Prospect Park

This was the scene on the Prospect Park loop Saturday afternoon. With two pedestrians having sustained serious injuries in collisions with cyclists on the southwest side of the park over the last six months, NYPD and the Parks Enforcement Patrol set up at the base of the hill where the crashes happened. (The Daily News, in a typical he-said/she-said style piece, claimed credit for the police checkpoint this weekend.)

Construction on a slate of pedestrian and bike improvements for Grand Army Plaza is scheduled to move forward this summer, NYC DOT announced this Saturday. The redesign includes a major expansion of the pedestrian islands at the north side of GAP and the addition of a two-way, protected bicycle connection linking Union Street to Eastern Parkway on the southern side. It does not include the two-way, protected bike lane on Plaza Street shown in DOT's 2010 presentation on this same project, which Community Boards 6 and 8 both approved last year.

The Park Slope Civic Council announced the winners yesterday in its design competition for the Third Street entrance to Prospect Park, which has sported rickety metal barricades since it was closed to cars in April 2009.

Mark next Thursday on your calendars. It's a critical day for one of the city's most innovative livable streets projects. If you care about safer streets, it's going to be an excellent time to respectfully show your support in public.

The entrance to Prospect Park at Third Street in Park Slope was closed off to car traffic in April 2009. Since then it's been graced by these barricades. With the completion of the Prospect Park West re-design, there's even more reason to make this a welcoming entrance for people walking and biking to Brooklyn's flagship park.

A lot of neighborhood activists swear by the maxim that it's easier to organize against something than to drum up support for something new. But apparently this rule of thumb doesn't apply to the Prospect Park West bike lane.