New York City is allocating more than $40 million toward redesigning critical pedestrian, cycling, and transportation infrastructure in downtown Brooklyn. These improvements continue Mayor Eric...
New York City is allocating more than $40 million toward redesigning critical pedestrian, cycling, and transportation infrastructure in downtown Brooklyn. These improvements continue Mayor Eric Adams' $375 million Working People's Agenda to improve public space and livability across all five boroughs of NYC. The changes described here offer significant social, economic, and aesthetic benefits to residents.
Quoting from the article, improvements include:
Canopy (Fulton Street): NYC Parks will add new street trees, improve existing tree pits, and add seating.
Sidewalks (Flatbush Avenue): The city will widen sidewalks using concrete extensions and shorten the distance to cross streets. New street furniture and trees will be added to make it more visually appealing.
Raised shared street (Ashland Place/Hanson Place): Construction of a raised shared street to create a “pedestrian-focused node.” Shared streets are designed for slow travel speeds where pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists share the right of way.
Protected bike lanes (Ashland Place/Navy Street, Hanson Place): DOT will install protected bike lanes and other safety improvements, starting later this year.
Dedicated bus lanes (Livingston Street): Two-way, dedicated bus-only lanes with physical barriers and pedestrian islands to board buses.
Pedestrian spaces (Fleet Place/Willougby Street): Reconfiguration of the parking lot to make way for a new, large pedestrian space that will feature asphalt art and shorten the crosswalk distance by 75 percent.
I'm happy to see these changes and I hope that there are more to come!
Downtown Brooklyn is the worst of both worlds: a nightmare both on foot and by car. I avoid it like the plague. Improvements are welcome and it’s hard to imagine how they could make it any worse....
Downtown Brooklyn is the worst of both worlds: a nightmare both on foot and by car. I avoid it like the plague. Improvements are welcome and it’s hard to imagine how they could make it any worse. But as with any NYC infrastructure project, we’ll just have to wait and see how it actually turns out (and big “ifs” and “whens” on that too).
The nice part about aboveground infrastructure projects in NYC is that they don't run into the same kind of endless delays as subways or Amtrak upgrades, which are hideously complicated and 2–3...
The nice part about aboveground infrastructure projects in NYC is that they don't run into the same kind of endless delays as subways or Amtrak upgrades, which are hideously complicated and 2–3 orders of magnitude more expensive. The kinds of changes being made here are actually pretty straightforward!
When a street has to be resurfaced, it's going to be resurfaced one way or another, so we may as well add those curb bumpouts at crossings. Dedicated bus lanes are mostly just paint and moving around a few bits of concrete. Figuring out which trees are best for your busy urban streets can be daunting at first, but not if you've been planting street trees for years like NYC Parks has. And so on. Don't get me wrong – even a seemingly simple change has a lot of planning behind it – but relatively speaking, we've got these in the bag.
New York City's pedestrian, bike, and transit access has already improved dramatically in the last 10 years. When I was a child, visiting, it felt nothing like this. So much progress has already been made and I'm very optimistic that we're on track to keep it up. :)
New York City is allocating more than $40 million toward redesigning critical pedestrian, cycling, and transportation infrastructure in downtown Brooklyn. These improvements continue Mayor Eric Adams' $375 million Working People's Agenda to improve public space and livability across all five boroughs of NYC. The changes described here offer significant social, economic, and aesthetic benefits to residents.
Quoting from the article, improvements include:
I'm happy to see these changes and I hope that there are more to come!
Downtown Brooklyn is the worst of both worlds: a nightmare both on foot and by car. I avoid it like the plague. Improvements are welcome and it’s hard to imagine how they could make it any worse. But as with any NYC infrastructure project, we’ll just have to wait and see how it actually turns out (and big “ifs” and “whens” on that too).
The nice part about aboveground infrastructure projects in NYC is that they don't run into the same kind of endless delays as subways or Amtrak upgrades, which are hideously complicated and 2–3 orders of magnitude more expensive. The kinds of changes being made here are actually pretty straightforward!
When a street has to be resurfaced, it's going to be resurfaced one way or another, so we may as well add those curb bumpouts at crossings. Dedicated bus lanes are mostly just paint and moving around a few bits of concrete. Figuring out which trees are best for your busy urban streets can be daunting at first, but not if you've been planting street trees for years like NYC Parks has. And so on. Don't get me wrong – even a seemingly simple change has a lot of planning behind it – but relatively speaking, we've got these in the bag.
New York City's pedestrian, bike, and transit access has already improved dramatically in the last 10 years. When I was a child, visiting, it felt nothing like this. So much progress has already been made and I'm very optimistic that we're on track to keep it up. :)