Prospect Park Relations, Road Sharing, etc

Sep 24, 2012 at 03:29 PM

@Michael It is really important that we show we are active and involved in this so we can continue to have input on future park decisions and planning.

If you rolled through 9th St. on the drive between 1PM and 3PM you probably saw me holding a stop sign and handing out flyers with Emily Lloyd (Park director) et al, and Officer Minardi from the 78th. Unfortunately, I was the only one from Kissena who showed up.

So, will Kissena continue to have as much input going forward? Emily didn't say, and I didn't bring it up. But if I were in her position, I'd definitely be looking for some other way to engage the cycling community.

But it's not a big deal either way.

jfogden

Oct 19, 2012 at 02:53 AM

Not sure which thread to throw this on to but today in the park the DOT had a guy taking pictures from the pulpit in this cherrypicker at the bottom of this hill... as I did my laps they moved around the park taking pics from the turn at the bottom of the hill, by the stoplight before the finish and partway up the hill... monitoring traffic flow? violations? I've seen radar guns many times in the last year, as recently as a month ago but this was a new one on me

IMG_0218.JPG

Jules

Jan 22, 2014 at 01:22 AM

Hi All,

I had a very productive talk with Eric Landau from Prospect Park today and I wanted to share some of the details.

Park Relations with Kissena: Eric wanted to stress that there wasn't a bad perception of Kissena per se, and that they were very appreciative of all the work Charlie does. He didn't know about the "midnight rescue" from last year but was really excited to hear about it, and very appreciative.

Road Furniture: We had a good talk about road furniture (barriers, speed bump/hump/tables, etc) and I think I impressed on him the paradox that the racers who are well behaved are the only ones who will be able to consistently navigate them and that for the freds - who are a problem -there will be carnage. It does not sound like there are any plans soon for new furniture.

Vanderbilt Hill: what we know as the "Downhill" is a major pain point for the Park. High speeds, low visibility and a high traffic crosswalk at the bottom make it a bit of a ticking clock. I suggested a second light higher up the hill that would give people descending a chance to stop in time and he seemed interested. We'll see where that goes; the only other alternative they have is something to shorten the distance that a pedestrian walks, and as we know that means furniture.

Racing: The two cardinal sins are riding backwards (especially down the uphill) and riding in the joggers lane for any reason. Charlie will have more on what he's going to do to enforce this but it will likely be tickets or expulsion from the race.

Construction for a parking lot for the skating rink may or may not impact our start/finish area for the races this year; Eric has invited me to a standing meeting the Park has with its community of users called the "comcom." I'll be able to get a full briefing on the status of that construction there.

Red Lights: ALL the red lights at crossings work properly in the park. Outside of "car hours" they ONLY TURN RED WHEN THE BUTTON IS PRESSED. This means that if you're outside of car hours and you see a red light there is always a good reason to stop. If you are training in kit you are expected to stop at a red light - it doesn't matter how good your interval was going. Sprint out of it and your NormP for the effort will be the same, I promise you.

Tickets: if you get ticketed by the police and you don't have ID you are going to get cuffed and taken to the precinct. The rationale is that if they can't check to see if there are any outstanding warrants, they won't let you go.

Crosswalks: we should expect a light and a marked crosswalk before the 3rd street entrance; I think we're all aware of the "demand channel" that exists there; no word on the timing of that yet.

Helping the Park: Eric and the people who run the park are very aware that the overall problem is NOT cyclists - it's an ecosystem of pedestrians who cross randomly, cars, horses, runners, cyclists, etc.

There are two things we can definitely help with and one perhaps:

They need help educating people to USE the crosswalks and educating cyclists to OBEY the crosswalks. To that end they will be staging monthly "events" where pedestrians (I think it's one of the running clubs) will push the crosswalk buttons and then walk to the middle of the lane. I offered that we could field a small peloton that would circle the park and stop diligently to help make the scene more educational for all involved.
Eric was also a fan of us holding some goodwill "bike safety" events after races where we could top up people's tires, adjust helmets & seatposts; something with high visibility that would help the image of the lycra clad racer.

