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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, MARCH 1, 2020
Photo by Kevin Duggan
HILL TO DIE ON
Community rejects Vinegar Hill rezoning, fearing over-development
Bus mounted enforcement
cameras coming to B46 bus
BY BEN VERDE
The Metropolitan Transportation
Authority will
mount buses along the B46
Select Bus Service line with
cameras that automatically
ticket drivers hogging the
route’s dedicated bus lane,
with aim towards increasing
speeds and stemming
the system’s plummeting
ridership fi gures.
“We know that well-enforced
bus lanes are a critical
component of bringing
our customers back to the
system,” said Craig Cipriano,
acting VP for Buses at
New York City Transit.
Motorists who drive in
the dedicated bus lanes,
which runs eight miles
along Malcolm X Boulevard
and Utica Avenue and
serves an average of 50,000
riders on weekdays, will receive
warnings for a 60-day
grace period which began
Beginning on Feb. 20 — after
which the cameras will
begin issuing fi nes starting
at $50.
Penalties will increase
by $50 for each additional
offense within a yearlong
span, with a maximum penalty
of $250.
According to city transit
bigwigs, the cameras are
capable of capturing license
plate information, along
with a location and timestamps.
To ensure the legality
and proper functioning of
the system, the MTA claims
their buses will take multiple
shots and are capable of
recording video as well.
Motorists are allowed to
travel in the bus lane for up
to a block in order to make a
right turn — and the MTA
claims its system is intelligent
enough to ensure only
drivers caught bypassing
the fi rst available turn are
ticketed.
The new enforcement
program is already in effect
on the B44 line along Nostrand
Avenue, and the M14
and M15 lines in Manhattan,
where the MTA claims
the automated ticket system
has had a dramatic effect on
improving bus speeds. Buses on the B46 line will soon be mounted with cameras to clear the bus lanes. Photo by Ben Verde
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Civic gurus shot down a developer’s proposal
to build a four-story mixed-use building
in Vinegar Hill, with locals fearing a
rash of new, oversized building projects in
the low-rise historic district.
“These new buildings could be more than
twice as high as the historic brownstones
and be forever totally out of character with
the low-rise houses of Vinegar Hill Historic
District, which we so much want to protect,”
said Monique Denoncin, a longtime Vinegar
Hill resident. “The unguided explosion of
development that we experienced in Dumbo
will then come our way. We do not want to be
a refl ection of Dumbo.”
A lawyer representing the Spinard family,
which owns a roughly 6,500 square-foot
lot at 265 Front St., came before Community
Board 2’s Land Use Committee seeking the
group’s endorsement of a rezoning application
to allow the construction of a 50-foothigh
L-shaped building the property.
The development, according to attorney
Eric Palatnik, would contain nine two-bedroom
units, commercial space on the ground
fl oor and a 30-foot court yard in the back.
But board members living around the
proposed development were not thrilled
with the idea, fearing the development
would commercialize an otherwise residential
block, and invite the same noise, traffi c,
and — worst of all — tourists that plague
Dumbo into their neck of the woods.
“Trucks will idle, they’ll back up, traffi c
will be blocked, there’s noise, there’s pollution,”
said Vivian Scott Woodburn. “Take a
walk from the now overcrowded F train at
Jay and York street or through the hordes of
selfi e-taking tourists on Washington Street
in Dumbo and you’ll come upon on a tiny oasis
of tree-lined cobbled streets and historic
19th century architecture.”
The community board’s recommendation
is purely advisory, but the Spinard family
agreed to pursue a more modest zoning
designation, and to eliminate the building’s
commercial components in response to
group’s criticisms, Palatnic stated in a Feb.
20 email.
“We are amending to R6B. No commercial
overlay,” the attorney said.
Say Cheese!