
These streets are being closed to accommodate the Atlantic Yards project. Northbound traffic on Fifth Avenue can use Flatbush Avenue or Sixth Avenue to continue north; southbound traffic can use Sixth Avenue. Eastbound traffic on Pacific Street can use Dean Street; westbound traffic can use Bergen Street.
To facilitate vehicle circulation, Sixth Avenue (between Flatbush Avenue and Pacific Street) will become two-way and the block of Pacific Street (between Carlton and Sixth Avenues) will become one-way westbound.
These changes necessitate the removal of the Cobble Hill-bound B63 bus stop on Fifth Avenue, between Pacific Street and Atlantic Avenue. Passengers can use existing bus stops on Fifth Avenue (at Bergen Street) and on Atlantic Avenue (at Fourth Avenue).
Please see the detour map below.
Advisory signs will be posted in advance of the closures and detour signs will be posted during the work. Traffic agents will be assigned to facilitate the flow of traffic and pedestrians.
Questions relating to this project may be addressed to:
Atlantic Yards Community Liaison Office
(866) 923-5315
communityliaison@atlanticyards.com
Empire State Development Corporation
Office of the Atlantic Yards Ombudsman
(212) 803-3233
atlanticyards@empire.state.ny.us
 |
Posted by eric at 9:28 PM
Untangling the "conundrum" of Carlton Avenue Bridge; crucial delays were (likely) caused by FCR's cheaper redesign of the permanent Vanderbilt Yard
Atlantic Yards Report
How did the closure of the Carlton Avenue Bridge--a key thoroughfare between Prospect Heights and Fort Greene--turn from a two-year project to a stalled venture lasting more than four years, scheduled for reconstruction only in time for the opening of the Atlantic Yards arena?
Forest City Ratner (FCR) executive Jane Marshall last week called it "a conundrum," blaming the delay on the complexity of reconstructing a bridge that straddles the Vanderbilt Yard, a key element of the Atlantic Yards project.
But that explanation, as well as further elaboration by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), doesn't add up.
Notably, the bridge was originally supposed to reopen by the time a temporary railyard was completed--and the latter has been accomplished.
Also, unmentioned in the explanations, a key factor in the delay was likely Forest City Ratner's effort last year--well after the demolition process had begun--to renegotiate plans for a smaller and less costly permanent railyard.
In fact, it's possible that we won't see further action on the bridge until June 2011, the date "Improved Yard construction documents" are due to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). The arena might open a year later, which means the bridge might be closed for four-and-a-half years.
Posted by lumi at 4:30 AM
February 28, 2010
Carlton Avenue Bridge
Photo by Tracy Collins, via flickr Atlantic Yards Photo Pool.
|
Carlton Avenue at Pacific Street
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New YorkThe Carlton Avenue Bridge over the Vanderbilt rail yard was demolished for Atlantic Yards.
Posted by steve at 10:00 AM
February 26, 2010
Document: the revised plan for street closures and traffic changes
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has the latest iteration of Forest City Ratner's still-pending street-closing plan.
Wondering about the revised plan for street closures, and other traffic changes that was debuted at the public meeting on Wednesday, February 24?
Draft Mitigation Plan Fifth Ave-Pacific St Closures 022410 (2)
Posted by eric at 9:06 AM
February 25, 2010
At meeting on street closings, information (Forest City's planned major ramp-up) and evasions; tension but little conflict; questions left unanswered
Atlantic Yards Report
Some significant information--and evasion--emerged during last night's meeting on street closings and transportation changes for Atlantic Yards, sponsored by three City Council Members and held at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene.
It drew more than 120 people, well more than half project supporters, as well as opponents, local elected officials (and their staff members), and representatives and officials of the three local community boards. (Planned for closing are Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, and Pacific Street between Flatbush and Sixth avenues and Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues.)
For example, officials announced tweaks in the traffic plan and claimed political resistance has caused a delay in formation of a Transportation Working Group, which was first announced in May 2007.
A Forest City Ratner (FCR) executive gave evasive answers about the delays in the reconstruction of the Carlton Avenue Bridge (now tied to a previously-unannounced four-phase plan for railyard construction), the cost of a lease for the streets (city taxpayers lose $3.7 million), and the reason VMS (variable message signs) announcing street closings were left on for more than two days even after the closings were delayed.
That executive, Jane Marshall, indicated that, once a ruling approving condemnation of streets and other property emerges, the developer plans a huge increase in activity at the Atlantic Yards site, fostering construction of the arena. (That ruling was initially expected January 29, but was put on hold by a judge after property owners mounted an unusual opposition.)
While Marshall said such a ramp-up could begin in 24 hours, no one could promise how much advance notice would the community get about street closings, which were put on hold last month, and presumably are a significant part of the construction plans. (Council Member--and project opponent--Letitia James recommended two weeks.)
