Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Fights for Livable Streets

1:49 PM EDT on August 14, 2006

DOT's failure to provide a traffic signal or even a simple crosswalk at intersections
along DeKalb Avenue disconnects the neighborhood from its bus stops and its park.

Brooklyn's Fort Greene Association is running an exemplary grassroots campaign on local pedestrian safety issues. The neighborhood group has generated more than 500 letters to DOT requesting specific improvements in crosswalk layouts and traffic signal timing. Streetsblog can't recall hearing of a neighborhood organization producing that many individual letters for a Livable Streets campaign. It is an impressive total.

Even more impresive, FGA is using the Internet to illustrate, inventory and keep track of the DOT's handling of neighborhood traffic and pedestrian safety problems. It almost looks like a software developer's bug-tracking list. FGA's web site is a great example for other neighborhood groups to follow.

The association seems to have a very solid understanding of the fundamental problem within New York City's transportation agency. From the web site:

On this page, the FGA will document priority intersections and recommended ways in which DOT can rectify dangerous zones in the neighborhood. Although the DOT may be concerned with traffic flow and alleviating congestion, the FGA's priority remains with pedestrian safety. Our citizens lives are at stake. Until these issues are resolved, we recommend that citizens walk with EXTREME CAUTION at the intersections listed below.

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

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