After two pedestrians were seriously injured while crossing the West Drive in Prospect Park, the Park and the DOT have gone and tried to make things safer by putting up a bunch of orange barrels and trying to start a conversation about safety. And hey, here's a good conversation starter: comparing cyclists to dogs! "We have an off-leash time in the park," the founder of Park Slope parents group said at a meeting about the issue last week. "Why don’t we have a speed cyclist time?"
The barrels, which narrow the roadway at the bottom of a hill on West Drive, went up last Monday and so far the reviews of the "temporary solution" are mixed. While pedestrians seem happy about the step, not everyone is. Blogger Brooklyn Spoke, for instance, notes that at Wedesnday's meeting some cyclists pointed out that the barrels actually can make it harder for them to avoid accidents.
Many of the people who spoke out last Wednesday noted that cyclists now have less room to maneuver if something goes wrong; if a pedestrian steps in front of a group of cyclists without looking, the cyclists would likely all crash into that person instead of spreading out like a flock of birds evading prey. Even if they did avoid a collision with a pedestrian, one cyclist clipping a barrel could send an entire peloton down.
Further, Spoke points out that the barrels happen to be just the right height that a small child would be completely hidden by them if they were approaching the roadway. A fact which could be disastrous if, say a child were to suddenly run into the road while chasing after something. All of which is why the barrels are for now just a temporary solution while the Park, the DOT and residents try to figure out the best way to keep cyclists in the park without risking the health and safety of the park's many users.
Want to see the barrels in action? Here's a video of cyclists passing through them on Saturday:
In the meantime, cycling advocates continue to urge bike riders to avoid accidents by following basic biking rules and always slow down before and stop at intersections in the park.
