DOT is proposing turning 6th and 7th Avenues in Park Slope into one way streets, like 8th Avenue and Prospect Park West, and narrowing 4th Avenue from three moving lanes in each direction to two. A look at the map shows the potential borough-wide rationale. Vehicles from a huge swath of southern Brooklyn funnel into Ocean Parkway and the Prospect Expressway, and currently have two main options heading to and from the Downtown Brooklyn area and the free East River bridge: Prospect Park, which some advocates want closed to vehicles, and 4th Avenue, designated for most of Park Slope’s new housing. The Prospect, however, also has a direct exit from/entrance to the south at 8th and 7th Avenues. The former is a one way street with timed lights and, therefore, higher traffic capacity. But 7th Avenue is not, and since one-way Prospect Park West does not have easy access to the Prospect/Ocean Parkway, it is a poor substitute for 7th Avenue. Other rationales have been discussed, but I suspect diverting some traffic and making 4th Avenue seem more like a pedestrian-friendly street and less like an industrial arterial is one of them. It may also be that the extensive studies of closing Prospect Park to traffic in recent years led DOT to try to come up with an alternative. I’ll warn the reader that I am not a traffic engineer, and know less about this subject than the topics I usually post on, but what it’s worth my opinions are below.
DOT suggests making 7th and 6th Avenue one-way would make pedestrians safer by limiting turning movements. They may have some data that shows this is so. Personally, however, neither as a driver or a walker do I sense one-way streets such as 8th Avenue and Prospect Park West are safer than 7th Avenue or 6th Avenue. As I wrote earlier, what I fear is a turn from the moving lane into a crosswalk, with the pedestrian struck before a driver sees them. Turning to the right from the right lane, the driver is temped to look ahead or left where they might be hit by a vehicle running a light or hit a jaywalker. What they need to do is look right, where their view is obstructed by a car parked at the corner and their own roof pillar, to see a pedestrian crossing with the light. By the time their vehicle has turned to face the crosswalk they are already in it. Turning left on a two-way street, in contrast, a whole lane of traffic is crossed, and the vehicle is turned perpendicular to the crosswalk, before it enters that crosswalk. There is more chance to see.
If a street is one way, the same sharp quick turn is possible from the left lane into a narrow one-way street going left as from the right lane into a narrow one-way street going right. Moreover, two way streets are more congested, limiting speed. One-way streets can, in fact, carry more traffic faster, meaning if someone chooses to cut the corner quickly, perhaps because of the pressure of traffic behind them trying to keep up with the timed lights, there is even less of a split second before the car enters the crosswalk, and a higher speed to slow down from if the driver hits the brakes. Precisely because the traffic is so bad, and thus slow, 7th Avenue seems safer to walk on. When driving, on the other hand, I go out of my way to avoid it.
For vehicular accidents, I can understand that left turns are more dangerous on two-way streets. A driver has to time the traffic coming towards them in the oncoming lane. That may be a rationale for making the streets one-way. I’m not sure it helps pedestrians, however.
The DOT apparently believes having a wider, prettier median and bigger turning lanes would increase, rather than reduce, the capacity of 4th Avenue, because left turners are backing up from the existing small turn lanes and blocking one of the three moving lanes. I generally don’t drive on weekdays, but on weekend the only places I see a problem with queued left turners are southbound at the Prospect Expressway and northbound at Atlantic/Flatbush, as part of that Ocean Parkway to Downtown Brooklyn route described earlier, and at 9th Street. What I do notice is the right lane is obstructed by double parkers along much of 4th Avenue, especially in the vicinity of the Prospect. So no matter what the map says, the plan might reduce moving lanes from 2 to 1 rather than 3 to 2.
Speaking of double parking, the capacity gain on 7th Avenue may be less than realized. Different people have different levels of attitude when it comes from double parking, and there is a considerable population whose inner moral compass allows them to double park on low traffic side streets, forcing traffic to squeeze by, and if doing so obstructs one of two moving lanes, but does not allow them to block the one and only moving lane. (Other people feel comfortable doing that as well – “why shouldn’t people wait just a minute or two for ME?”). A visit to the vicinity of 8th Avenue and 7th Street at 8:15 on a weekday morning provides a glimpse at the capacity 7th Avenue is likely to have in the PM rush. In fact, 8th Avenue backs up behind the right turn at Union Street even on weekends. Unless DOT takes the Flatbush Avenue approach and imposes a ruthlessly enforced ban on on-street parking from 4 pm to 7 pm on weekdays on 7th Avenue, and perhaps in the morning on 8th Avenue, you’d still have congestion. I agree with Transportation Alternatives that the big problem in Park Slope today is the search for parking, particularly in the vicinity of northern 5th Avenue, which has become a regional destination. Hate to admit it but with time scarce and a long walk and poor transit connections between there and Windsor Terrance, I drive there myself.
Speaking of transit, making 7th Avenue one way would also drastically reduce the usefulness of the B67 bus, as the lack of ridership on the B69 shows. As subway riders have spread deep into South Slope and the cemetery side of Windsor Terrace, far from the subway, the B67 has become a key link to the 7th Avenue F-line station. While there is also a subway entrance on 8th Avenue, having the bus line split would make it much less convenient, especially given the need for a drastic diversion to get from the other side of the Prospect to 8th Avenue (unless DOT is planning to build a bridge over the highway there). Needless to say, the effect on those using the line to travel to and from shopping on 7th Avenue would be greater. Overall, I believe the loss of utility from having the stops 800 feet away from each other would more than offset the gain from having less congestion on the route. Ridership would fall, leaving the MTA with a choice of diverting more subsidy dollars to Park Slope to the detriment of other areas, or reducing service to balance with demand. But less frequent service a block away is an even greater deterrent to using the buses, leading to even lower ridership. It should be noted that Park Slope and Windsor Terrace are already served three low-ridership and thus high subsidy routes – the B69, B71 and B75.
