If done with adequate attention to traffic and transit, a city plan to rezone downtown Brooklyn for extensive commercial growth could provide a strong basis for the continued redevelopment of downtown Brooklyn and surrounding neighborhoods. But so far, the plan’s transportation impacts and implications have not been adequately addressed in documents published by the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

The "Downtown Brooklyn Development Plan" would change zoning regulations in downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene and Boerum Hill. It would allow construction of skyscrapers (e.g. buildings larger than the 512 ft Williamsburg Savings Bank tower on Flatbush Ave). In total, the plan would add 6.7 million square feet of commercial, retail, and residential space to downtown Brooklyn, affecting residents from the East River to Clinton Hill.

According to analysis by Community Consulting Services, a Brooklyn planning group, the plan will increase weekday person trips in downtown by 294,000 people and increase transit travel in downtown Brooklyn by about 40%.

An EDC environmental assessment of the matter rightly says that street and subway systems in Downtown Brooklyn are "stressed by current demand" and that the majority of travel demand from the proposed project will occur on the subways. However, the assessment does not set forth a method for accommodating a massive increase in subway or bus ridership. It says subway station improvements will likely be made and that transit trips will be measured. However, it is entirely unclear how NYC Transit subway and buses, which are already at or above capacity on many routes in Brooklyn (especially during rush hours), will accommodate a big ridership increase.

Traffic and parking discussions in the scoping document heavily reflect the standard "predict and provide" school of traffic engineering that has done so much to foster and extend automobile dependence in our society. The plan looks to accommodate new drivers from the proposed development by building 2,000 new off-street parking spaces, which would increase parking capacity in downtown Brooklyn by about 10% (an already high number that does not include the thousands of parking spaces already planned as part of BAM Cultural District, Atlantic Terminal, or other redevelopment projects). Given downtown Brooklyn’s existing congestion and proximity to transit, development in the could be entirely transit-oriented, if transit capital investment and traffic demand reduction strategies are made wholesale parts of the development plan. However, increasing low-cost parking supply is only going to increase car use. Study after study has shown that urban driving is directly related to parking supply and price. Interestingly, Community Consulting Services has documented a surplus of parking in downtown Brooklyn paid lots. Spaces there are left unused as drivers look for free on-street parking in adjacent neighborhoods.

The EDC’s draft scope also ignores freight traffic. Already, downtown Brooklyn and surrounding neighborhoods are plagued with huge amounts of truck traffic. Even without downtown Brooklyn rezoning, the EDC says the BQE is expected to see a 100% rise in truck traffic in the next 20 years. The big rigs worsen traffic congestion and increase asthma rates in residential sites like the Farragut Houses that already experience some of the highest asthma rates in the city. EDC’s assessment does not indicate how an increase in truck traffic would be mitigated, or what short or long term projects, such as Cross Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel, should be regarded as essential underpinnings to a downtown Brooklyn growth strategy.

Community Consulting Services suggests development of a master transportation study, using updated data sets to accurately predict the effect of the rezoning plan (they say the city environmental review process often uses outdated or misleading data). They also recommend residential parking permits to discourage on-street parking in neighborhoods, higher parking prices in paid lots, tolling the East River bridges and re-evaluating current bus routes and adding new ones.

The Economic Development Corporation can also involve the community more in the planning process. To do this, EDC could post scoping documents on-line, and better advertise public meetings. For a copy of the scoping documents, contact Hardy Adasko’s office at EDC, 212-312-3703.

This rezoning project could be an important step for Brooklyn, but would also be disastrous for Brooklynites’ quality of life if not done correctly. If the transportation system cannot accommodate anticipated growth, then the entire rezoning project will be in vain. As Brian Ketcham, Community Consulting Services executive director, said in recenty testimony at recent scoping hearings, "If people can’t get here, they won’t come."

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