February 21–27, 2020 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 9
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Call for safer Flatbush Ave.
Activists seek to revise dangerous roadway in favor of bikes, buses
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Transportation advocates
are developing a plan to remove
driving lanes from Flatbush
Avenue in favor of bicycle
and bus lanes, as part of a
scheme to revamp the notoriously
dangerous roadway, according
to one activist.
“It’s like a highway,” said
Dulcie Canton of the streets
safety advocacy group Transportation
Alternatives. “I
avoid it when at all possible.”
The safe-streets group
hosted a public brainstorming
session in Brooklyn Heights
on Tuesday, where they asked
locals to weigh in on their
plan to revamp Flatbush Avenue
between Tillary Street
near the base of the Manhattan
Bridge and Fourth Avenue
in the hopes of improving
pedestrian and bicyclist
safety there.
Dozens of people have
been injured and several
killed along the stretch within
the past five years, most recently
33-year-old Luis Garcia,
who died after a driver
hit him while he was crossing
the street near Fourth Avenue
in September, Streetsblog
reported.
The advocates ultimately
hope to bring their plans to
the city some time before the
Photo by Kevin Duggan
Transportation Alternatives hosted a community
feedback session on changes for Flatbush Avenue
in Brooklyn Heights on Feb. 19.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
Safe streets advocates are calling on the city to
redesign Flatbush Avenue from Tillary Street to
Fourth Avenue.
state institutes a congestion
pricing tax affecting Manhattan
bound drivers heading
across the Manhattan
GARDEN...
home to some 18,500 plants,
along with the propagation
facilities necessary to breed
new plants.
Cuff’s findings stand in
stark contrast to comments
that de Blasio made during
his Feb. 7 appearance on the
Brian Lehrer Show, when he
stated his support for the development
— which would
bring nearly 800 units of affordable
housing to the neighborhood
— along with his belief
that the project would not
harm the garden.
“I don’t think it ruins the
garden forever,” said de Blasio.
“I just don’t!”
In fact, Cuff’s memo goes
into detail regarding how
shadows cast by the 39-story
towers would affect different
exhibits within the garden,
with effects ranging from
mild to severe depending on
the climate and location of the
gardens various greenhouses.
Some of the more dramatic
effects would be felt by:
Warm Temperate, Tropical,
and Desert Pavilions located
in Greenhouses D, E, and F,
which would suffer some
“long-term cumulative” ef-
Continued from page 1
Bridge in early 2021, which
one activist fears would make
traffic on the six-lane road
less congested, but faster and
fect as a result of “even very
limited winter shading.” All
three greenhouses would receive
up to 1.25 hours of additional
shading in the wintertime.
Additionally, the memo
state’s that the Desert Pavilion
would lose up to 3.25 hours of
sun between March to October
(although not explicitly stated,
it’s assumed this is meant on a
daily basis), likely leading to
the declining health of cacti
and other specimens within
the exhibit.
Tropical and sub-tropical
species located in the Aquatic
and Orchid House, which
would lose up to 3.75 hours
of sunlight between March
and October, and 1.75 hours
MEAN
Streets
Brooklyn’s
boulevard
battle lines
more dangerous.
“I’m scared that it’s about to
become a lot more dangerous
— the one saving grace is that
for much of the day vehicles
can’t go so fast,” said Blythe
Austin. “It needs a safety redesign
or else you’re going to
see a lot more accidents and
people getting killed.”
The Flatbush Avenue plan
calls for the installation of bike
lanes, dedicated bus lanes, in
addition to enhanced pedestrian
crossings, such as socalled
Barnes Dance crossings
where all traffic stops
and allows people to walk
diagonally across intersections,
which already exist in
other cities, such as Washington,
D.C.
The city’s Department of
Transportation and the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority
should work together
to bring buses back to Flatbush
Avenue, the advocates
say.
“The MTA has abandoned
Flatbush to private automobiles,
which is crazy if you
consider that it’s the backbone
of Brooklyn,” Austin said.
The Authority indicated
of sunlight during the “critical
winter months.” The memo
goes on to state that, as a result
of the loss of sunlight,
some orchids would likely no
longer flower.
Growing areas for the Desert,
Tropical, and Warm Temperate
pavilions, and the orchid
collection, which have
“high sunlight requirements.”
These facilities would lose up
to 3.75 hours of sunlight between
March and October, and
up to two hours of sunlight
in during the winter.
In his memo, Cuff uses information
provided within the
environmental impact statement
to challenge some of the
conclusions within that very
that it might work with the
Department to establish bus
priority along the route all the
way down to Marine Park, according
to its most recent report
on the bus system’s ongoing
borough-wide redesign.
For bicycles, the group
wants the city to install protected
bike lanes that would
eventually go beyond Fourth
Avenue all the way to Grand
Army Plaza and connect to a
new two-way protected lane
to Empire Boulevard street
planners are due to install
this year.
The project’s current
boundaries are within the
limits of Community Board
2 and Levin’s district, but
to extend it to Grand Army
Plaza, they would need the
support of councilmembers
Brad Lander (D—Park Slope)
and Laurie Cumbo (D—Prospect
Heights), and the latter
legislator has previously opposed
extending a bus lane on
Fulton Street in Fort Greene
beyond the Fulton Mall.
But Canton said that hesitant
legislators should embrace
the changes for the
safety of Brooklyn’s most
vulnerable road users.
“Traffic just sits there. If
you’re a pedestrian, you’re a
mom or you’re in a wheelchair,
it shouldn’t be like that,”
she said.
report, including the statement
that, while the effect
of shadows from the development
would be permanent,
their “magnitude is relatively
small effects on the productivity
of well-established
plants.” Instead, Cuff writes
that the report ignores how
the loss of sunlight would affect
plants that are not wellestablished,
such as those in
the garden’s propagation facilities,
where Brooklyn Botanic
produces plants hailing
from various warm-weather
climates, which may require
year-round sunlight.
Multiple messages left
seeking comment from City
Hall were not returned.
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