Downtown Brooklyn

This morning, U.S. DOT announced the winners in the latest round of its highly-competitive TIGER grant program. While upstate New York won grants for two projects -- a highway teardown in Rochester and a complete streets project in Olean -- New York City missed out, with applications for ferry improvements, a greenway connection in the Bronx, and the redesign of a busy intersection in Downtown Brooklyn failing to make the cut.

If you were hoping for inspiring leadership from the City Council on transportation issues after the next election, you may want to look somewhere other than District 35, which covers the neighborhoods just east of downtown Brooklyn. Two-thirds of households in the district are car-free, according to the 2000 Census. But while most candidates supported traffic calming improvements at a forum last night, they were unanimous in their opposition to removing on-street parking spaces, and many were reluctant to support policy changes that would cut down on driving in the district.

To make biking between Brooklyn and Manhattan safer and more appealing, one thing that needs to be addressed is access to the Manhattan Bridge from downtown Brooklyn. With the high volume of traffic between the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, and local streets, the area can be both dangerous and confusing, especially if you haven't biked these streets before.

Tillary Street between Adams Street and Cadman Plaza East is a critical connection for cyclists from Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Red Hook to the Brooklyn Bridge, with a protected bike lane separating them from drivers on the extra-wide street.

NYC DOT's plaza program hit a milestone today, when officials cut the ribbon on a block of Willoughby Street reclaimed from car traffic between Pearl and Adams Streets in Downtown Brooklyn. What used to be, essentially, a private parking lot for government placard holders, is now the first plaza program project to make the transition from temporary materials to permanent construction.

Choked by traffic, Downtown Brooklyn and its surrounding neighborhoods need a comprehensive agenda for transportation -- and the current ad hoc approach from the city and state isn't cutting it in the fast-growing area, says a coalition of community groups, elected officials, and advocates.

Parking reform for Downtown Brooklyn -- which would take the mild but worthwhile step of cutting the district's mandatory parking minimums in half -- went before a City Council subcommittee on Monday. The fate of the proposal now comes down to council members Tish James and Steve Levin, who represent the area. The two representatives are talking tough and trying to get DCP to do more -- but what they want has little to do with parking policy.

The New York City Department of City Planning announced yesterday that the City Planning Commission has approved a measure to reduce Downtown Brooklyn's onerous parking minimums. But the commission, chaired by Amanda Burden, appears to have wasted an opportunity to improve on the timid reforms.

Many residents and elected leaders from the neighborhoods near the Barclays Center in Prospect Heights are letting out a sigh of relief after steeling for gridlock this weekend. Sellout crowds for the arena's first events -- three Jay-Z concerts -- did not completely overwhelm nearby neighborhoods with traffic, but the strain on local streets was still clear.