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Early Addition
Yesterday, there was a press conference to herald the formation of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, which will help improve Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza for pedestrians. According to Transportation Alternatives, is coalition is "made up of civic associations such as the Park Slope Civic Council, the Prospect Heights Parents Association and the Eastern Parkway Cultural Row Association...cultural institutions such as the Prospect Park Alliance, the Brooklyn Public Library and the Heart of Brooklyn Cultural Partnership...advocacy organizations such as the Project for Public Spaces, Transportation Alternatives, and the Open Planning Project." Jan Gehl, an urban quality consultant from Denmark, will be "re-envisioning" the plaza, told NY1, "These great opportunities have completely been cut off in little islands where people, like Eskimos, have to jump from one ice floe to another. The middle here where you have fountains and other nice things, there are no one."
It's so true - crossing Grand Army Plaza is like playing the real life Frogger. More from the Grand Army Pedestrian Reclamation Project.
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it's about time someone fixed this. the city just spent millions refurbishign the plaza and you can't even get to it!
Amazing. I have lived in Brooklyn for 15 years and only just recently felt compelled (and brave enough!) to visit the Arch.
And it is a beautiful place to boot! Well, without the cars it would be...
This has been a problem for years.
The only really safe way to access the plaza is a few blocks away from the park. Something needs to change.
More than years. It's been a problem for decades. 30 years ago, it was a pain in the neck to get between the north and south portions of Flatbush Ave. I never saw anybody in the Plaza back then, either. It felt like a place for cars, not people. Of course, like any good New Yorker, I didn't care about where the crosswalks were back then, either. Whenever there was an opening at a corner, I crossed, lights be damned.
To get a good idea of what Transportation Alternatives and its partners have in mind for intersections like Grand Army Plaza, go to their Livable Streets exhibit at the Conde-Naste Lobby, 4 Times Square (42nd & B'dway.) It's Jane Jacobs thoughtful and shows how redesign and reimagination could transform our city.
Flatbush Ave has to be shutdown. Its not a vital thoroughfare, its a historic relic. People can spend an extra 10 minutes taking a less direct route to their destinations.
"Flatbush Ave has to be shutdown" that may be nice, but which other residential street would you like to shunt that traffic to?
If they would just put some humongous potholes in it, and make all the lights go red at the same time once each cycle, that would make things better.