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City to Unveil Safety Improvements at Notorious Bartel-Pritchard Square

The DOT wants to add a traffic light at 15th Street and Bartel-Pritchard Square, where pedestrians often have close calls with speeding cards.
The DOT wants to add a traffic light at 15th Street and Bartel-Pritchard Square, where pedestrians often have close calls with speeding cards.
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DNAinfo/Leslie Albrecht

PARK SLOPE — The city will unveil plans on Thursday to add a traffic light at the notorious intersection of 15th Street and Bartel-Pritchard Square, where pedestrians often have close calls with cars careening off the traffic circle.

The DOT wants to add a new traffic light at 15th Street and Bartel Pritchard Square, put new markings on the street to keep cars from cutting across traffic to turn onto 15th Street, and add a bike lane to 15th Street west of Eighth Avenue, according to City Councilman  Brad Lander.

"If you've ever tried to cross 15th Street at Bartel-Pritchard Square, you know to take the signs indicating that drivers should yield to pedestrians with a grain of salt," Lander wrote in an email inviting neighbors to a meeting where Department of Transportation officials will share the proposed safety upgrades. "Speeding cars routinely ignore the yield signs and cut close to the sidewalk."

There's also a plan to add "bike arrows" to 14th Street and 15th Street between Prospect Park West and Eighth Avenue.

Pedestrians said safety upgrades were long overdue.

"They don't even slow down," said 91-year-old Kay Slevin of the speeding cars bearing down on 15th Street from the Bartel-Pritchard traffic circle. "They have to do something."

Slevin said the city moved a "yield to pedestrians" sign perched high atop a pole closer to the street so drivers could see it better, but that didn't do much to improve safety.

She recalled that a few years ago a man was struck and killed while crossing 15th Street.

Recent accident data for Bartel-Pritchard Square wasn't available immediately on Wednesday. In 2010, a driver plowed into the war memorial in the middle of the circle, and residents have been complaining to the DOT about the area's safety since at least 2009.

Department of Transportation officials are scheduled to unveil the safety upgrades for 15th Street and Bartel-Pritchard Square at a joint meeting of Community Board 6 and 7 at 6:30 p.m. Thursday June 21 at Shepherd's Hall at Holy Name Church, 245 Prospect Park West.