Tomorrow Brooklyn's Community Board 6 transportation committee will vote on the DOT's proposed changes to the famous Prospect Park West bike lane in Park Slope. Among the adjustments on the table: installing rumble strips at intersections to slow cyclists down, narrowing the buffer between the bike lane and the floating parking lane in order to widen the traffic lane, and installing raised cement pedestrian refuges to give people a better view of oncoming cyclists (and keep cars from illegally parking there). But the bike lane's determined opponents have another idea: relocating half of the bike lane to Eighth Avenue, a block west.
Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes, which filed a joint lawsuit with Seniors For Safety to force the DOT to erase the bike lane, says the bike lane should be changed to one lane running (south) on PPW. They insist a second bike lane could be added in the opposition direction on Eighth Avenue, and this would enable the DOT to widen the traffic lanes on PPW. “It will make crossing the street easier and safer for pedestrians," Louise Hainline, the NBBL's spokesperson, tells Brooklyn Paper. "[And] provide some space for entering and exiting [parked] vehicles, which is too dangerous now."
But some residents point out that Eight Avenue is already more narrow than Fifth Avenue, which has bike lanes but is still the scene of cycling accidents. The DOT seems cool to the compromise; Seth Solomonow, a spokesperson for the department, says, "It’s not clear what this proposal would do to address speeding on Prospect Park West, which is what the community asked us to [fix]. The ‘compromise’ doesn’t hold up." And Eric McClure, of the Park Slope Neighbors, tells us:
The so-called "Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes" keep trotting out "compromises" that would succeed principally in compromising the safety of people using our streets. While many of us would also love to see a bike lane on 8th Avenue, if the "compromise" is replacing a safe, protected north-south Class I path with two less-safe, unprotected paired Class II lanes—and returning PPW to three lanes of speeding traffic—the net of this would be making Prospect Park West less safe. And we won't compromise people's safety.
The community has time and again demonstrated its strong support for the current design of PPW. There really isn't anything to negotiate.
Caroline Samponaro at Transportation Alternatives says, "The Eighth Avenue proposal is not a good proposal and in fact, threatens the safety of bikers and pedestrians. Bike lanes are street safety improvements like sidewalks, and a sidewalk on one street does not negate the need for one on another - bike lanes are no different. The fact is Prospect Park West is a safer street now because of the bike lanes and pedestrian safety improvements." And for a look at how pedestrians take their lives into their hands crossing the scary PPW bike lane in action, here's a video by Brooklyn Spoke:
