Elizabeth Hays writes in the Daily News: “It’s a jungle out there for frazzled city parents forced to push a stroller along bumpy, treacherous streets, a new (Transportation Alternatives) survey shows.”

“Grand Army Plaza was hands down the most notorious Brooklyn spot. The busy traffic circle is near stroller-heavy destinations, such as the Brooklyn Public Library and Prospect Park.”

QUOTES FROM PARENTS who answered the TA survey:

“The corner of Flatbush and Grand Army Plaza in front of the library is a KILLER. Please fix.”

“You feel you are risking your child’s life on a daily basis [at GAP].”

“My son flew out of stroller flat on his face (with a ‘thunk!’) when we hit a bump once.” (This one was actually regarding a treacherous situation in Park Slope proper, not GAP)

Daily News Photo (Bales): Cecilia Varas, of Prospect Heights, uses a pedestrian crossing to wheel 2-month-old son, Aedan, across Grand Army Plaza: “I pray and hold on to my stroller because I’m scared.”

BONUS:Is GAP really that much better?? KAY SARLIN of the Transportation Department claimed that Grand Army Plaza has already been improved, with longer crossing times (huh??), added sidewalk space (you mean the pedestrian island? that’s so far outside of any traffic path that it’s still as pristine as the day it was poured), ramps (about time), and pedestrian barriers (the bollards are a huge improvement, even if the vast majority of them protect that no-mans-land that Sarlin described as a “sidewalk”).

Discuss: Prospect Heights Message Boards

Must read: Aaron Naparstek’s lengthy treatise on Bollards, the hardened steel, concrete or stone posts buried into the pavement of city streets and sidewalks:

“In Northern European cities, you see bollards all over the place. They are used to make sure that if a motor vehicle accidentally jumps up on to a sidewalk, pedestrians are protected. Bollards are a kind of urban preventative medicine. They stop crashes before they happen.”

“We have bollards in New York City. But … rather than using them to protect people, we use them to protect things — fire hydrants, pay phones and important buildings into which we believe terrorists might want to drive car bombs.”

“…There is often a sense in New York City that motor vehicle traffic is akin to a natural phenomenon… we’ve become conditioned to motor vehicle carnage as the natural order of things … It’s no wonder. In the same week that the Reyes family was run over there were at least three incidents of vehicles jumping up onto the sidewalk and doing serious damage to people and property in Park Slope, Brooklyn, my neighborhood.”

“Bollards are cheap and easy. Even some of the most run-down and industrial parts of East Berlin have pedestrian bollards … We could afford this if we wanted. We could show they are successful and worth it …”

“This sad state of affairs on NYC’s streets is slowly beginning to change. Last year, a group of Park Slope advocates, myself included, teamed up with the Prospect Heights Parents Association and Transportation Alternatives and successfully lobbied DOT to install protective bollards around the intimidating traffic island in the middle of Flatbush Avenue between Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Public Library.

“It’s not ideal. The traffic signals are still timed in such a way that they trap pedestrians on the island in the middle of Flatbush. They could have done much better.”

LINK: Making NYC’s Streets Safe for Hydrants & Pay Phones [naparstek.com]

DISCUSS: Park Slope Message Boards

ficara writes in the Prospect Heights Message Boards: Anyone notice this guy, having much more fun than the average walk icon? Corner of Underhill and Pacific.

File under: Rock-n-Stopped!

… seem like a disaster waiting to happen.

They’ve been around for more than a year. I was just wondering why they seem so much more prominent recently… turns out the guy who owns the company just bought 9 more in June, which means there could be 16 of these things hurtling around the city streets (or maybe a few in Niagara–not clear from the article)!

“Operators of the Partybike — a circular bicycle built for seven — say they’re being unfairly targeted by cops, who’ve ticketed the big red tourist-mobiles more than 100 times in their 16 months of operation.”