Posted by eric at 10:53 AM
February 24, 2010
Hit and run raises questions about Flatbush Ave.
Courier Life Publications
by Thomas Tracy
Sunday morning's tragic hit-and-run on Flatbush Avenue, which left 22-year-old Erinn Phelan reportedly brain-dead and her friend Alma Guerrero with a broken collarbone, has led to more questions about the potential effects of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project on local road safety.
[City Council member Letitia] James said that the Sunday morning accident exemplifies the need for more traffic calming on Flatbush Avenue.
“It’s a speedway and it’s only going to get worse with the Atlantic Yards and the continued growth in Brooklyn,” explained James, who believes that the re-synchronization of traffic signals and more general lighting would bring some much needed relief. “We’re not looking for street furniture, we’re going to be pushing for combatting problems with speeding.”
James said that the DOT seemed “receptive” to the traffic light ideas she and the North Flatbush BID are proposing.
...Cops from the 78th and 77th precincts said that they are stepping up traffic enforcement on Flatbush Avenue in light of Phelan’s accident and other complaints.
“We’re doing a lot more speeding enforcement,” Deputy Inspector John Argenziano, commanding officer of the 78th Precinct told members of the 78th Precinct Community Council Tuesday.
NoLandGrab: The Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) admits that the thousands of parking spaces planned for Atlantic Yards will generate thousands of additional daily car trips. What's uncertain is whether those trips will lead to slower speeds as a result of added congestion, or more speeding when frustrated drivers finally get past the gridlock.
One thing the FEIS didn't take into consideration: the potentially impairing effects of alcohol consumed inside the Barclays Center on the thousands of drivers — and pedestrians — leaving arena events.
Posted by eric at 10:55 PM
Tonight: Public Meeting on Planned Street Closings for Atlantic Yards
with Community Boards 2, 6 and 8
present a
Public Information Meeting
on the
STREET CLOSINGS at ATLANTIC YARDS
6:00-8:00 PM
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church
85 South Oxford Street
Brooklyn, NY, 11217
Posted by eric at 9:41 AM
February 23, 2010
Willets Point owners ramp up attack on city plan
Foes of the big redevelopment project have an interesting weapon on their side: the traffic engineer who helped derail the old Westway plan.
Crain's NY Business
by Erik Engquist
The traffic engineer who helped kill Westway, the massive West Side highway project proposed during the Koch administration, now has his sights set on derailing the city’s redevelopment of Willets Point.
Local property owners fighting the project are banking on traffic engineer Brian Ketcham’s study that shows two proposed ramps would increase traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway and have made it a key element of their lawsuit challenging the project’s environmental impact statement.
The Bloomberg administration has argued that the ramps are necessary to prevent a traffic nightmare at the site.
The original environmental impact statement, or EIS, showed the massive Willets Point project would generate heavy traffic, but a recent report on the proposed ramps showed a much sunnier picture. The ramp study—an “access modification report,” or AMR, which is technical documentation to support federal and state decisions on whether to approve the ramps—is being redone after Mr. Ketcham used traffic data from the environmental impact statement to demonstrate that the ramps would make a bad situation worse.
Posted by eric at 11:22 PM
February 22, 2010
CBN PRESS RELEASE: Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods Asks: DOT, Stop Hurting Our Neighborhoods!
The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods has written to NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan asking the DOT to remove signs and traffic modifications that are having a negative impact on the area.
The traffic modifications and other changes are intended to allow for construction of the proposed Barclays Arena by Forest City Ratner Companies. The courts have not ruled on the eminent domain questions required for land transfers and conceivably may not decide for months or years.
“DOT’s actions are completely premature and seem to be made at the request of a developer who doesn’t have the right to proceed with construction,” said Steve Soblick, chair of CBN. “So the thousands of people in our communities lose the use of our sidewalks, streets, and bridges because Forest City is telling DOT what to do? This is completely unacceptable.”
In its letter (text below) CBN made five requests:
Remove the Variable Message Signs
Do not change the 1-way status of Carlton Avenue or 6th Avenue
Keep Pacific Street between Vanderbilt and 6th Avenue open for traffic and parking. Make Pacific Street (Vanderbilt-6th Ave.) 1-way West
Rebuild and restore the Carlton Avenue Bridge to the NYC street grid NOW
Insure that Construction Traffic, the Big Rigs, be confined to the Big Truck Routes, Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues
CBN hopes their requests will be addressed at the upcoming Public Meeting on the Street Closures scheduled for the Wednesday, February 24th, 6-8PM at the Lafayette Presbyterian Church, 85 South Oxford Street at Lafayette Avenue, in Ft. Greene.
