OkBandicoot1438 t1_ivzt1ib wrote on November 11, 2022 at 8:57 PM

That would be really unfortunate. It may need some management or redirection but shutting it down completely would be difficult.

And people in this thread are so fucking entitled about being able to ride their bikes and jog while smelling flowers & shit - it’s so one sided. I’m a Med student & volunteer with 2 elderly community centers and 1 special needs center, all in Park Slope. Every morning and evening, small buses and/or commuter vans pick them up and drop them back off at home. Grand Army and Eastern Parkway connects them to other centers and allows them to get to medical appointments and activities. On days where Grand Army is inaccessible, the extra commute time added is 44 minutes - without traffic.

Those streets literally connect to the other side of Brooklyn - a side that gradually becomes lower income and increasingly of color as you move down Eastern Parkway and/or Flatbush. And the more you move down these roads & their nearby neighborhoods, the less public transportation options there are. Buses, dollar/ commuter vans/ Ubers/ carpools/ etc are some peoples only way of commuting into the area. Not everyone can bike/walk from fucking Brownsville/ENY/Canarsie/ East Flatbush to Park Slope and downtown area.

There needs to be a middle ground.

Silo-Joe t1_iw159ie wrote on November 12, 2022 at 3:21 AM

Nope. No one cares about elderly people unfortunately.

InTogether t1_iw5jeij wrote on November 13, 2022 at 3:02 AM

That's dramatic

medspeedbikequeen t1_iwk7faj wrote on November 16, 2022 at 6:07 AM

Glad you are voicing this. What do you think about people proposing making the center / cross lanes for bus (and for dollar vans) and bikes only? And the traffic circle would still be cars?

The same could be said for 14th st and union square—a lot of low income folk in alphabet city and les who take m14 to get around because they’re so far from the train, however getting rid of cars on 14th means bus can move freely, EMS can go quickly down 14th, etc. also, you’re making a false binary. I think the very people you are advocating for need and like good public spaces to hang out in.