This is a welcome turn of events.
A busy and hazardous Brighton Beach intersection is getting a makeover. Councilman Chaim Deutsch (D–Sheepshead Bay) announced on Aug. 28 that the Department of Transportation will soon start work a new plan to improve safety at the intersection of Coney Island Avenue and Guider Avenue by banning some turns and adding dedicated lanes and signals for others, among other changes.
“The changes will impact pedestrian safety, motorist safety, and the traffic flow,” Deutsch said in a statement. “As time goes on, we will continue to make changes and adjustments to Coney and Guider.”
The six-way intersection, which also includes a westbound entrance ramp to the Belt Parkway and Banner Avenue, is a heavily trafficked headache for drivers and pedestrians as it connects the Belt Parkway to Sheepshead Bay and commuter school Kingsborough Community College. The intersection saw 24 accidents in 2013, and 34 crashes in 2014. The total stands at 14 collisions so far this year.
The new plan calls for adding left turn lanes and dedicated turn signals from Guider Avenue onto Coney Island Avenue, and an expanded median along Guider Avenue between Coney Island Avenue and E. 11th Street that will replace two lanes of traffic with greenery and parking. The left turn from Guider Avenue onto southbound Coney Island Avenue, and the right turn from southbound Coney Island Avenue onto Guider Avenue, will be banned under the plan. Work is expected to begin on the project in early September, according to the city.
Community boards 13 and 15 voted down a similar plan for the intersection in 2010, but Deutsch said the intersection had been a major priority for him ever since he was elected nearly two years ago. Soon after taking office, the councilman successfully lobbied the Department of Transportation to station two traffic agents at the troublesome intersection while the department conducted a new traffic study, which resulted in the plan recently approved by the boards.
The head of one the community boards said the addition of a turn signal was the main improvement over the original plan her board put the kibosh on in 2010.
“The original plan did not include a left turn signal. What they were going to do was take all the traffic and push it down to Neptune,” said Theresa Scavo, the chairwoman of Community Board 15.
Scavo called the new plan is a step in the right direction, but said that one of the most aggravating issues at the intersection remains undressed — a regulation preventing drivers heading south on Coney Island Avenue from making a U-turn onto northbound the section of the avenue that leads to the Shore Parkway Parkway overpass, providing quick and easy access to the eastbound Belt Parkway.
Drivers regularly broke the law in the past and made the U-turn — before constant presence of the traffic agents at the intersection forced motorists to take a wide detour.
“This plan is a drastic improvement,” said Theresa Scavo, the chairwoman of Community Board 15. “But we want to get that U-turn reinstated. The state Department of Transportation is claiming there is not enough of a turning radius there, but everyone used to do it.”
The New York State Department of Transportation, however, said the U-turn is not its jurisdiction, contradicting what Scavo says the city has been telling her for 10 years.