TEXT OF LETTER
February 21, 2010
Ms. Janette Sadik-Khan
Commissioner, New York City Department of Transportation
55 Water Street
New York, NY 10041
Dear Commissioner Sadik-Khan:
At the most recent General Membership meeting of the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, a concerned discussion was held about the confusion and steadily increasing inconvenience being experienced by drivers and pedestrians in the 5 neighborhoods encompassing and surrounding the proposed Atlantic Yards development. Members from Prospect Heights called for relief from the confusion being wreaked on Brooklyn streets and traffic by the DOT's premature installation of massive Variable Message Signs in the vicinity of Forest City Ratner's proposed Atlantic Yards development. Further discussion addressed the safety problems that would likely arise should DOT, piecemeal, change historically 1-way streets briefly into 2-way streets (i.e. Carlton Avenue for 1-block between Dean/Pacific, 6th Avenue for four blocks between Atlantic/Flatbush). The courts have not approved the use of eminent domain without which no land transfers can occur, and without which none of the street changes and signage proposed by DOT are required.
Therefore, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods requests the Department of Transportation immediately take the following actions:
Remove the Variable Message Signs
The signs were put in place to announce street closings which cannot happen until the courts rule with finality on the eminent domain question. This may not happen for months, or years. Despite the huge Variable Message Signs being dark and without message, they remain in place, depriving our neighborhoods of always scarce parking spaces. The VMS also seriously impede pedestrian passage where erected on the bluestone sidewalks of the Prospect Heights Historic District, Ft. Greene, and Park Slope. The signs can easily be stored locally.Do not change the 1-way status of Carlton Avenue or 6th Avenue
Changing the traffic flow of these few-block changes would deprive the neighborhood of scarce parking spaces, as well as confuse drivers familiar with those 1-way streets. Nearby, the 1-way block of Underhill Ave. that was made 2-way between Atlantic Ave./Pacific St. is quite dangerous due to unaware, inattentive drivers.Keep Pacific Street between Vanderbilt and 6th Avenue open for traffic and parking. Make Pacific Street (Vanderbilt-6th Ave.) 1-way West --
Again, this street closure is premature but changing direction of this block of Pacific Street would accommodate the traffic changes put in place earlier by DOT and facilitate the continuing 1-way status of Carlton Ave. (North) and 6th Avenue (South).Rebuild and restore the Carlton Avenue Bridge to the NYC street grid NOW.
The Carlton Avenue Bridge, a critical emergency-response route used by the FDNY & NYPD, was eliminated more than 2 years ago without advance notice even to the Fire Station a block away. It is necessary to public safety. Yet, Brooklyn has been deprived of this most important link between neighborhoods -- walking, biking, driving -- not for the 8 months promised, but for 26 months so far! Neither the Empire State Development Corp. nor Forest City Ratner will give a deadline for re-opening the Carlton Avenue Bridge. The Department of Transportation must exercise its responsibilities to the health and safety of the citizens of New York City, not the amorphous project timelines of a corporate developer who cannot claim to have a project plan or timeline.Insure that Construction Traffic, the Big Rigs, be confined to the Big Truck Routes, Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues
Large construction and service vehicles must be confined to the major streets surrounding the proposed Atlantic Yards footprint and NOT be allowed to truckquake and rattle our homes on the residential streets of Prospect Heights, Park Slope, Ft. Greene, and Boerum Hill. In the Final Environmental Impact Statement the DOT gave assurances to the Community that this would be enforced; the Community expects this assurance to be enforced.
Thank you for your attention to the concerns our members have raised.
Respectfully,
Stephen Soblick
Chairman, Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods
The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods is composed of established community organizations in Brooklyn Community Board districts 2, 6,and 8 who came together to assure full and effective community participation in the Atlantic Yards development process. Our meetings are open to all. For further information please email us at cbrooklynneighborhooods@hotmail.com.
Posted by eric at 11:47 AM
February 16, 2010
Council Members call February 24 public meeting on street closings; FCR and DOT reps will appear; Dean Street Block Association raises concerns
Atantic Yards Report
Those concerned about street closures (plan at bottom, by Forest City Ratner consultant Sam Schwartz Engineering( in the Atlantic Yards footprint will get another chance to query representatives of the Department of Transportation (DOT) and FCR at a public meeting at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, 85 South Oxford Street in Fort Greene on Wednesday, February 24, from 6-8 pm.
The meeting was arranged by City Council Member Letitia James, who represents the district (35) that includes the AY footprint, along with the Council Members who represent adjoining districts: Brad Lander (39) and Steve Levin (33).
It is co-sponsored by Community Boards 2, 6 & 8. Along with representatives of the developer and DOT, the Empire State Development Corporation's AY Ombudsman, Forrest Taylor, is expected to be in attendance.
There have been two previous public meetings, one lightly publicized, and both held about a mile-and-a-half away: one before the Transportation Committee of Community Board 6 and the other before the 78th Precinct Community Council. The church is much closer to the site.
Closures on hold
At the meetings, held last month, representatives of both FCR and DOT assumed that the closures--Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, and Pacific Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues and Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues--were on track for February 1.
