The city must include critical street safety improvements along a six-lane portion of Atlantic Avenue as part of a neighborhood rezoning proposal in Brooklyn, including a road diet and infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, the Borough President said this week.
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso made the recommendation as part of his advisory role in the land-use review process, but in keeping with his longstanding call for the administration to think bigger on street safety, he demanded that the Department of Transportation commit to more than just removing parking at some intersections, a process known as “daylighting.”
“The Borough President is encouraged that improving urban design and infrastructure is a named goal, however, is disappointed by the lack of proposed details,” reads the recommendation, issued on Monday. “Daylighting streets is necessary, but a bare minimum; this kind of work should be integrated into the scope of every routine DOT repaving project.”
Reynoso's conditional support for the rezoning rests on three conditions:
- DOT must commit reduce the six car lanes to four along Atlantic Avenue, in line with the rest of the corridor.
- DOT should pursue paid commercial parking spaces and metered parking for non-commercial vehicles to encourage turnover and make enforcement effective.
- DOT should prioritize investments in Lowry Triangle (road diet and design).
The Atlantic Avenue Mixed Use Plan, put forth by the Department of City Planning, has been an over 10-year quest to create a comprehensive neighborhood plan for a 13-block stretch of Atlantic Avenue. The rezoning would create mixed use areas out of manufacturing zones so new housing can be built as well as allow for affordable housing on a few city-owned lots. The new zoning rules passed as a part of the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity also make it so future development will not have a required amount of residential parking.
DOT has committed to several street safety projects, but has been vague about what it will do to make the corridor more livable, nor has the agency promised a road diet. Instead, developers will have to set back their buildings to accommodate wider sidewalks, instead of repurposing one of the three travel lanes in each direction.
The DOT promised "painted 'neckdowns,'" which are raised curb extensions that narrow the travel lane at intersections or midblock locations, to expand curbside protections; daylighting to improve visibility at intersections; planters; and bike corrals along medians throughout the neighborhood; as well as a new bike lane on Bedford Avenue," according to the city's press release announcing the public review phase. The Bedford Avenue protected bike lane project has largely already been completed.
Reynoso’s recommendation points out that the commitments from the Department of Transportation lack a comprehensive redesign proposal to transform the six-lane roadway into a place welcoming to the newcomers lured in with housing options, or to help the residents already in the area who overwhelmingly rely on walking and public transit.
Advocates have also been pushing for more street improvement commitments as part of the plan. Earlier this month, representatives from Transportation Alternatives’s Brooklyn committee wrote an open letter to the Borough President, Council Member Crystal Hudson (D-Brooklyn), the DOT and the Department of City Planning, calling for more comprehensive street design commitments.
“So much of the discourse had to do with housing, which is extremely important, but there's also a really incredible, generational opportunity here to completely change what the Atlantic Avenue corridor is by changing the street design,” said Alex Morano, a volunteer chair with Transportation Alternatives Brooklyn who co-authored the letter.
Both recommendations made it clear that this rezoning is a huge opportunity to create a safer Atlantic Avenue corridor, one of the most dangerous in the city which the plan itself called "inhospitable for pedestrians." From 2021 through 2024, four people — two motorists and two pedestrians — were killed on the short stretch, and 473 people were injured in the 831 reported crashes, an average of a crash every other day, according to data compiled by NYC Crash Mapper. In the project area, the majority of the road is over 120 feet wide, with over 80 percent of public space used for moving or storing vehicles, leaving pedestrians and cyclists to share the scraps.
"We need to prioritize safety on Atlantic Avenue and truly do something bold here to reduce crashes, to connect communities, to make it a safe and joyful part of the city rather than a place that repels people and hurts and kills people," Kathy Park-Price, a Brooklyn organizer with Transportation Alternatives and co-author of the letter, told Streetsblog.
In order to calm traffic and improve the public realm, Transportation Alternatives’s letter recommended that the city…
- Implement a road diet on Atlantic Avenue east of Flatbush Avenue: TransAlt recommends converting the roadway from three travel lanes in each direction to two and using the space for a protected bike lane, eliminating turn lanes and installing curb extensions to calm traffic.
- Add protected cycling infrastructure to surrounding streets: TransAlt suggests adding barrier protected bike lanes to Vanderbilt Avenue and Franklin Avenue where they meet Atlantic Avenue, converting the parallel Bergen Street and Dean Street into bike boulevards with a speed limit of 15 miles per hour.
- Improve conditions for pedestrians: TransAlt suggests “daylighting” all intersections in the project zone by blocking parking at intersections with hardened barriers to improve visibility, adding fully protected light cycles for pedestrians and cyclists where cars are not permitted to turn, and turning the Barclay’s Center block of Atlantic Avenue into a pedestrian plaza.
Atlantic Avenue is known for cars parked on the already narrow sidewalks, making it a harrowing experience for pedestrians trying to get around on foot.
“It's just completely not navigable as a pedestrian,” Morano said of the stretch of Atlantic Avenue. “We had one parent with us with her son in a stroller and there were places where she had to go out into the street because the sidewalks were either blocked by illegally parked cars or other obstructions related to old construction … there are cars just parked literally right up against the crosswalk, so you can't see what's happening in the street if you're trying to cross,” said Morano.
The agency has been quiet on whether it will commit to any other street upgrades. "We are committed to delivering safer streets in the AAMUP area as a part of this plan, and reviewing options as the planning process is ongoing," said a spokesperson when asked about the Transportation Alternatives letter.
At a hearing in January, a representative for the Borough President asked City Planning why more comprehensive street redesign is not part of the plan, but an agency rep hid behind the process.
"The reason we're not considering this larger redesign yet is because there is an ongoing environmental impact study that's examining the existing conditions," said Jesse Hirakawa, the City Planning project lead, at the hearing. "Depending on what the impact is, that is when there will be a larger discussion with the stakeholders ... if there is going to be more improvements or modifications that will move through an additional kind of separate study, but that is not something we're proposing right now."
Some members of the Planning Commission called on DOT to do more at a public hearing back in October, when the plan was still being readied for the public review process.
“There’s a level of ambition here around the streetscape that I think would be nice to see turned up a bit," said Commissioner Raju Mann. "This is one of the most important streets in Brooklyn, if not New York City. The paint-and-plastics approach to thinking about streetscape when we’re talking about adding 8,000 new people in a neighborhood that’s got [the Barclays Center] and is adjacent to a whole bunch of critical neighborhoods, feels a little thin."
The plan’s area includes Atlantic Avenue between Vanderbilt and Nostrand Avenues, in addition to some industrial border-zone portions of Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Clinton Hill. Neither Hudson nor Council Member Chi Osse have explicitly endorsed the street-level changes Reynoso and TransAlt seek.
Hudson told Streetsblog in a statement that improving the street design to prioritize safety for pedestrians and cyclists was a clear ask that came out of the long community input period, but didn't commit to advocating specifically for a road diet as a condition of supporting the rezoning.
“Strengthening bike infrastructure and enhancing safety for all street users have been top priorities for the community and myself. We are committed to working with the Department of Transportation (DOT) to review potential solutions—namely those listed in the Community Vision and Priorities report—that balance the need to ensure Atlantic Avenue is a safe and welcoming corridor for all road users with its importance to our local economy as a key transit corridor. I look forward to continuing discussions with all stakeholders to determine the best path forward for this critical part of District 35,” said Hudson.
The next step in the rezoning process is a Department of City Planning hearing on Feb. 5 at 10 a.m. at 120 Broadway. For information, including on how to participate virtually, click here.
