Past issues
The Paper in print
RSS feeds
Print edition (PDF)
Email Alerts RSS Feeds
The Bloomberg Administration has shifted gears, and decided to expand car-free hours in Prospect Park.
One week after anti-car activists blasted the mayor for increasing car-free hours in Central Park, yet maintaining the existing biker-friendly hours in Prospect Park, the city announced that the East Drive would now be entirely closed to traffic on weekdays from 5–7 pm.
The change will “create new opportunities for children and families to enjoy the Prospect Park drive on weekday afternoons,” said Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. “Our goal is to let the park be a park as much of the time as possible.”
Naturally, bicycling advocates hailed the move — but just as predictably said it did not go far enough.
“For an extra two hours each weekday, Brooklynites will breathe easier as they walk, job, bicycle and recreate in Prospect Park,” said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.
But Steely White was quick to demand more, pointing out that his group is still calling for the entire loop in Prospect Park to be rendered car-free. A 2006 study by the group found that four out of five park users would use the park more often if they did not have to compete with autos. (The fifth person may be a dentist.)
The mayoral U-turn took Borough President Markowitz by surprise. Last week, he told the New York Daily News that expanding car-free hours in Prospect Park would push more traffic onto surrounding roads.
“Further limiting hours [to cars] would result in unacceptable traffic backup,” he said then.
Markowitz did not return an e-mail seeking comment for this story.
The new car-free hours will kick in on Aug. 27.
©2007 The Brooklyn Paper
By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:
You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.
Print this story
digg
del.icio.us