Of course, this guy says the tickets are part of a “war on bikes” in New York…

Comment on this post [click here]

stacey posted a notice about the meeting of the Prospect Heights Parents Association’s traffic-calming committee, tonight at 267 Park Place: “We will be discussing our efforts to work with the borough president’s office to include Prospect Heights in the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Blueprint as well as to propose a fundamental redesign of Vanderbilt Avenue. We will also discuss ways to put further pressure on the DOT to make safety improvements at Grand Army Plaza. All are welcome …”

Get details on the meeting here.

It is New York, after all.

Taken at the corner of 8th Ave. and Union St. View full-size image.

daveb writes in the Daily Heights Forums: “Does anyone know anything about the accident today (Sun. 26th) on Vanderbilt and Prospect? Looked like someone on a bike got hit. Saw a lot of blood on the ground and what looked like more than one person being taken away by ambulance. It didn’t look good.”

Follow-up from anonymous Guest: “I saw the accident (heard it and then looked). It looked like a young woman was hit by a car on a bicycle. It did not not look good for her. There were also a few people in the car that hit her, it was a hard impact, so I would not be surprised if the driver or other passengers were injured/shook up.”

“Say a prayer for the woman who was hit. I could not bear to stay and watch….it shook me up too much.”

UPDATE! Looks like the prayers worked. We just got an anonymous tip that the biker passed through a local ER today and is doing fine.

Links:
Accident on Vanderbilt [Daily Heights forums]
Elizabeth Padilla Killed by Ice Cream Truck on 5th Near Flatbush [Daily Heights]

[Image: times-up.org]

At 8 am this Thursday, June 16, cyclists will embark on a Vigil Ride from 5th Avenue and Warren Street in Park Slope (Where Elizabeth Padilla was killed) to the steps of City Hall to memorialize 200+ NYC bicyclists killed since 1995.

NYPD data: 9 cyclists have perished in crashes this year, representing a 50% increase in fatalities over the same period in 2004.

PAUL STEELY WHITE (Transportation Alternatives): “The sheer volume of vehicles and the heedlessness of drivers leave no room for error on these streets … the City must create more greenways and protected, on-street bike lanes … Bike routes must be at least 5 feet wide with a 2-foot buffer …” Details after the jump.
(more…)

UPDATE: IMPROMPTU MEMORIAL SERVICE Brooklyn bikers are planning to converge on the intersection of 5th and Warren [Google Maps] at approximately 8 PM tonight to pay their respects to Elizabeth Padilla.

From the be-careful-out-there dept.

NANCY DILLON and JONATHAN LEMIRE wrote in the DAILY NEWS: “A bicyclist who tried to squeeze between two trucks on a bustling Brooklyn street was crushed to death yesterday after she fell underneath one of the rigs, police said.”

“As Elizabeth Padilla, a 28-year-old lawyer, attempted to pass a 10-wheel Edy’s Ice Cream truck, the driver of another truck parked on Fifth Ave. in Park Slope opened his door, witnesses said … Padilla swerved to avoid the door but hit the side of the moving ice cream truck, causing her to topple under the vehicle’s large rear wheels … She was killed instantly, just six blocks from her apartment.”

The uncle of Padilla’s husband told the Daily News that she was a Cornell Law graduate and that she worked as an attorney for a nonprofit group: “She was a guide for a blind man in a bike race … That says it all. That’s the type of person she was.”

Read more…

BIKE LANE BLOCKED? Too bad the Daily News article doesn’t list the cross street. According to J., writing on a local biker’s list, there’s a pretty good chance that she was riding in a marked bike lane… more than half of 5th Ave. from Flatbush Ave. down to 20th St. is well-marked as such.

(PICTURED: Brooklyn Critical Mass April 05, taken by Green Biker [Bike Blog])

MATT RANSFORD reports on Stay Free Daily: “This Month in New York City Critical Mass (Friday, April 29) … This time, I could tell people were uneasy. Things started early, close to 6:30. Someone involved in the NYC bike scene who’d been arrested spoke; he said some 50-odd people this year alone have been hauled in during critical mass.”

