BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — Transportation advocates are demanding extra safety measures on one of Brooklyn's busiest streets.
Transportation Alternatives and Bed-Stuy Safe Streets will take to the intersection of Atlantic and Utica avenues on Friday to ask for improvements protecting cyclists, transit users and pedestrians on Atlantic Avenue — where a total of 184 motorists, pedestrians and cyclists were injured this year, according to NYPD data through April 30.
Group members will help pedestrians cross the street using lights and give them the opportunity to weigh in on what safety changes they’d like to see in the area.
“Our goal for Atlantic Avenue is to have the New York City Department of Transportation do a study of the street and use the tools in their toolbox to make it safer,” said Luke Ohlson, Brooklyn organizer for Transportation Alternatives.
“It runs through so many neighborhoods in Brooklyn and so many people are affected," he continued. "We’re looking for something comprehensive from the city to make the number for crashes and injuries go down sooner rather than later.”
From July 2012 to December 2014, the corridor saw 2,253 injuries and 14 deaths, advocates said.
A nearly eight-mile stretch of the roadway became the first of the city’s 25 arterial slow zones as part of the city’s Vision Zero initiative. As a result, officials reduced the speed limit from 30 miles-per-hour to 25.
Still, safety activists said Atlantic Avenue’s wide span encourages drivers to travel at nearly twice the legal speed limit.
On Friday, the groups will have a speed gun on hand to track motorists.
Advocates said they’d like to see designated bike lanes, increased crossing time, pedestrian plazas and a narrowing of the corridor to decrease car speeds.
The Transportation Division of the Department of City Planning started a study of the Atlantic Avenue corridor in 2014, targeting the street between the Barclays Center and Vanderbilt Avenue through East New York and the Eastern Parkway Extension.
Officials conducted walking and driving tours of the area and presented to three Brooklyn community boards, but ideas and designs have yet to be determined.
The Department of City Planning did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Friday Night Lights will take place at the intersection of Atlantic and Utica avenues on June 5 from 6 to 9 p.m. For more information, visit the Transportation Alternatives website.
