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June 20, 2008
Letter to the Editor
(published in this weeks Brooklyn Heights Press)
As a member of the Transportation & Safety Committee of Community Board 2, I am the person who brought the resolution to ask the DOT to go back to the drawing board. The resolution passed (7 in favor, 2 opposed). I thought I should explain why I am opposed to the current plan. I write this is a private citizen, and I am not speaking for the Committee. To begin with, this is a major change in traffic patterns in a heavily traveled part of Brooklyn, The plan, I was told, was never brought to the community for discussion. It was brought to the Transportation & Safety Committee of Community Board 2. I was shocked at how little real planning DOT had done. For example, they estimate that 275 cars an hour go up Clinton Street to the Brooklyn bridge. They expect exactly half to turn left onto Cadman Plaza, and the other half to turn left onto Jay Street. They told us this would happen on its own. No study, just a wild guess. They did not take into consideration the traffic currently on either Cadman Plaza or Jay Street. On Cadman Plaza there is always a backup where cars exiting the Brooklyn Bridge are heading to the BQE. On Jay Street cars and bicyclists are exiting the Manhattan Bridge. This is already a dangerous intersection now made much worse. Several people on the committee estimated that it will take an additional 5 minutes to get onto the Brooklyn Bridge from Clinton Street now. This will cause more pollution, more congestion and more potential accidents - not less as the DOT states. When the public, in a stakeholders meeting, was told about the plan, it was basically a done deal.
Another major change is forcing traffic to turn left onto Joralemon Street instead of on Tillary. This is another situation where the DOT did not think it through. Tour buses regularly made a left from Adams onto Tillary to get to Fulton Ferry landing. Now they are going to turn left at Joralemon (another heavily traveled street already). Will it work? The DOT says it should work and that they'll watch it for 6 months. Is this really how a major traffic change is supposed to happen? Throw your hands into the air and say "let's see what happens if we do this?"
Councilman Yassky is correct to say that pedestrian safety is important. But by causing more traffic, more pollution, and more potential accidents, is this really a good and properly thought out plan? It's politically correct to say that we are glad that DOT are trying. But I would ask this question: is a poorly thought out plan, that causes more problems that it corrects, worthy of any praise at all? In essence, is a bad and dangerous plan better than none at all? I would say "no". This is a flawed plan and the pilot program should be ended as soon as possible. The DOT should gather the stakeholders and ask what they want and give them options. They did not do that, and that is why this plan is so flawed.
Kenn Lowy
Brooklyn Heights
Posted by klowy at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)