However, a state judge put condemnations--and thus the closures--on hold, leading to significant confusion and misleading signs regarding whether the streets would actually close.
The dynamic of the February 24 meeting may depend somewhat on whether state Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges has ruled on the condemnations; it's possible that if he upholds the condemnations, the streets will be closed before the meeting.
[Update: A press release from James's office says streets "are now expected to close on March 1." That assumes that Gerges will rule in favor of condemnation before then.]
NoLandGrab: And if Judge Gerges hasn't yet ruled, you can bet that the normally sour-pussed Forest City VP Jane Marshall will be looking more dour than ever.
Posted by eric at 3:41 PM
February 10, 2010
Civic to tackle Fourth Avenue too
Park Slope Courier
by Gary Buiso
The Park Slope Civic Council will devote its annual forum to the future of the roadway, envisioned by Borough President Marty Markowitz to one day boast a grandeur akin to Manhattan’s Park Avenue.
Marty Markowitz, aesthete.
Michael Cairl, the chair of the civic’s livable streets committee, said the forum is entirely independent of the borough president’s comments at the state of the borough address last week, where the beep said he envisions a transformation of the avenue from “Atlantic Avenue to the Atlantic Ocean” into a magnificent “Brooklyn boulevard.”
“We like the fact that the avenue is changing, but the avenue has challenges in traffic and challenges in development, and we want to get the community at the table to see what they think,” Cairl said.
The avenue has seen a flurry of construction activity since 2003 when the Park Slope rezoning was passed,protecting lower rise side streets — but allowing buildings as tall as 120 feet to rise along Fourth. And while the building boom has slowed for now, the Atlantic Yards project is expected put renewed development and traffic pressures on the avenue, making focused attention there critical, Cairl noted.
Posted by eric at 11:50 AM
February 4, 2010
Carlton will be two-way, afterall?
Photo by Tracy Collins, via flickr Atlantic Yards Photo Pool.
 |
Carlton Avenue at Dean Street
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New YorkThese new traffic signs were installed today. They imply that the block of Carlton Avenue between Dean and Pacific Streets (it's out of view, behind the camera), will be changed from one-way to two-way, despite a recent presentation by Forest City Ratner that this would not happen. Carlton is currently one-way, going north (from the background to foreground in this photo). Parking along the eastern side of the block would be removed to accommodate the two-way traffic.
The closure of several blocks, rerouting of traffic, removal of some off-street parking and the creation of off-street parking for the NYPD 78th precinct would all occur for Atlantic Yards construction.
Posted by eric at 4:19 PM
February 2, 2010
Who's in charge? Untangling the street closing mystery and the government's long leash for Forest City Ratner
Atlantic Yards Report
At this point, the headline of Norman Oder's latest installment is a rhetorical question. We know who is in charge, we really only want to understand, "Why?" and "How come?"
Forest City Ratner waited well over two days to change digital signs warning that Fifth Avenue between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues would close on February 1--despite a judge's decision last Friday to defer any decision on transferring title to properties and streets in the Atlantic Yards footprint to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC).
So a lot of people walking and driving this weekend had a right to be confused when the street turned out to be open this morning.
(Photo looking north on Fifth Avenue below Flatbush Avenue, by Tracy Collins.)
And no one really knew who was in charge.
Was it the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT)? Not really, even though FCR said it would have to ask for DOT permission to close the streets without a judicial order. After all, I couldn't even get an on-the-record statement out of DOT.
Was it the ESDC? Maybe, given that an ESDC attorney said in court that no request for street closure would be made until title had been vested. But I couldn't get any further statement from the ESDC last Friday.
Was it the developer? Well, it appears that FCR has a pretty long leash, if it can place signs on streets and sidewalks and decide when the message gets changed.
The entire episode illustrates the precariousness and difficulty of public-private partnerships.
Posted by lumi at 5:19 AM
February 1, 2010
Fifth Avenue, at least temporarily, remains open, despite the DOT's unchanging signs; (update) signs should be turned off
Atlantic Yards Report
Despite signs
from the Department of Transportation(DOT) indicating that Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues would be closed today for the Atlantic Yards project, the street this morning remained open, after a state judge last Friday refused to transfer title, as the Empire State Development Corporation had sought.Below is a video I shot early this morning (around 7:30 am) as I walked north toward Flatbush along Fifth Avenue. The
DOT'sdigital signs--visible on both Fifth and Flatbush avenues--continued to state that the street would be closed today.Update: I'm told that the signs were not placed by the DOT but instead by Forest City Ratner.
Update 11 a.m.: ESDC spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell states, "ESDC has been informed that the signs are being turned off and the streets are remaining open."
NoLandGrab: Shouldn't the signs be placed and managed by DOT and paid for by Forest City Ratner? Or are we just abdicating all functions of government to real estate developers?
