Traffic calming in NYC has suffered from conflicting impulses among city transportation managers. The need to better protect pedestrians and neighborhood character from burgeoning traffic is obvious, yet a strong "car party" within the transportation bureaucracy seems clearly uncomfortable with the reversal of traditional traffic engineering that traffic calming represents. Thus, promising speed hump deployment has slowed down, and was criticized by former city Transportation Commissioner Wilbur Chapman (MTR #245).

The NYC DOT's Downtown Brooklyn traffic calming project has ridden the same waves, and has been a subject of controversy for years. Brooklyn civic leaders, elected officials and pedestrian advocates had to fight hard to keep the city from scuttling the project altogether (see MTR #114), and as recently as last summer, DOT officials said they hoped any traffic calming measures would affect traffic as little as possible (MTR #269).

• Curb extensions on Lafayette Ave. at Carlton Avenue and Adelphi Street, and at the intersection of Hicks Street and Atlantic Avenue.
• A raised intersection at Hicks Street and Pierrepont Street.
• A neckdown and raised crosswalk on South Oxford Street at Fulton Street.
• Widened median refuges on Tillary Street at Adams, and longer pedestrian signal phases.
• A pedestrian refuge on Atlantic Avenue at Bond Street, and neckdowns on Bond Street at Atlantic Ave.
• A colored bicycle lane on Henry Street south of Atlantic Avenue.
• A leading pedestrian interval at Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street.
• An exclusive pedestrian phase at Remsen Street and Court Street.
  
  

Public meetings to discuss the pilot projects will be held this spring. Contact Transportation Alternatives at 212-629-8080 or transalt.org for more information.