Perhaps

Eric has invited me to meet with the Lt. from the 78th who manages the park. I'd like to put together a flashcard with all the local jerseys on it for them with contact info for each team. The idea is simple: if they see a rider not in that kit they can be sure it's not one of us, and they'll be able to communicate with us directly (and much sooner) if something looks like it will become an issue.

Overall Eric was quite simpatico; he was very appreciative of Mike's help with the traffic calming committee and is as eager as we are to help solve the larger issue of pedestrian/cyclist education around the "on demand" stoplights and designated crossing areas. By the way, it does sound (EVERYONE KNOCK WOOD NOW!) that the new lanes have really helped make things safer.

Keep the rubber side facing the snow!

jim_nelson

Jan 22, 2014 at 01:29 AM

Nice Jules.

Sounds like the tone was overall positive and constructive. Thanks for the effort and the recap.

Marc Bertucco

Jan 23, 2014 at 03:08 PM

Good meeting/good update. Thanks Jules.

Can a lawyer type or someone else who knows the law weigh in on the legality of having to provide ID to an officer? I'm going to ask my friend who is a retired police captain...

Jules

Jan 23, 2014 at 03:17 PM

Marc Bertucco said:

Good meeting/good update. Thanks Jules.

Can a lawyer type or someone else who knows the law weigh in on the legality of having to provide ID to an officer? I'm going to ask my friend who is a retired police captain...

Marc, if it is legal or not, it doesn't belong in our discussion of our relations with the Park. I'd put it in the Legal thread. I think a lot of us would come down on the side of "what is this, soviet Russia? Papers please?!?" But it's a tangent to the overall effort to improve our rapport with the people running the park.

Ryan J

Jan 23, 2014 at 04:37 PM

Keith Snyder, please chime in...

Jules

Jan 29, 2014 at 02:18 PM

Hi All,

I attended the Community Committee or "Comcom" meeting last night; here are some of the highlights that I think concern us the most.

Flood Zones aka "Popup lakes" The park is going to be doing extensive work to correct these; most are internal (flooded paths, not roadways) but the two we know about are likely going to be worked on this year: the stinky one on your right as you begin the downhill and the one we drained manually last year. No word on the when work will begin or how long the roads will be affected but obviously if they're reworking drainage at the "pinchpoint" there won't be any racing there until it's ridable.
The new ice rink will be getting a parking lot next year; the Lincoln traffic (which only exits the park now) will likely be modified to be 2 way. More of a concern during rink hours (Not races) that we should be wary of. Nothing we can do to stop it. The park spent 70 million (50 taxpayer, 20 private) on that rink and they're very excited about it and it's accessibility.
The park has donated an evening 6-8pm on Feb 25th to the Community Committee members and their respective memberships; we have 20 tickets for private ice time and skate rentals that evening; the board will figure out how to distribute them.

That's all; it was a no muss, no fuss meeting that took just over an hour. They were very appreciative that we were there, and being able to show up as a "more than fifty year old brooklyn club" carried more gravitas than I expected.

Keep your toes warm out there,

Jules

neilx

Jan 29, 2014 at 04:25 PM

@Jules-Thanks for attending and summarizing. Much appreciated.

dstokes

Jan 29, 2014 at 05:21 PM

Thanks for representing Jules. Seems to me they could maintain current traffic flow. Just require cars to enter at the bottom of the park (near the pinch point) and drive up to the ice skating rink. Keep the Lincoln exit the way it is. Having cars crossing the roadway doesn't sound optimal.

Jules

Jan 29, 2014 at 05:23 PM

@David they has 40k visitors to the rink in their first month; they want to keep cars off the drive - I don't like either solution but a single danger point seems better than a stretch of danger... I guess we'll all see.

Jeffrey White

Jan 29, 2014 at 05:31 PM

I always thought Prospect needed a parking lot.

mugwump

Jan 29, 2014 at 05:49 PM

The ice rink access for cars seems a little nuts to me. Central Park has two rinks. Neither have a parking lot next to them. I don't think it has to do with showing it off. I think it has to do with expectations of people driving in Brooklyn.

dstokes

Jan 29, 2014 at 08:12 PM

It also sounds a little nuts to me. The park drive is used by LOTS of people doing LOTS of different things, as I guess most of you are painfully aware. Crossing cars (lots of them) will not be popular. Let them build a fly-over!

