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"Atlantic Yards"

DOT’s Park Slope Proposal: Is this Atlantic Yards Planning?

2:30 PM EDT on March 13, 2007

flatbush.jpg

Last week, DOT quietly revealed that it was planning to narrow Fourth Avenue and transform Park Slope, Brooklyn's Sixth and Seventh Avenues in to one-way streets. Agency officials say that the the changes are being proposed for no reason other than "to make it safer for pedestrians crossing the street."

Fourth, Sixth and Seventh Avenues -- the streets that DOT wishes to redesign -- all terminate at the edge of the Atlantic Yards development. Naturally, many are wondering if DOT's plan has anything to do with Forest City Enterprises' basketball arena and 16-skyscraper mega-project.

Adding fuel to the fire is the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Atlantic Yards project (Chapter 19-11) which proposes closing off the northbound side of Fourth Avenue between Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush to motor vehicles (which, actually, could be a really nice thing to do regardless). Could it be that DOT's Park Slope plan is aimed at shunting Fourth Avenue's Manhattan Bridge-bound morning traffic jam over to Sixth and Eighth Avenues?

We put the question to DOT. We'll let you know the answer when they get back to us.

Here is the relevant excerpt from the Atlantic Yards FEIS:

Aaron Naparstek
AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparstek’s 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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