[backtopsb]

Ninth Street traffic changes?
Does anyone know more about this? (I received an email today...)

[Username: *]

[backtopsb]

This is what I've found on the CB6 website. I want to know more about this, if only because the B75 goes up the block, and would hold up traffic like none other.

[Oiseau]

Painted bike lanes are a waste of taxpayer money. They become nothing more then double-parking lanes and the cops rarely give tickets to vehicles (especially trucks) who park in those lanes. Furthermore, 9th street is notorious for double-parking, especially between 6th and 4th avenues.

This is another insane idea.

[pitu]

so . . . this meeting changed to GAP redesign and bike lanes (here and in Red Hook) after the outcry over the one way ave plan in PS?

Brooklyn Community Board 6's Transportation Committee Meeting
Thursday, March 29th, 2007, 6:30 pm
Old First Reformed Church
729 Carroll St. (at Seventh Av.)
Brooklyn

[linusvanpelt]

[Oiseau]

I bike quite a bit, but I don't think, "Oh, there's a bike lane, best to go that way." I go the way that is the easiest and most convenient., and I think most bicyclists would agree. When heading down Flatbush ave, most don't turn down Bergen because it has a bike lane, they keep going down Flatbush, all the way to the bridges (I used to turn down bergen but with the badly timed lights and the double-parked cars in the bike lane and no enforcement, it was a joke.)

Third avenue is ridiculous, especially in the industrial area, having a bike lane there is a waste.

We need protected bike lanes!

[naparstek]

Many will recall the car that crashed through the front door of Dizzy’s Restaurant in the summer of 2005 after an ill-considered left-turn from 9th Street to 8th Avenue.

After that incident, a 9th Street resident named Konrad Kaletsch teamed up with Ben and Matheo, the owners of Dizzy’s, to launch a petition drive for safety improvements along 8th Avenue and 9th Street. They collected 1,187 signatures and even got Borough President Markowitz involved. One of the solutions the community requested at that time was left-turn lanes on 9th Street.

DOT appears to have gotten the message and appears to be responding to community concerns with this plan. That's good. It didn't used to happen all that often.

So, Thursday evening at Old First Church DOT is going to show CB6’s transportation committee plans for pedestrian improvements at Grand Army Plaza, new bike lanes in Red Hook and a new design for 9th Street. The Grand Army Plaza changes, supposedly, will include some of the improvements that the community has been advocating via the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. If true, that’s good news. The Red Hook bike lanes sound pretty straightforward. As for 9th Street, DOT wants to:

- Install two bike lanes heading in each direction.
- Stripe a median down the middle of the street with left-turn bays for cars at the intersections.
- Eliminate one travel lane in each direction.

I haven’t seen DOT’s actual proposal but from what I have gathered, it looks like a good plan with significant benefits for the residents of 9th Street in particular.

Very much unlike DOT’s March 15 one-way plan, this really isn’t being dropped on the comunity from completely out of nowhere. It has been in the cooker for a couple of years as part of the package of Greater Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Improvements that emerged from the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project. The bike lanes are part of a comprehensive, long-term, citywide bicycle master plan which aims to install more than 200 miles of new bike lanes throughout the city in the next couple of years and create better connections to city parks, in particular. And, as I mentioned above, the plan appears to be a direct response to community concerns.

Here is what I know of DOT’s thinking behind the 9th Street changes:

DOT has found that 9th Street has “excess capacity,” especially up towards the Park. In other words, the street is much wider than is needed for the number of vehicles that use it. Overly wide streets often tend to encourage speeding and allow for reckless driving. We know that the left turns off of 9th Street across two lanes of traffic can be very dangerous for pedestrians (and for Dizzy's). The loss of one travel lane in each direction isn't likely to be a problem.

Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights had a very similar problem. So, in May 2006 DOT striped a 15-foot wide median with left-turn bays, reducing Vanderbilt to one travel lane in each direction (see before and after photos here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/pdf/dwnbklyn.pdf).

Many in Prospect Heights will tell you that the Vanderbilt median has, to some degree, helped to calm traffic, make left-turns less dangerous, and foster a safer, more pleasant pedestrian environment. In the future DOT hopes to turn the striped median into a raised, planted area kind of like Park Avenue in Manhattan. DOT’s success on Vanderbilt is, I believe, the basis for the 9th Street proposal.

As for the bike lanes on 9th Street: 9th Street is an important bike route. South Slope cyclists use it to get to the Park. And 9th Street connects the Park and the neighborhoods north and east of the Park to the Slope and to Red Hook too. I know people who use it regularly to bike to the post office, the Y, the Red Hook pool, Fairway, and to take their kids to PS 107.

Though bike lanes are far from perfect, many cyclists appreciate them and believe they help cars and bikes better see how to share the road. There is some evidence that bike lanes make cyclists safer as well.

The rampant double-parking on the north side of 9th street in front of C-Town and the car service is going to be a challenge for the bike lane. One idea is to do what a lot of great biking cities do: Put the bike lane between the sidewalk and the parked cars. Or put both bike lanes together between the sidewalk and parked cars on the south side of 9th Street away from C-Town and the post office. Lots of cities have two-way, “on-street greenways” like that and they can be great.

Bottom line is that this looks like a pretty good plan. In many ways it is almost totally the opposite of the one-way plan DOT presented two weeks ago. I hope that Park Slopers will come out and support it.

Aaron Naparstek
http://www.streetsblog.org

[Oiseau]

[erikka]

I would be pro if I thought bike lanes honestly worked but the above poster is right--the ones on Fifth Avenue are just double parking lanes for assholes in huge trucks (usually noncommerical, SUVS). When they're DP'd there I have to go around them, putting myself even further into traffic (and danger). The route I usually take is 6th Av, which is wide and free of bike lanes.

I am happy to report that yesterday I saw cops ticketing the motherfuck out of double parkers on 5th Av. It made my day a little happier.

[Oiseau]

[naparstek]

Sneak Peek at DOT’s Plan for Park Slope’s 9th Street
http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/03/29/dots-9th-street-plan/

Should DOT Install Separated Bike Lanes on 9th Street?
http://www.streetsblog.org/2007/03/29/should-.....bike-lanes-on-9th-street/

[8thandPrez]

I, for one, actually DO use the bike lanes. I've used the 3rd Ave, 3rd St, and Bergen bike lanes w/o any problems. Never used Fifth Ave... that seems like a really crappy street for a bike lane. I'd rather see them take out a drive lane on Sixth Ave and turn it into a protected bike lane.

[backtopsb]

Sounds like the plan to add bike lanes/left turn lanes to 9th street is a done deal. And it sounds like it has been a done deal for awhile. The DOT is planning to have the lines painted in May. It's just about April, and let's be honest--nothing moves through an agency that quickly.

I do support having safe bike lanes for people. I am concerned about putting them on such a busy street, though. Not only do you have normal traffic, but you also have the bus traffic. I see a lot of congestion being added to a street that doesn't need it. (I also see traffic spilling over to 8th and 10th--have fun with that, everyone!)

With the double parking, the search for parking spaces, and just the every day need to load/unload the car, I just see this plan being a pain for most people on 9th Street. We'll see how it actually works out.

[Oiseau]

The thing about many bike lanes is they all of a suden just end and you're back to being on a street without a bike lane. Kind of ridiculous.

[debya]

[erikka]

[erikka]