Jules

Jan 29, 2014 at 08:29 PM

Hopefully the light will be timed intelligently. If not we won't be the only ones hollering.

mugwump

Jan 29, 2014 at 10:00 PM

dstokes said:

It also sounds a little nuts to me. The park drive is used by LOTS of people doing LOTS of different things, as I guess most of you are painfully aware. Crossing cars (lots of them) will not be popular. Let them build a fly-over!

build a tunnel for the cars.

Jeffrey White

Jan 30, 2014 at 02:10 AM

Build a spike strip for the cars.

Jeffrey White

Jan 30, 2014 at 02:19 AM

Here is the place to get this impending shit show onto TA's radar: http://www.transalt.org/about/contact

I sent the following note over there, and I encourage you to write your own:

Is TA aware that the city intends to open a big parking lot at Prospect Park and allow cars to access it during the (beautiful) new ice rinks' operating hours? This is a HUGE deal, and I haven't heard peep about it from TA. Once we start letting cars into the park during non-car hours, you KNOW they will use that as their chance to ALWAYS drive in the park. Can you imagine the chaos and danger of that situation? Please look into it.

Ryan J

Jan 30, 2014 at 03:02 AM

What are the ice-rink hours?

At this point, riding in the park during any "peak use" period (mornings, evenings, and weekends) pretty much sucks anyway.

Jules

Jan 30, 2014 at 03:37 AM

LeFrak Center - Public Skating Hours

Mon – Thurs: 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Friday – Sat: 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Sunday: 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.

http://www.lakesideprospectpark.com/

Ryan J

Jan 30, 2014 at 03:43 AM

Ouch.

dstokes

Jan 30, 2014 at 04:49 AM

LeFreak?

Jeffrey White

Jan 30, 2014 at 04:58 AM

It pretty much turns Prospect Park back over to cars during daylight hours (and far beyond) IF it's true. That would probably do it for me in Brooklyn. Hey WDC, Kissena West?

Jules

Jan 30, 2014 at 02:55 PM

The claim is that they'll only use it for the ice rink, ie: winter - it just doesn't sound very realistic in the long run.

David Yang

Jan 30, 2014 at 03:14 PM

Didn't they have a lot for the old rink? What was the policy before the new one started construction?

Jules

Jan 30, 2014 at 03:20 PM

@Yang, apparently there was an old parking lot where they put the new one; access used to be via the entrance at Park Circle or Ocean & Parkside.

Any way you cut it, and extra 1k+ people per day is a lot of additional traffic. Maybe we should ask them to put a pump track in during the summer!

neilx

Jan 30, 2014 at 06:10 PM

@Jules-yes there was a lot. In fact, back in the day, people used to use the lot for the races.

jim_nelson

Jan 30, 2014 at 06:43 PM

I know Yacks liked to park there..... The new rink is actually right on top of the old parking lot. Last time I looked at the plans the new parking lot is intended to be up the hill a bit (like where we don't practice cyclocross).

From what I have heard, the intent is to use the rink year round with roller skating in the summer and possibly concerts, etc......

Sounds like racing wouldn't really be affected, nor the early mornings during the week (couldn't be much worse than the construction vehicles we've contended with for the last couple years) . Summer in the later hours would get more traffic and the weekends will likely be a mess.

mugwump

Jan 30, 2014 at 09:16 PM

Jeffrey White said:

It pretty much turns Prospect Park back over to cars during daylight hours (and far beyond) IF it's true. That would probably do it for me in Brooklyn. Hey WDC, Kissena West?

This does seem like a job for TA. As they've got a strong Brooklyn contingent and probably still together after the Prospect Park West battle, I think they'd be in a good position to oppose or limit this lot.

jim_nelson

Jan 30, 2014 at 10:03 PM

Combined with the recent De Blasio push for Zero pedestrian deaths in NYC it seems there should be political will for a smart solution to this problem.

I get that you want to provide parking (or at least vehicular access) to the rink to accommodate folks with mobility issues, but those could be of a limited scope and not involve a big parking lot for folks who don't feel like taking the subway and walking a few blocks.