The story causing the most ruckus on our award-winning Web site this week (and the past few, for that matter) was our ongoing coverage of the giant, tomb-like bollards around the new and improved Long Island Rail Road terminal at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues (“Revealed! LIRR bollards are bigger than they need to be!” online, Jan. 26). The community conversation mills are churning! Here are some highlights:
If K-12 barriers can stop a truck doing 50 mph, what are these things supposed to stop? Are they even rated? What makes the LIRR sure that these are better than tested, rated, and approved barriers? And besides, we’re talking about one of the most congested intersections in Brooklyn — a truck getting to 50 mph there? Please. Aspiring terrorists would get stuck on Fourth Avenue, and would be forced to blow up one of the tire repair shops instead.
Peter from Park Slope
So my guess from seeing them and looking at the photos is that they aren’t well anchored, meaning that they need to be that much more massive to accomplish the same task. This would also likely create a major safety hazard in that if one of these tombs is hit and slides it could literally crush a pedestrian.Noah from
Greenwood Heights
OMG! To think the LIRR exceeded the bare minimum in security — Outrageous!
Josie from Carroll Gardens
Those things are so ugly. Seriously, who was the idiot at MTA who thought these massive and ugly granite blocks were a good choice? The most ridiculous part is, they look like they were custom made! Ugly and a waste of money.
Al Pankin from Downtown
A prior story about whether the Atlantic Yards basketball arena would require a similar amount of security (“ ‘State’ of security at Atlantic Yards? ESDC won’t tell us,” online, Jan. 15) also received lots of Web chatter:
I hope that extensive security is installed in this arena. A beautiful spot like this is just like candy for terrorists. Maybe there should be barricades a few blocks away to keep dangerous types away from it. This is a real jewel, we will have to protect it better than we have protected other places in the past. I read about full-body scanning that will be implemented in the airports and I think that’s exactly what is needed at this center.
Chewnasha from Bed-Stuy
Unfortunately because of the world we live in, the bollards have to be there. The bollards have to be big and strong enough to stop a large vehicle filled with explosives that could gather enough speed to literally drive directly into the terminal. I know this sounds farfetched, but we have enough examples of terrorist activity around the world that this scenario is more likely than we want to accept. We could debate the look and feel of the bollards, but they have to be there.John from Clinton Hill
John, no one is saying there shouldn’t be bollards, just that these are way over the top and ugly. There are plenty of examples of bollards all over the city, particularly around the federal buildings downtown, that are quite capable of stopping trucks that are also less intrusive.
David from Fort Greene
