Parents and Kids Ride for a Car-Free Prospect Park

Parents and children biked through Prospect Park this morning, calling on the city to get cars off the park loop all year round. The “Kidical Mass” ride started at 8:30 a.m. to highlight the absurdity of letting a handful of drivers zoom by children and families as they use the park for recreation.

Responding to many years of public pressure, the city has whittled down car access in the park over the years, and now only the east side of the park loop is a shortcut for car traffic, and only on weekdays from 7 to 9 a.m. During those hours, however, the presence of fast-moving car traffic is all the more alarming.

“When cars are in the park, it just makes it, as a parent, and just as a person, it makes it a terrifying experience,” said Boerum Hill resident Grace Freedman.

For eight weeks this summer, DOT made the whole park loop continuously car-free and said it would study making the change permanent. There was no vocal opposition to the car-free trial.

Few people still drive through the park. Before the summer closure, cyclists, walkers, and joggers outnumbered motorists by more than 1,000 to 300 per hour during the morning rush on the east side of the park loop. This morning, only five cars passed by the group ride over the course of 20 minutes.

“It was nice to not have the cars in the park for those couple of weeks,” said Paul Vogel of Prospect Heights, who attended the ride with his 6-year-old son. “He can ride the loop of the park, which we do on the weekends, but then, during the week, there’s traffic. It’s just more pleasant — it’s a park, it should have a park feel.”

Streetsblog asked DOT for a status update on its evaluation of the car-free trial and its plans moving forward. The agency sent this statement:

After Labor Day, Prospect Park’s East Drive reopened to vehicles following a well-received summer pilot when the park was car-free at all times for the first time ever. Currently, we are analyzing data collected from the pilot during those low-volume months, and we will collect additional data with the Drive reopened in order to make future determinations about vehicles on the East Drive.

As for the data, we are looking at travel times as well as traffic counts in and outside of the park and any impacts the car-free park had on neighboring streets this summer or might have during other parts of the year. DOT will continue to consult with local elected officials and stakeholders and we look forward to sharing our findings by the end of the year.

In 2002 and 2008, Transportation Alternatives collected 10,000 signatures in support of a car-free Prospect Park. An active petition to make the park permanently car-free has picked up 1,137 signatories so far.

“This should have been done a really long time ago,” Council Member Brad Lander said before the ride. “We are this close, and I’m really optimistic that with our continued pushing, we’re going to get it this year.”