“They wrapped up around 7 … At this point, I’d guess there were at least 50 cops in the immediate vicinity … I saw a few different groups congregating on the outskirts.”

“…it was a very small crowd. Maybe 50-75 bikers, which is literally nothing in comparison to the rides of last summer, which were easily in the high hundreds, if not thousands … We were riding to avoid the cops, who were on us after a matter of maybe a dozen blocks. There’s something not a bit creepy about looking back over your shoulder to see 20 visor-shielded police on mopeds right on your tail.”

“We took a circuitous route through the West Village … and made our way back up Hudson, only to have them come shooting out in a kind of Smokey and the Bear roadblock … I made it all the way up 8th Ave into the high teens before I backed off when I saw the vans and cruisers swarming in. I personally saw 4 people arrested and their bikes thrown in the trunks of cars.”

“…I lost track of where the ride had gone when it left Broadway. I assumed it was going east and I only had to follow the police helicopter to figure that out. … they had a helicopter following us the entire time, circling Union Square well before any rides started.”

“More people were arrested; I don’t know how many. A rumor went around that one of them was a writer for the Times. He had some credentials around his neck … I would guess, at ten to 9 o’clock, on the corner of A and 6th, there had to have been 100 cops, if not 150. All for the sake of — at that point — maybe 40 riders.”

“… Everybody dispersed. I went and drank some beer. It was sad … and mind-blowingly frustrating. It’s a time when you could literally be arrested just for riding your bike on the street.”

Read more…

It’s been more than 24 hours. Was it too subtle?

Part 2 in the “Impending Economic Disaster” Series

DAILY HEIGHTS confuses a lot of people. Why the obsession with Home Heating Oil? Is it a hip and ironic club, or a workaday storefront business trafficking in fossil fuel-related products? And what’s the point of a website that forces focus on one tiny neighborhood? Isn’t the Web all about global communities that transcend those pesky geographical barriers?

To introduce more confusion (and fear) on the issues of fossil fuel and the new localism, we now present excerpts from “The Long Emergency,” an essay by James Howard Kunstler that appeared recently in Rolling Stone. Please don’t read unless you plan on surviving the painful, apocalyptic disintegration of the modern world into medieval fiefdoms, which begins right now–if you believe those tin-foil-hat-wearing crackpots at that fringe outfit known as the U.S. Department of Energy.

[ROAD WARRIORS: Marauding thugs pursue an oil tanker in the outback. Could we too, one day, be forced to live like Australians?]

KUNSTLER in ROLLING STONE: “…America is still sleepwalking into the future … we face the end of the cheap-fossil-fuel era … The most knowledgeable experts … now concur that 2005 is apt to be the year of all-time global peak production. … In March, the Department of Energy released a report that officially acknowledges for the first time that “peak oil” is for real and states plainly that ‘the world has never faced a problem like this’ …”

“We will not believe that this is happening to us, that 200 years of modernity can be brought to its knees by a world-wide power shortage … If there is any positive side … it may be in the benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an enterprise that really matters and to be fully engaged in meaningful social enactments instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom.”

Have a nice day.

Locate your car. If the towing occurred in Prospect Heights, Park Slope or anywhere thereabouts, they probably took it to the Brooklyn Navy Yard (unless it was towed for unpaid parking tickets, in which case it may be at a lot in Red Hook). You can use this Find Towed Vehicle Search on the official New York City website (third link in the first pull-down menu) but they will tell you to confirm anyway by calling the tow pound. The number for the Brooklyn Navy Yard is 718-694-0696.

Gather your documents. Bring your drivers license and registration (and title, just to be safe). Bring a printout of the Vehicle Search results (above). Bring a checkbook, credit card or cash to pay the fine of $185. Be prepared to see one or more parking tickets on your windshield, which could make your total fine more than $400 (but you don’t have to pay the parking tickets until later).