Posted by eric at 11:46 AM
So, will the DOT close Fifth Avenue today in the AY footprint? They seem undeterred by stalled case (unless they just didn't get to all the signage)
Atlantic Yards Report
Is a street in the Atlantic Yards footprint still going to be closed today?
The evidence isn't conclusive, but signs suggest that the city Department of Transportation (DOT) may go ahead with closing Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues--Forest City Ratner's priority.
In court Friday, Charles Webb, a lawyer for the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) told state Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges, "We will not even ask that they [streets] be closed until after vesting [of title]."
Gerges, however, put his decision on hold, so there was no transfer of title.
I concluded that the ESDC would not ask for streets to be closed-but I couldn't get a confirmation from the agency on Friday afternoon. (I should've contacted DOT, apparently; I sent questions yesterday.)
Posted by lumi at 4:16 AM
January 27, 2010
At another meeting on AY street closings, FCR's Marshall faces some tough questions from the crowd
Atlantic Yards Report
Apparently, Forest City Ratner's Marshall Plan didn't include answering questions they didn't want to answer.
Unlike the meeting January 21 regarding street closings for the Atlantic Yards footprint scheduled for February 1--where there was no representative from the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the consultant from Sam Schwartz Engineering (SSE) was a junior staffer--last night, at the 78th Precinct Community Council, the Forest City Ratner road show was at full strength.
And Forest City Ratner's Senior VP Jane Marshall found herself less la-di-da than at the earlier meeting, showing herself to be somewhat exasperated and even snippy regarding some tough questions that, to her and other meeting organizers, strayed from the narrow topic at hand.
(She's pictured at right with Sam Schwartz himself and SSE planner Daniel Schack. Photos and set by Tracy Collins.)
...Then Michael White, the lawyer, urban planner, and blogger behind Noticing New York, got up. "Do you envision taking title before Mikhail Prokhorov is approved" as Nets majority owner, he said. "I believe your bond sale documents... say that if Prokhorov isn't approved, the deal essentially folds. And, as I understand, there are all these strange stories coming out of Russia about... attempted assassinations." (He was referring to the alleged plot against journalist John Helmer said to be associated with a company in which Prokhorov owns a minority interest.
"There are also the Forest City Ratner indictments in Yonkers," White said, referring to the Ridge Hill case, in which Forest City Ratner has been cited as "Developer No. 2" but not indicted. "I wonder if you would therefore postpone the taking."
"I don't think it has anything to do with the condemnation taking," Marshall responded. "This presentation is to answer questions about traffic. I would respectfully refer you to someone else."
White pressed on, asking if they'd take title before Prokhorov is approved.
"We believe that title will be passed on Friday," said Marshall, referring to a planned court hearing on condemnation.
"They will take title whether or not you know the arena can be constructed," White continued.
"We know the arena can be constructed," Marshall responded.
"Whether or not you know Prokhorov is going to be approved," White continued.
"Next question," Marshall said.
Posted by eric at 11:57 AM
January 25, 2010
Street Destruction, Redux (Meeting Location Corrected)
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Tomorrow provides another opportunity to ask FCR and Department of Transportation representatives just why they're in such a hurry to close the streets around the proposed Arena site. They are scheduled to appear Tuesday before the 78th Precinct Community Council, which meets at 7:30 p.m. at at the Secondary School for Law, Journalism & Research (the former John Jay High School), on 7th Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets [emphasis added].
The big question: if it turns out that the project doesn't gain title to the land at the condemnation hearing on the 29th--where the legal owners of the property promise vigorous opposition--construction can't start. At the earlier meeting on this topic, an FCR representative said the closure would be for infrastructure work on the portion of Fifth Avenue that would be covered by the Arena--but isn't it a bit premature to start destroying public streets before the developer has the land to build on?
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, On Tuesday, another opportunity for public questions about planned street closings (location updated)
Posted by eric at 8:38 PM
January 22, 2010
At CB 6 presentation, Forest City Ratner exec says they will push for street closings even if title is not transferred January 29
Atlantic Yards Report
A Forest City Ratner executive, plus a transportation consultant, last night discussed planned street closings for Atlantic Yards during a lightly-attended meeting of the Community Board 6 Transportation Committee. (I learned of the meeting only yesterday.)
While the plan had been previously announced and a slide show disseminated, nevertheless some news emerged.
Notably, FCR Senior VP Jane Marshall said that the developer would ask the city Department of Transportation (DOT) to close the streets on or about February 1, as planned, even if the state court hearing on eminent domain scheduled for January 29 does not result in the transfer of title to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC).
(Representatives of some property owners have said they'll challenge the condemnation; though the latitude for resistance is typically limited, nothing in the Atlantic Yards saga has been simple.)
Marshall said she expected DOT to at least agree to the closing of Fifth Avenue, because FCR needs the street closed to install new utility infrastructure.
...Additional presentation January 26
Marshall said that similar presentations had not been scheduled by the other two affected Community Boards, 2 & 8.
