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Just no way – CB10 balks at DOT’s refusal to implement safety improvements

Concern about potential danger where the Greenway meets the roadway had members of Community Board 10 voting unanimously to recommend that the city take a fresh look at two local intersections.

At the board’s October meeting, which was held at the Knights of Columbus, 13th Avenue and 86th Street, members approved a motion made by the board’s Traffic and Transportation Committee, to send a letter to the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) suggesting that the agency rework its plans for the intersections of 68th Street and Shore Road, and Colonial Road and Wakeman Place.

Noted committee member Lawrence Stelter, who presented the recommendation to the full board, the concern was that DOT had, “At a recent hearing, refused to consider additional traffic control and safety devices – no signs, no signals, no markings, no bollards, no bumps, no change in direction.”

Nonetheless, Stelter said, another board member, Eleanor Petty, had reported to the committee that, “Cars race down 68th Street and treat the stop sign as a yield sign.” In addition, Stelter noted, “Pedestrians emerge from the Greenway on the west side of Shore Road directly into the traffic.”

Earlier this year, the board resoundingly approved the proposal by the city’s Department of Parks & Recreation to create a Greenway connector through Owls Head Park, linking the park entrance at Colonial Road and Wakeman Place with the bike path entrance at Bay Ridge Avenue.

The connector – the work for which is expected to start next spring — would take cyclists through the park instead of on roadways where they have to compete with motorized traffic.

At the time the board approved the project, concern had been expressed over the intersections where pedestrians and cyclists would encounter motorized traffic.

At that time, Petty – who is the board’s Parks Committee chairperson – had told board members that a representative of the Parks Department had said that the agency had recommended that DOT put a stop sign or a traffic light at the intersection of Shore Road and 68th Street.

DOT does not “have a record in the Brooklyn office of complaints or a letter from the community board,” said Scott Gastel, an agency spokesperson. “If we hear from the community board, we will look into it,” he added.