In 1998, when the NYC DOT started the "Downtown Brooklyn Area-wide Traffic Calming Project," a $6 million project funded largely by federal anti-pollution grants, advocates hoped it would be a watershed in how NYC residents affect local traffic problems (MTR #179). This week the agency announced a disappointingly modest set of traffic changes for the area.

The agency will widen sidewalks and traffic islands and increase walk times at about 11 intersections. It will also add parking lanes along Atlantic Ave. and Clinton Street and re-synchronize lights on Dekalb Avenue. Commissioner Iris Weinshall said that if these measures work, they would be replicated in other locations. 

But the steps to be taken are far from new or innovative, making city assertions of an "experiment" or test ring hollow. Many other traffic calming techniques are available to traffic planners, but the city DOT's commitment to traffic calming in recent years has been tepid at best. The city declined to change travel directions on any streets or reduce travel lanes on key arteries. 

Comments by Transportation Alternatives in news reports last week said the plan would do little to discourage the huge number of motorists driving to and through Downtown Brooklyn - the area's fundamental transportation problem. 

Brooklyn Traffic Calming Advocates Dig In - March 14, 1997

Green Light for Brooklyn Traffic Calming - July 6, 1998

NYC: Taking Traffic Calming To Next Level? - June 11, 1999

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