However, there will be a presentation on the street closings Tuesday, January 26, before the 78th Precinct Community Council, which meets at 7:30 p.m. at the 78th Precinct station house, at 6th Avenue and Bergen Streets.
Posted by eric at 11:58 AM
January 21, 2010
Tonight, 6:30 pm: FCR and DOT at Community Board 6 to talk about street closures for Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
From the Brooklyn Community Board 6 calendar
Jan 21 Transportation Committee
Briefing by representatives for the Department of Transportation and Forest City Ratner Company on the planned permanent closure of sections of 5th Avenue (between Flatbush & Atlantic Avenues), Pacific Street (between 5th & 6th Avenues and between Vanderbilt & Carlton Avenues) and related impacts.
Long Island College Hospital
339 Hicks Street
(Hicks Street at Atlantic Avenue)
Brooklyn, NY 11201
6:30 PM
Posted by eric at 4:38 PM
January 15, 2010
So, would streets be fully closed? And where would NYPD parking go? Permanent spaces wouldn't come until Building 15 rises
Atlantic Yards Report
Now that the city prepares to close streets within the Atlantic Yards footprint, what about access for people still living there?
Who's in charge of the traffic mitigation plan?
What happens to NYPD parking?
There are still a few people living on Pacific Street (slated to close) and others on Dean Street (not closing). Can they get a ride home in the rain?
Click here for the answers, including analysis of the new traffic-flow plan, designed by Ratner consultant Sam Schwartz (below).
Sam Schwartz Traffic Closure Plan
Also...
MyLittleO.com, Atlantic Yards Project Permanent Street Closures
Posted by lumi at 5:42 AM
‘State’ of security at Atlantic Yards? ESDC won’t tell us
The Brooklyn Paper
By Stephen Brown
Everyone’s been talking about the drastic security measures at the new $106-million Long Island Railroad Terminal on Flatbush Avenue — but state officials still won’t talk about whether a similar security blanket will envelop the proposed Barclays Center across the street.
Current renderings of Bruce Ratner’s basketball arena near the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues show a line of thin, metal, waist-high security bollards — quite unlike the massive stone tomb-like blocks that wall off the entrance to the new LIRR terminal.
Much smaller, bench-like bollards were in earlier renderings of the terminal, but were dramatically enlarged after secret discussions among the LIRR, its architect and the NYPD, officials confirmed.
Atlantic Yards watchers think the same thing will happen if the Barclays Center is built, but the Empire State Development Corporation won’t talk.
Posted by lumi at 5:30 AM
January 13, 2010
Carlton Avenue Bridge reopening date now April 2012, in time for arena plan, more than twice the original time promised
Atlantic Yards Report
Now that streets in the Atlantic Yards footprint are scheduled for closure, residents must also confront the news that the Carlton Avenue Bridge (outlined in map) will remain closed far longer than initially promised and announced.
I wrote last August that newly-discovered details about plans for the bridge confirm that the demolition and reconstruction not only would take longer than the officially announced two years, it would take at least three years and likely much longer.
Now that's confirmed, since work will last at least April 2012, according to the city Department of Transportation (DOT). That date is shortly before the Atlantic Yards arena, if it proceeds on schedule, is supposed to open.
And that means the bridge would have been closed for four years and four months, more than twice as long as originally promised in the Atlantic Yards environmental review.
Posted by lumi at 5:45 AM
January 12, 2010
Block buster! State moves to close roads around Yards arena
The Brooklyn Paper
by Stephen Brown
The construction of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards will enter a new phase next month when three major streets are permanently wiped off the New York City grid to accommodate the developer’s basketball arena.
State officials announced on Monday that Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, plus two adjacent blocks of Pacific Street, will be closed starting on Feb. 1 to accommodate construction.
The streets will not reopen if the arena is built.
Related coverage...
NY1, Street Closures Outlined For Atlantic Yards Project
Construction on the Atlantic Yards project is forcing street closures in Brooklyn. ...
There are public transportation changes as a result of the closings, including the elimination of the B63 bus stop on Fifth Avenue between Pacific and Atlantic.
For more information, residents are urged to call 311.
NoLandGrab: Perhaps residents should call 911 to report the theft of public streets.
Posted by eric at 9:34 AM
January 11, 2010
COMMUNITY NOTICE
Closure of Sections of Fifth Avenue and Pacific Street
Beginning on or around February 1, 2010
It is anticipated that beginning on or around Monday, February 1, 2010, the following streets in Brooklyn will be permanently closed:
- Fifth Avenue (between Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues)
- Pacific Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues)
- Pacific Street (between Vanderbilt and Carlton Avenues)
Local and emergency vehicle access will be maintained as needed.
