The Plan: Making Brooklyn’s 9th Street Safer for Everyone
Below is a sketch of DOT's plan for 9th Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn. We think it's a great plan deserving of support. The new configuration narrows a notoriously dangerous four lane road down to two travel lanes and adds a median with left-turn bays and a pair of bike lanes with three-foot buffers.
The plan is a response to community activism that started after a sedan careened through the front door of Dizzy's Diner on Eighth Avenue and
9th Street in the summer of 2004. Miraculously, no one was hurt. But the event galvanized
neighborhood residents to begin a process that generated more than 1,200
signatures urging the City's Department of Transportation to address
long-standing pedestrian-safety and reckless-driving problems on 9th Street.
This proposed "road diet" is modeled on a successful plan that DOT implemented on Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights in 2005.
Some opponents of the plan don't like it because they believe that it will hinder their ability to double-park to load and unload their cars. I have asked an opponent of the project to write a short piece for Streetsblog outlining the opposition.
If you live or work within the boundaries of Community Board 6 or
Park Slope, or if you use 9th Street as a pedestrian, motorist, cyclist
or bus rider, please take just a minute to fax in your support to Community Board 6 ahead of their meeting on Wednesday, April 11 at 6:30 pm.
Stay in touch
Sign up for our free newsletter
More from Streetsblog New York City
Why Sustainable Transportation Advocates Need to Talk About Long COVID
Covid-19 transformed many U.S. cities' approach to sustainable transportation forever. But how did it transform the lives of sustainable transportation advocates who developed lasting symptoms from the disease?
Analysis: ‘Dangerous Vehicle Abatement Program’ is a Failure By All Measures
The Department of Transportation wants the Dangerous Vehicle Abatement Program to simply expire in part because it did not dramatically improve safety among these worst-of-the-worst drivers and led to a tiny number of vehicle seizures.
School Bus Driver Kills Cyclist in Boro Park, 24th Bike Death of 2023
Luis Perez-Ramirez, 44, was biking south on Fort Hamilton Parkway just before 3:15 p.m. when he was struck a by school bus driver making a right turn.
‘Betrayal’: Adams Caves to Opposition, Abandons Bus Improvement Plan on Fordham Road
The capitulation on Fordham Road is the latest episode in which the mayor has delayed or watered down a transportation project in deference to powerful interests.
Friday’s Headlines: Yes He Said Yes He Will Yes Edition
That headline above is a reference to the last line of James Joyce's Ulysses, which we won't pretend to have read. But we have that ... and other news.
