Car-Free Prospect Park Pulls Prominent Promoters

In May, five former commissioners of the Department of Transportation and a coalition of business, labor, civic and environmental groups (including T.A.) issued Unclogging New York: A Blueprint for Better City Transportation. One of the plans recommendations is "Establish a car-free Prospect Park." Since being published in May, the report has been endorsed by all of the major candidates for mayor. While creating a car-free Central Park was excised from the report because of opposition by the real estate industry, the recommendation for a car-free Prospect Park remained uncontroversial, and was described by a number of mayoral candidates as "obvious" and "sensible." T.A. urges the next mayor to make the park car-free beginning in May 2002.

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Some Prominent Supporters of a Car-Free Prospect Park

Candidates for Mayor

Michael Bloomberg
Fernando Ferrer
Mark Green
Alan Hevesi (3-month trial period)
Peter Vallone (3-month trial period)

Candidates for Brooklyn

Borough President

Ken Fisher (3-month trial period)
Jeanette Gadsen (3-month car-free trial period)
Marty Markowitz (wants expanded traffic study, supports year round weekday car-free hours)

Former Commissioners of Transportation

Lucius Riccio
NYC DOT Commissioner, Mayor Dinkins
Elliot Sander
NYC DOT Commissioner, Mayor Giuliani
Ross Sandler
NYC DOT Commissioner, Mayor Koch
Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff
NYC DOT Commissioner, Mayor Lindsay
Sam Schwartz
NYC DOT Deputy Commissioner, Mayor Koch

Groups

100 Black Men
New York Building Congress
American Institute of Architects
New York City Environmental Justice Alliance
Association for a Better New York
New York City Transit Riders Council
Alliance for Downtown New York
New York League of Conservation Voters
Council on Transportation Operating Engineers
Environmental Defense
Real Estate Board of New York
General Contractors Association
Regional Plan Association
Laborers Tri-Fund
NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign
Metro Tech BID Transport Workers Union, Local 100
MetroEast, Inc
Transportation Alternatives
Natural Resources Defense Council
Tri-State Transportation Campaign

For more information on the Car-Free Prospect Park Campaign, please visit http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/brooklyn/prospark.html.