These streets are being closed to accommodate the Atlantic Yards project. Northbound traffic on Fifth Avenue can use Flatbush Avenue or Sixth Avenue to continue north; southbound traffic can use Sixth Avenue. Eastbound traffic on Pacific Street can use Dean Street; westbound traffic can use Bergen Street.
To facilitate vehicle circulation, Sixth Avenue (between Flatbush Avenue and Pacific Street) and the block of Carlton Avenue (between Dean and Pacific Streets) will become two-way.
These changes necessitate the removal of the Cobble Hill-bound B63 bus stop on Fifth Avenue, between Pacific Street and Atlantic Avenue. Passengers can use existing bus stops on Fifth Avenue (at Bergen Street) and on Atlantic Avenue (at Fourth Avenue).
Please see the detour* map below.
Advisory signs will be posted in advance of the closures and detour signs will be posted during the work. Traffic agents will be assigned to facilitate the flow of traffic and pedestrians.
Questions relating to this project may be addressed to:
Atlantic Yards Community Liaison Office
(866) 923-5315
communityliaison@atlanticyards.com
Empire State Development Corporation
Office of the Atlantic Yards Ombudsman
(212) 803-3233
atlanticyards@empire.state.ny.us
* Doublespeakarrhea: "Detour map" implies that the closings are temporary. Developer Forest City Ratner intends to PERMANENTLY close these streets. It would have been less deceptive to call it the "Ratnerville street map."
Atlantic Yards Report, Street closures in Atlantic Yards footprint planned for February 1
The notice stated that these changes may be followed by a full closure and, indeed, that's the plan. In anticipation of arena construction, on or around February 1, the city plans to close those two streets, as well as Pacific between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues (bordering a block that would be used for interim surface parking).
Will traffic adjust? Already the changes have caused congestion, especially on busy days. Expect a lot more traffic on Sixth Avenue between Flatbush Avenue and Pacific Street, which will become two-way.
Posted by lumi at 7:08 PM
Atlantic Avenue: The New Boulevard of Death
Gothamist
By Jake Dobkin
Fact: Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue has now eclipsed Queens Boulevard as the most dangerous street in the outer-boroughs. Nine pedestrians were killed there from 2006 to 2009, almost twice the number of fatalities racked up in Queens. This won't come as much of a surprise to anyone who's ever had to cross Atlantic Avenue— cars and trucks use it as a highway, particularly in the stretch between Flatbush and the Brooklyn border.
Some good news: the DOT has begun adding left turn lights and increasing the the timing for walk signals, and there was only one pedestrian killed in all of 2009. But with Atlantic Yards bringing thousands more people into the area over the next several years, you can bet that the numbers of deaths will be going up.
Posted by lumi at 4:22 AM
December 31, 2009
Can $8.1M in infrastructure contingency funds pay for repairs on damaged MTA tunnels when neither extent nor cost has been assessed?
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember that confidential December 2007 report commissioned by developer Forest City Ratner and provided to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which stated that portions of two subway tunnels were in critical condition and required repair "in the immediate future" and the "near future"?
The MTA, as I wrote in August, would not provide details concerning the amount of repairs completed or planned, or how such repairs would be funded.
Now we learn the repairs would be paid for via a contingency fund in the budget for the arena project, but the extent of the damage--nor, obviously, the cost of such repairs--has not been determined. And there's only $8.1 million available for Infrastructure Contingency.
That raises lingering questions about whether the contingency funds would be sufficient.
Posted by eric at 10:30 AM
The 2009 Streetsie Awards: Urban Abomination of the Year
Streetsblog
Chalk up a well deserved Streetsie for the Atlantic Yards project — which has yet to even begin construction.
Well, people's choice voters, you chose to bestow this award on the deteriorating public space near Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. This seems a little premature to us. Forest City hasn't turned whole city blocks into oceans of surface parking plus a big ugly arena just yet, though transgressions like this certainly deserve to be shamed...
Posted by eric at 9:31 AM
The 2009 Streetsie Awards: Worst City Agency
Streetsblog
Forest City's East River Plaza is one of the reasons why The NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) received this years "Streetsie" award for Worst City Agency:
Aching to build a huge parking deck but don't have enough cash? The NYC Economic Development Corporation is here to help. This quasi-public agency's predilection for financing suburban-style development was on full display in 2009. Two EDC specials held grand openings: The Gateway Center Mall on the South Bronx waterfront, with its 2,800 parking spots and atrocious walkways; and East River Plaza, a big-box retail complex with a 1,248-car garage hulking beside the FDR Drive in Harlem. These are utterly hostile environments for anyone who doesn't get around in a car, subsidized by taxpayers and located in neighborhoods with very high asthma rates. How does it all fit with PlaNYC and the vision of a more sustainable city? It doesn't. Not one bit.
NoLandGrab: Forest City's web site describes the East River Plaza as a "vibrant commercial center," which is developerspeak for "big-box retail complex with a 1,248-car garage."
