It's still safety last on Crashland.
The unsafe southernmost block of Ashland Place in Brooklyn — which was supposed to be part of a larger safety project until the Adams administration watered it down at the behest of a powerful real estate company — remains a hotbed for crashes and confusion one year after that City Hall decision.
This particular piece of Ashland between Hanson Place and Lafayette Avenue is now less safe than it was before the rest of Hanson Place south of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway was redesigned by the Department of Transportation with a protected bike lane.
From October 2022 to September 2023 — before the safety project — there were 12 crashes on the stretch of Ashland between Hanson and Lafayette, injuring three cyclists, according to city crash stats. And in 12 month after that, there were 14 crashes, injuring three cyclists, according to the same stats.
Instead of having the southernmost block of Ashland mimick the rest of the safety project, the city kept the block as two-way street without any dedicated bike lane — and created a confusing and treacherous crisscross for cyclists coming to and from the protected bike lane across the street.
Safe streets activists hope the city will fill in the missing link this year before the temperature gets too cold to put paint down. On Friday, they dropped a banner from a nearby building demanding the mayor fix the block.
"Because of decisions made by the Adams administration, one critical block of Ashland Place between Hanson Place and Lafayette Avenue currently does not work for anyone on the street and is the missing link in an otherwise protected bike lane that stretches from Sunset Park to Williamsburg," activists with Transportation Alternatives wrote to Mayor Adams and DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez on Tuesday. "We urge the city to complete the work before the painting season ends this year."
TransAlt members also have an ongoing petition to put additional pressure on the DOT to finally close the gap that they refer to as Crashland.
As the letter lays out, residents wholeheartedly supported the full safety plan, which put a two-way protected bike lane on the east side of Ashland. But the Adams administration nixed the final piece of the protected bike lane, and kept two-way traffic south of Lafayette, after real estate developer Two Trees enlisted the help of mayoral adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin, citing car access to a parking lot connected to a luxury apartment tower it owns on Ashland.
The Brooklyn Academy of Music also objected to the bike lane proposal, but the DOT had created a compromise solution to allow the venue to use the bike lane as a loading zone during events as long as it created a temporary bike lane.
As a result of that decision, cyclists headed north on Ashland between Hanson and Lafayette still have to grapple with moving traffic and double-parked cars and trucks. Because of the two-way traffic south of Lafayette Avenue, cyclists headed south have to deal with a bizarre situation when they get to the intersection of Lafayette and Ashland. First, they have to move to the west side of the street, then wait for the light to change in order to keep heading south.
The Adams administration recently showed a willingness to reverse itself on past decisions to wreck street safety projects. Two weeks ago, DOT abruptly announced that it was going to cut one lane of motor vehicle traffic on each side of McGuinness Boulevard between Calyer Street and Meeker Avenue — mere months after announcing the four-lane design would remain in place.
If the DOT doesn't make another stunning reversal, the activists who wrote the letter hope to at least get a meeting with the agency so they can make the case to do something on the untouched block of Ashland.
"If the project cannot be completed this season, we request a meeting to discuss the situation and learn how we can best support DOT’s initial proposal to improve safety on Ashland Place and around Atlantic Terminal," the activists wrote.
The DOT did not respond to a request for comment.
