"If you plan for more cars and traffic," promised Fred Kent, the president of the Project for Public Spaces, "then you get more cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get more people and places."Kent is an internationally renowned expert on urban planning, and he regularly travels from New Jersey to Canada to Europe. He calls Brooklyn home, but never works here."We have this global expertise right here in Brooklyn," lamented Jon Orcutt, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, "and he can't even get hired here."Kent and Orcutt were part of a panel last Thursday night that included Karla Quintero from Transportation Alternatives, and was moderated by local journalist Aaron Naparstek. The occasion was the annual meeting of the Park Slope Civic Council, and the topic was "Traffic and Transportation in Brownstone Brooklyn."Only one government bureaucrat had the guts to show up, and the mocking he endured perhaps indicated why the rest stayed away. "The Bus Rapid Transit program," explained Andrew Inglesby, assistant director of Government for the MTA's New York City Transit division, "started more than a year ago with over 36 proposed corridors. Now it's down to fifteen, with just three in Brooklyn.""There are now more consultants than routes," smirked Orcutt in response. "This study's been going on for a couple of years and it's time to just do stuff.""All of these studies," Orcutt had explained earlier, "just sit on top of this socialist system to create jobs for consultants."But when it came to blaming government, Orcutt saw low-level targets like Inglesby as being largely irrelevant. "When you deal with the alphanumeric soup of government agencies," he told the crowd of several hundred inside the Old First Reformed Church on 7th Avenue, "they all deflect you with the 'It's not my department' argument. We need to recognize the bare-knuckle nature of New York politics and start blaming the mayor...If you want to get something done in New York City, blame the mayor."What Orcutt, Kent, Quintero and Naparstek are trying to get done is a concept called "place-making." Their goal is to slow down, if not eliminate, car traffic, and in so doing force New Yorkers to appreciate where they are in the moment."What's so great about Flatbush Avenue," observed Kent of the borough's most important non-elevated roadway, "is that the streets come in at a funny angle, There's a lot of opportunity for public spaces."Where most see only a diagonal traffic jam on their way from the Manhattan Bridge to Floyd Bennet Field, Kent sees a multitude of public squares (shaped like triangles) waiting to happen. At the avenue's least angular intersection, Kent also sees its most glaring lost opportunity. "Grand Army Plaza," he lamented, "is the largest public space in Brooklyn that is totally inaccessible."Indeed, the oval that contains the Civil War memorial arch, a spectacular fountain sculpture and a well-manicured garden is surrounded on all sides by at least five lanes of automobile traffic. What could be a unique public resource is, instead, a deserted island of lost opportunity.When it comes to Brooklyn traffic, Quintero's group has recently done some polling that does not bode well for the future of our lungs, eardrums and nerves. "Only 8 percent of New Yorkers think traffic can improve," she announced forlornly. "People have very little confidence in their government."Kent's solution to car traffic is to eliminate it. He wants less lanes for cars, wider lanes for bicycles and more crosswalks for pedestrians. He cited downtown Paris as a shining example. During the last few summers they have covered their riverside highway - the French FDR if you will - with sand and called it a beach. When an audience member asked him where all the car traffic went, Kent responded, "It just disappears. If people know they can't get there, they start finding other ways."Not everyone in the Park Slope crowd was looking to trade in their motorized vehicles for a new pair of tennis shoes and a MetroCard, but they were ready for some major changes. Many demanded residential parking permits, and most seemed to want streetlights to be synchronized for lower speeds.Craig Chessari, a woodworker on 8th Avenue, has tested the lights on Prospect Park West and Vanderbilt Avenue, two streets that intersect at Grand Army Plaza, and discovered they both are synchronized at over 40 miles per hour. "And the speed limit is only 30," he reported incredulously. "They're tricking us into speeding tickets. It's a cash cow. All they care about is revenue, not safety."There were members of the 78th Precinct, which issues speeding tickets in the area, on hand, but they were there to observe, not comment. And no one from the Department of Transportation (DOT), which sets speed limits and coordinates the lights, showed up, despite several invitations from the Civic Council and from local politicians.The DOT's stated excuse was that to discuss traffic changes in DoBro before the Empire State Development Corporation issues its Environmental Impact Statement for the Atlantic Yards proposal would be premature. City Councilman David Yassky strongly disagreed, "This is far from premature," he told his constituents at the forum. "This is exactly what we need to be doing right now. I think the traffic and parking are a first-order obstacle, Even if the scale of this project can be reduced and the community benefits can be locked in, unless there's a serious and concrete plan regarding traffic, I think the project has to be resisted on that ground alone."The developer of that controversial project, Forest City Ratner Companies, was also invited to the forum. "They declined our invitation," explained Park Slope Civic Council president Lydia Denwoth, "but they sent people to take notes, so they are here."