Posted by lumi at 4:51 AM
December 28, 2009
Video: a walk around the arena block footprint shows traffic, demolitions, and perspectives from a wide road and a low-rise neighborhood
Atlantic Yards Report
Tour guide Norman Oder takes Norman Oder on a walking tour of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project:
Early in the afternoon on December 24 I took my camera to shoot some video (bottom) around the footprint slated for the arena block, the western third, more or less, of the site plan.
I wanted to see the new advertising signage erected by Forest City Ratner after the master closing and I wanted to see the impact of the new traffic plan, in which Fifth Avenue is limited to northbound traffic between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, and southbound traffic is diverted to Sixth Avenue.
My conclusion: on a high-traffic day, the traffic was pretty bad, with gridlock at Atlantic Avenues going into Fort Greene Place (the northern extension of Fifth Avenue between the Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center malls), though it was manageable with the help of traffic officers.
That's an interim condition, of course, because Fifth Avenue would be completely demapped, either compounding the problem or provoking new solutions.
Check out the rest of the article for a map of the tour and Oder's observations on neighborhood character and the real estate market.
Also...
The Real Deal, As construction begins, a walk around AY
Posted by lumi at 5:39 AM
December 16, 2009
After bond sale, plan to to detour traffic on Fifth Avenue and Pacific Street announced
Atlantic Yards Report
Get ready for a lot more traffic on Sixth Avenue between Atlantic and Flatbush avenue.
A notice and detour map issued by the Empire State Development Corporation and Forest City Ratner--issued just after bonds were sold for the Atlantic Yards arena--indicates that directional changes on two streets will begin on Monday, December 21.
Fifth Avenue, between Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue, will become northbound only, leaving drivers formerly going south diverted to Sixth Avenue. Meanwhile, Pacific Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, will become two-way. (Click on map to enlarge.)
The changes will accommodate utility upgrades underneath the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Pacific Street/Flatbush Avenue.
According to the notice, advisory signs will be posted in advance of the closure and detour signs will be posted during the work. Traffic agents will be assigned to facilitate the flow of traffic and pedestrians. Local and emergency vehicle access will be maintained on the affected streets at all times. City services will be maintained in the area at all times.
Full closure?
The notice states that these changes may be followed by a full closure of Fifth Avenue (between Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues), Pacific Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues), and Pacific Street (between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues) in early 2010.
NoLandGrab: Sealing off a common route of egress from Bruce Ratner's mall complex four days before Christmas ought to serve as a decent test run for a typical arena traffic snarl.
Posted by eric at 12:11 AM
November 24, 2009
Is the closure of Fifth Avenue coming?
Atlantic Yards Report
From the latest Atlantic Yards Construction Update, Weeks beginning November 23 and November 30:
The traffic and pedestrian safety barriers along the north side of Flatbush Avenue and Block 1118 for sewer installation is complete for the current phase of the work. Additional protection will be installed to modify traffic in 5th Avenue upon approval from the Department of Transportation.
The Department of Transportation first tried to close Fifth Avenue in May 2007, planning to revise service on the northbound B63 bus route.
Posted by lumi at 5:54 AM
November 18, 2009
In Gowanus Canal Clean-Up, Bloomberg The Environmentalist Vs. Bloomberg The Developer
City Hall News
By Andrew J. Hawkins
An environmental impact from Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject makes a cameo in the conflict over the Gowanus Canal, being played out by environmental interests vs. developers.
Critics point to other examples to bolster their point that the Gowanus is not an isolated event. Bloomberg’s advocacy for big projects like stadiums has irked many environmentalists, who feel the mayor’s priorities have less to do with the environment and more to do with spurring economic development. Opponents of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn say the traffic impact of the planned development would increase pollution in the neighborhood. And critics of the new Yankee Stadium cite delays in park restoration and the city’s use of artificial turf as supposed evidence of the mayor’s phony environmental commitment.
Posted by lumi at 6:05 AM
November 5, 2009
Forest City's Gilmartin: Yes, interim surface parking would be made available beyond arena events
Atlantic Yards Report
In my coverage of the July 22 community information session sponsored by the Empire State Development Corporation, I did not report on Forest City Ratner executive MaryAnne Gilmartin's explanation that interim surface parking--including 1044 spaces on the southeast block of the project site--would be extended well beyond arena-goers.
Moderator Craig Hammerman read a question: "Will the interim surface parking lots be used only for arena uses? If not, who else will have access to them and at what times of day?"
"They're available for the arena and they also will be managed by a third-party parking provider," Gilmartin responded. "The expectation is that, if there's demand for that parking that could be satisfied through making it available to the public, that would be the plan. So, again, at arena event nights, the parking would be targeted for arena use, but again there are many other hours and many other periods of the year when that parking could be and would be made available to others."
Posted by eric at 9:46 AM
October 1, 2009
Atlantic Yards YES! Bridges and roads NO!!
Here's another reminder that New York has priorities and where