For the sake of argument, however, let’s say that travel for on-street parking permit holders between southern Brooklyn and Downtown Manhattan/Downtown Brooklyn has become so onerous that something must be done, and the Meade Esposito memorial B103 bus just doesn’t cut it as an alternative. If 7th Avenue and 8th Avenue must be paired for through traffic, how about also doing the following:
Keep 6th Avenue two-way. It doesn’t provide the advantage of access to the Prospect Expressway 7th Avenue does, do why not leave it alone?
Keep the current rules for vehicular access to Prospect Park. I part company with Transportation Alternatives on this one, as I see auto traffic as a security benefit for joggers in the dark in the wintertime. The one pedestrian death I can recall, best as I can remember, didn’t occur when the park was open to cars. It occurred when the park was closed, in the area where it is always open to provide access to the skating rink parking lot, even when the skating rink itself is not open. In any event, I’m more worried about being hit by a bike in the park than a car, and though others may be worse drivers and better bikers than I am, other pedestrians have more to fear from me when I’m on two wheels than when I’m on four.
Keep 4th Avenue at three lanes each way. To solve the left turning problem where it exists, extend the sidewalk out and eliminate a parking lane for 1 ½ blocks before the left, leaving only enough room for a standard 12-foot moving right lane. My observation – no parking, no double parking, so this would allow the entire left lane to be used to queue cars for the turns but still permit two moving lanes to go by. There is always a conflict between the use of the street for parking and the use of the street for movement. In the case of 4th Avenue, I think it would be better to lose a small part of the parking lanes than to lose the moving lanes along the entire length of the street.
Make Prospect Park West two-way, to improve bus serve. The once-a-month B69 could be cut back to, and the frequent B68 extended to, Grand Army Plaza. This would allow vastly improved transit access to the library and other institutions at the north end of the park from South Slope, Windsor Terrace, and the whole B68 corridor, as well as allowing a transfer from the frequent B68 to the even more frequent B41. With the B35, this would create a triangle of bus routes with frequent service around the park. Long before the announcement that DOT was considering turning 6th and 7th Avenues into one-way streets, I was thinking about turning 8th Avenue and Prospect Park West to two-way streets. In the trolley era, by the way, Prospect Park West was one-way, but streetcars ran both ways on the park side of the street, where there was no parking lane. Today, the B69 and B75 must squeeze down narrow 15th Street to 8th Avenue, where their northbound route is a block away from southbound service.
Here is an even more radical thought – if DOT can have them, why can’t I? How about limiting 5th Avenue to buses, bikes, pedestrians, and trucks making deliveries? This street is the home of several major commercial centers, a result of its historical status as the home of the 5th Avenue Elevated. On weekdays it is as congested as any street in Brooklyn, as trucks making deliveries DO double-park blocking the only moving lane, because all the space at the curb is taken by parked cars. As a result, the B63 bus is so unreliable it actually draws more customers and runs more service on the weekends. And even more so than on 7th Avenue, cars looking for parking clog the streets. You are lucky to be able to pull into a hydrant to drop someone off or pick them up within a block of 5th Avenue, as the hydrants are parked in.
If neither cars nor parking were permitted on 5th Avenue, those extra cars would go away. So would the sales they provide to 5th Avenue businesses. The question is, would the additional sales attracted by making the street better for pedestrians, bus riders, and bike riders offset this? As an experiment, perhaps something like a perpetual street fair pattern could be implemented during weekends in the summer, with the parking lanes roped off and restaurants and stores allowed to set out tables and chairs there, for people to eat and drink and play cards and checkers and dominoes. Bus service would be stepped up, and people would be encouraged to bike, skate-board, scooter and roller-skate the Avenue, with only buses to dodge. If, after one summer, the change resulted in more business rather than less, perhaps those rules could be expanded to weekends not in the summer. Then to weekdays in the summer. If the benefits outweighed the costs, perhaps such a pattern could go year-round.
Perhaps, in fact, DOT might want to consider some if these measures while leaving 7th Avenue two-way, and making 8th Avenue two-way. There are certain facts about the Brooklyn street grid that the agency can’t get around. Through traffic on a paired 7th and 8th Avenue would eventually end up on Flatbush Aveune. Just as traffic from Ocean Parkway/Prospect Expressway via Prospect Park or 4th Avenue ends up on Flatbush. So does traffic from lower 4th Avenue, and 3rd Avenue, and lower Flatbush Avenue, and Ocean Avenue, and Linden Boulevard, and Empire Boulevard, and Eastern Parkway, and eastern Atlantic Avenue, and the Lafayette/DeKalb pair. All these arterials eventually funnel down to just Flatbush Avenue and, to a lesser extent, western Atlantic Avenue (itself the bone of local vs. regional street contention) for those traveling to the free bridges and Downtown Brooklyn. That’s if you don’t count the BQE, and aside from the middle of the night, I don’t.
It always amazes me that on weekends, when I might be on it, Flatbush Avenue moves. But at rush hour on weekdays, forget it – I’ve tried riding the B67 home from Downtown Brooklyn a few times just to do it, and that is more than enough. There is a reason, however, that if Brooklyn is going to have a gathering place for 20,000 people, Atlantic and Flatbush is the right place to put it. While arterial traffic lanes become scarce in this area and points north and west, train tracks are abundant. Rather than DOT seeking to accommodate more vehicles through the area, perhaps people need to take that as a hint.