Letters

Atlantic Avenue is Unsafe for Pedestrians
I live on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Washington Avenue. Every day I pray that I don't get hit as I cross Atlantic Avenue to get to the subway. Four times a day I see cars speed through the red light while pedestrians are beginning to cross. Twice I have seen near-accidents. Cars travel at excessively high rates of speed on Atlantic Avenue. It is very unsafe and I was wondering why I had never heard any "official" complaints about it. All of the people in the neighborhood complain about it as we wait on the corner, as far back as we can stand from the side of the road, while waiting for the light to change. Currently that area of Atlantic and Washington Avenues is being developed. I just purchased an apartment in a brand new building containing 16 units. Many new people are moving into what had been an abandoned, rundown neighborhood. The pedestrian safety issue is only going to become more relevant as more and more people cross Atlantic Avenue every day to get to the train. I would be glad to do anything I can to help the situation.
-Nancy Adzentoivich

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NYPD Must Enforce Car-Free Prospect Park Hours
Although the expanded car-free Prospect Park hours were announced with great fanfare, the publicity/enforcement is less so. On my runs in the park since the announcement, most recently today, well before 7 am, there were a number of cars, speeding through their favorite shortcut. I'm unclear on who is responsible for enforcement-is it the NYPD, the Parks Department, or some other traffic enforcement entity? Just putting up signs is obviously insufficient!!
-Janet Gottlieb

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Mayor's Campaign Accountability Report Not Quite Accurate
Dear Mayor Bloomberg,
Regarding a bike-friendly city-it's a great start, but there's more to be done. There is at present no safe and legal way to get across town by bike between 59th and 100th Streets. The transverses under the park do not have bike lanes, they have dark tunnels under the park roadways, are narrow, have potholes and sewer grates at the edges, and traffic moves very quickly and aggressively through them. They are NOT safe for cyclists, and without making them one-way, there is no room for a bike lane.
The road at 72nd Street is only east-west. The only other road is at 103rd St.

There are no paths in the park where a cyclist may cross from east to west, or west to east. The park police ticket people who do so on park paths.

A good solution would be to designate bicycle routes and clearly mark the paths crossing the park at

1. The south end of Sheep Meadow (about 66th St., parallel to the transverse road), which is little used by pedestrians.

2. The path north of the one circling the Great Lawn, paralleling the 86th St. transverse and just in back of the police station.

3. A path on either the north or the south side of the 96th St. transverse-either the one next to the reservoir, or the one the passes the Field House. Add bike racks to the Field House.

This would give those who use their bicycles for transportation safe passage across the park, while still reserving the majority of the paths for pedestrians.
-Caryl Baron

Traffic Enforcement
Hon. Assemblyman David F. Gantt:
I am informed by Transportations Alternatives that, in your capacity as Chairman of the State Transportation Committee, you oppose the increased use of traffic law enforcement cameras in the City of New York, and that you characterize such devices as "unfair." Traffic conditions here are terrible and seem to be getting worse each year. As I make my way about the city, I see several cases each day where cars run a red lights, make illegal turns and so on. The message is not getting through to drivers that they need to be careful and responsible. I simply cannot see how you can take a position against the expanded use of traffic cameras. These devices have been proven to be a cost-effective and, more important, an objective means of traffic enforcement in cities all around the world; in fact, they are more accurate as a means of identifying the perpetrators of unlawful driving behavior than any other method, including increased policing. Let's face it, even the best police officers involved in traffic enforcement will have a hard time observing-let alone adequately documenting-the many serious traffic infractions that are perpetrated each day in this big city.
-Anthony A. Traverso, Esq.

East River Tolls and Late Night Traffic
Transportation Alternatives wisely advocates for the Mayor's toll plan. However, I would like to remind you that simply shifting traffic to off-peak hours is not a good solution. Those of us who live near the "2nd Avenue highway" and its huge volumes of truck traffic will protest in droves if we are going to be inundated with late-night trucks. In order for this essentially good proposal to work for residents (and avid member/supporters of T.A. like myself) overall traffic levels must be reduced and bike lanes and pedestrian uses actively increased.
-Matt Williamson

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