The Department of Transportation’s Plan for the Parkside/Ocean Ave Intersection

Friday, January 13th, 2012

The Department of Transportation outlined its initial plan for changes to the dangerous intersection of Parkside Avenue and Ocean Avenue at the Community Board 14 Transportation Committee meeting earlier this week. You’ve seen the plans before–the DOT has been visiting different community groups in the area to get more input–but the DOT and attendees of the meeting brought up some interesting points that are worth going over.

In looking at this intersection, which has had 99 injuries in the past 5 years–putting it in the top 1% of most dangerous intersections in Brooklyn–the DOT explains that its unusual configuration is the main issue.

“It’s not a standard intersection where two streets cross at a 90-degree angle,” said Jesse Mintz-Roth, City Planner at the DOT. “The fifth leg of Park Drive makes it a non-standard intersection, giving it a skew that is the root of our problems here.”

With the entrance to Prospect Park at that corner, the intersection is unusually wide. The crosswalks are in places you don’t expect them, and cars making wide turns have an extended stretch between where they turn and where the crosswalk is. Cars accelerating into the turn don’t have the crosswalk close by, so pedestrians are not in easy sight, and as cars gain speed to turn, the long approach to the intersection means a higher chance of a worse impact if the car hits a pedestrian.

To increase safety for everyone going through that intersection–drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists–the DOT plans to change the layout of the intersection, closing the entrance to the park and bumping out the curbs around it to narrow the angles of the intersection. This would make it closer to standard, and safer, 90-degree corners, and would bring in the crosswalks so that they’re in more expected places.

“The geometric changes are, from our experience, how we drive down that unacceptable number of 20 people injured every year,” said the DOT’s Ryan Russo.

While this plan seems like great news for pedestrians, members of CB14 wondered if closing access to Park Drive there would be unfair to residents in the eastern part of the area who use that as a route to Grand Army Plaza. There was also concern for backed up traffic if those cars from the park are re-routed to Ocean Avenue. The DOT feels that the number of cars accessing that entrance–which is only open from 7 to 9am–is not significant enough to cause a problem.

“We have been looking at this intersection for a long time,” Mintz-Roth said. “While the volumes entering park drive have never been all that high, in the last five years they’ve basically dropped in half.”

They estimate that 360 cars enter the park from this intersection each day, and expect 200 would be added to the northbound traffic on Ocean from 7 to 9am. The DOT also notes that the idea to close the entrance is not because people are getting hit by cars that are entering the park–it’s that closing it would give them the opportunity to change the geometry of the intersection to make it less menacing.

Another use for this entrance would be impacted, though. Previously, Prospect Park’s parking lot was accessed from here, but the lot is closed while construction on the Lakeside project continues. But Lakeside itself is a source of traffic at the moment–trucks use this entrance to access the construction.

The DOT is working with Prospect Park on the issue, but notes that one solution is in place as part of the Lakeside project. Access to Park Drive may be added by making the Lincoln Road exit two-way. That would be the last phase of Lakeside, which would not be complete until next winter, but it’s not clear if funds for the Lincoln Road access have been identified yet.

Members of CB14 expressed concern about safety within the park, as trucks entering at Lincoln and having to drive all the way around Park Drive to get to the construction site, but the Russo said they “can make the construction vehicles work with this plan. It is absolutely being coordinated.”

Other changes included in the intersection plan would be to extend the bus parking along the east corner of Parkside (next to the McDonalds) to eliminate buses double parking in the right lane of traffic, and moving a few metered spaces from that side to the opposite side of the street, where taxi stand spaces are now.

Though the DOT plans to put these changes into effect by this summer, they are still tweaking it. One request that has come up at several meetings, for instance, is changing the left-turn signal timing. Changing the timing at the intersection to allow a Barnes Dance–where all cars are stopped and only pedestrians may enter the intersection–wouldn’t work because traffic would back up too much, and, as Russo said, “We cannot keep a New York City pedestrian from waiting two phases to cross the intersection.” However, they are considering the left turn-signal change, which they say is especially promising for the left turn from Parkside heading north to Ocean.

Once the intersection is altered, the DOT anticipates a 50% decline in crashes and injuries, which is huge. They’ll continue to monitor the intersection following the change, and will report back after six months or a year to explain how it has impacted safety and traffic.

If you have any concerns about the plan, reach out to CB14 at 718-859-6357 or info@cb14brooklyn.com. And a big thanks to them and Community Board 9, the DOT, Councilmember Mathieu Eugene, and most of all to the residents who live near that intersection who have worked so hard for several years to get to this point, working to make this safer for all of us.

Tags: biking, Community Board 14, DOT, Driving, pedestrians, safety
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