Get to the Navy Yard. It’s open from 8 AM - 9 PM Mon-Fri; 8 AM - 4 PM Sat; and 12 PM - 8 PM Sun. A cab from Flatbush to Brooklyn will cost about $8, or you can take the 2 train from Grand Army Plaza to Hoyt St., get out and walk 2 blocks to the A, and take the A to the High St. station, and walk dow Sands St. toward the Navy Yard. It’s not as complicated as it sounds–go to HopStop to get a route plan (this is an amazing site: how could you have missed it?). The entrance to the Navy Yards is at the corner of Sands St. and Navy St.

Stand in line. Line up behind the T. Don’t get uptight if people appear to waltz right in and cut in front of you. They were probably told to go get documents out of their car and bring them back to the counter. Just be patient.

If everything is in order, the ladies at the counter will take your money, give you a green Redemption Fee Receipt (stamped “CLOSED” or “REDEEMED”). Finally, you have to be “escorted,” which means you have to get in the blue police van and be driven 200 feet to your car.

The Manhattan tow pound (212-971-0771 or 212-971-0772) is at Pier 76 at West 38th Street & 12th Avenue. The Bronx pound is at 745 East 141st Street between Bruckner Expressway & East River, and the Queens pound is under the Kosciusko Bridge. Check this site for opening and closing times.

Time to step back and look at the big picture. Staceyjoy pointed out this vision of a snarled urban dystopia: "There will be new office towers and corporate headquarters looming over Brooklyn Heights, a jazzy sports arena at Atlantic Ave., movie studios in the Navy Yard, big box stores and a cruise ship terminal in Red Hook, and huge residential complexes in Dumbo and along 4th Ave. … Planned development is expected to total 45 million square feet, equaling the size of five World Trade Centers … The inescapable corollary … that hundreds of thousands of new travelers will be drawn to the hub—an estimated 500,000 more people per day."

Aha… I knew I was saving this Jan. 10 copy of the Park Slope Courier for a reason. Highlights from the Jan. 10 Letters to the Editor:

-72-year-old Barbara Sheeran of Flatbush fumes that Prospect Park does not belong to the "Transportation Alternatives terrorists": "I will tell you why cars belong in the park … because it was built for all people to enjoy, not just those who live near the park." Later: "Since when did [the park] become the private property of those close by?"

-82-year-old Cornelius U. Morgan of Baltimore, Md. blows the whistle on the "Evildoer" in the White House who is ready to "give the bankers the assets in the Social Security Trust Fund": "George W. Bush is evil personified but because of his grand nature, a child of God, I love him as a brother and I pray that he will abandon his evil ways… "

This happened last Tuesday, Jan. 4, at about 5:30 PM. Looking for updates… have not found any yet.

"Edward Ruiz, 27, was stepping out of the
Lincoln Continental he had just parked on Flatbush Ave. at Dean St. in
Prospect Heights when he was hit by a passing 1995 Jeep Wrangler headed
north on Flatbush Ave."

"Ruiz suffered severe head injuries and was clinging to life at Brooklyn Hospital Center, police said."

"Cops said Ruiz, of 21st Ave., was accidentally struck by a 49-year-old
woman driver from the Bronx. She was not charged, cops said."

Eastern Parkway is City’s Most Dangerous Road for Pedestrians

"Sprawling eight-lane Eastern Parkway has a higher rate of pedestrian
deaths and injuries than infamous Queens Blvd. - and the distinction of
having the deadliest intersection in the entire city."

"There were 25 people killed crossing the 3.9-mile length of Eastern
Parkway from 1995 to 2001, according to the latest figures available … Cars struck 609 pedestrians in that period."

"Pedestrians have only 16 seconds to cross the six lanes of Eastern
Parkway, which also has two service roads separated by two islands. The
speed limit - 30 mph - is routinely broken."

(Picture source: Haitixchange.com)