Late last week the Prospect Park Alliance sent out an email blast announcing that NYC DOT has finished altering the park loop to give more space to pedestrians and cyclists during the hours when cars are allowed in the park. The new configuration -- which slims the motor vehicle right-of-way from two lanes to one -- also makes a lot more sense for park users on the weekends and the 20 hours each weekday when there are no cars in the park.
I went for a run in the park yesterday afternoon and the new configuration seems to work great during car-free hours. There is much less ambiguity about where you're supposed to be. Additionally, one of the underappreciated benefits of the roomier, more sensible striping for pedestrians and cyclists is that you can jog against the flow of traffic and not feel like you're breaking the rules or getting in other people's way.
The e-blast also included this unexpected piece of news: DOT will be enabling push-button walk signals at all the traffic lights in the park. The push-button signals were recommended by the Prospect Park Road Sharing Taskforce and are already in effect at four crossings on the West Drive. The Prospect Park Alliance explained that the signals will work like so...
Here's what you need to know:
- Pedestrian-activated traffic signals will only work when that portion of the Park Drive is closed to motor vehicles.
- When the Drive is closed to motor vehicles, the traffic signals will remain green and pedestrian signals will display the steady hand symbol (Don't Walk) until a pedestrian activates the button.
- When the Drive is open to motor vehicles (7 a.m. to 9 a.m. on the East Drive and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the West Drive, Monday through Friday), the traffic signals will operate using the regular green/yellow/red phases to facilitate traffic flow.
An upshot of this change is that, at these crossings during car-free hours, the loop drive will function less like a "shared space" where pedestrians and cyclists negotiate interactions without traffic controls. Stop will mean stop.
Last year, when police went on a ticket blitz in Central Park targeting cyclists who rode through reds, electeds proposed activating blinking yellow lights during car-free hours to indicate that passing cyclists have to exercise caution near crossing pedestrians (DOT said it could not make the change). These pedestrian-activated signals in Prospect Park will be a bit more heavy-handed.
In addition, the Alliance announced that the loop entrance at Ocean and Parkside will be closed to cars starting June 25. That intersection is slated for a major safety overhaul that involves replacing the motor vehicle entrance with pedestrian space.
