No Way to One Way Streets!

It was quite a night at the DOT presentation of the One-Way Street Proposal, sponsored by Community Board 6, held at New York Methodist's auditorium last night. Raucous, exciting, noisy, super-well-attended and, no surprise after seeing the level of protests around Park Slope, with a happy outcome (so far.)

I was lucky enough to have gotten there early enough to be able to get a seat in the 200-seat room; there were literally hundreds of people who had to stay outside, most in the hospital building, but dozens and dozens of people overflowed into the street outside.

CB6 had set aside about 30 seats for board members and other VIPs and there was a threatened revolt a few minutes before the start as the audience started chanting "LET THEM IN!"...shades of the 60's...A sturdy and unsmiling security guard closed the door and stood akimbo.

Talking of which, the 60's I mean, I found it both odd and oddly reassuring, that the median age seemed to be 50 or so, and I fit right in. All white haired and raring to go, I thought...where were the Gen X-ers and Y-ers? Off for a spin in their SUVs? Or watching the latest reality TV show instead of protesting as we were?

DOT Deputy Commissioner Primeggia fared well considering the hostility he faced. After the audience was sternly reminded of the necessity for decorum by the CB6 Chair, he made his Power Point presentation, mercifully brief, with the main points being that making the streets one-way would "lead to increased pedestrian and vehicular safety," and that it "would not lead to increased traffic."

Never mind that the latter claim, at least, flies in the face of most traffic studies, and that it was disingenuous even by his lights since he kept saying that "the traffic situation would improve," which is code for "more and faster." At one point he said that the lights could be timed to reduce traffic flow, which again contradicted his "one-way streets do not increase traffic" mantra. One wonders which parallel universe this man inhabits (though, with the vagaries of statistics, I'm sure there's some studies that would prove his point.)

NYC Councilmember Yassy said "he was very worried about traffic increase, and asked if DOT could do some of the (non-controversial) 4th Ave improvements without the one-way proposal"; Council member De Blasio was much stronger in his condemnation " it would change the character of 7th Ave," "there is a tremendous amount of neighborhood concern," (roaring cheers from the outside punctuated this and many other statements.) Park Slope Chamber of Commerce president Spenneto made an impassioned speech about 7th Avenue being "like a series of town squares in a row," and how there's such a "strong sense of neighborhood" there, which would be destroyed by the proposal. Park Slope Civic Council's Denworth made no bones about what she thought about it (I note that PSCC's letter to various elected officials was much more diplomatic.)

Aaron Naperstack started in with a story about how the DOT Commissioner had acted in a previous meeting, but was told to stick to the current issue...might have made an interesting story, that. He did, however, take DOT to task for claiming "pedestrian safety" as the reason for the massive and costly one-way proposal, but dragging their heels on traffic calming on 3rd Avenue, where five kids have been killed recently (see his streetblog story as well.)

Every, and I mean Every, speaker condemned the proposal.

Well, perhaps not Markowitz, who, through a spokesman,  delivered a bland statement of concern. Do we want him for Mayor when he can't even take a stance on this issue, about as safe an issue as there could be?

Finally, one of the members of CB6 made a motion that CB6 was in opposition to the DOT proposal; it was seconded almost as she spoke, there was no discussion and it was unanimously approved.

A moment's silence greeted this, as the audience realized that this meeting, at least, was over. It seemed tremendously anti-climactic...

There was plenty of support to make 8th Avenue/PPW into two-way streets. Every time some speaker mentioned it, there was a roar of approval. DOT actually claimed at one point that traffic moves no faster on 8th than on 7th...this was greeted with a huge roar of incredulity. Note to DOT: recalibrate your sensors, or just open your eyes.

A word about the 4th Avenue "improvements." Without a drawing it may be hard to visualize, but it seems that the main thing the DOT proposes is restriping one lane (the inner one) on each side so that it becomes essentially a left-turn lane at each intersection.

In other words: No changes in the roadway for cycle lanes or traffic calming measures; a decrease in the traffic capacity; merely marking off a lane is unlikely to prevent the scofflaws from traveling in it; the decrease in capacity needs to be  remedied by increasing the capacity of 6th and 7th Avenues...

It's "let's spend as little money as possible" by splashing some paint around to convince people we're doing something.  Wouldn't it be simpler and better to change the signals so there's a left-turn arrow? Note to DOT: this technology has been around since the 50's, and can be electronically activated to boot.

Comments

[petunia]

The gen-Xers were the ones standing outside in the rain! Remember, all you 50-somethings don't have small children to slow you down. I saw lots of PS 321 parents standing outside, and many more (self included) who arrived with kids in tow but had to leave once the kiddies got too restless waiting in the block-long line.
Judging from my own experience and from seeing all the people (who'd obviously tried to attend the meeting) heading down 6th st. as we were walking up, if the meeting had been held in a better venue, even more people would have been there.

[Ben K.]

Additionally, for many of us coming home from work, a 6:30 p.m. start time was simply too early. I didn't make it back to Brooklyn after work yesterday until after the meeting had already started and after the the Methodist Church was already packed.

[chandru]

I'm very glad you (and others) were there, and sorry that my wanting to make a "humorous" comment sometimes trumps reality...as well as for your having to stand outside. Guess CB6 never expected this super turnout.

[Jackie]

Let me just second my dismay at Chandru's comments about the crowd being older than expected.

My husband (29) rushed from work to be there on time only to be turned away after signing a table cloth. Other friends (25-29) expressed interest in coming, but said there was no way they could get there for a 6:30 start time.

The reality is that us GenX/early GenY folks are all at the time in our careers when getting out of work at 6pm, even for something important, is not really an option. We signed the online petition and sent letters to our council member. We're following the story on Streetsblog, even when (like me, 27) you are away on business.

8:00 meetings would see a much different demographic. Do you think everyone your age would still come to a meeting that could end well after 10?

Other than that, thank you for the good coverage.

[Eleanor]

It's your gen-x niece here. When I'm not driving around in my SUV and dismissing global warming as a bunch of hooey I do find time to show interest/get involved in civic issues from time to time!