There’s a potentially interesting event this evening (10/21) for anyone that’s ever feared for their life while crossing the street near Atlantic Terminal and might want to know what could be done make it less potentially fatal. It will be a DOT presentation to Community Board 2’s Transportation Committee at 6 PM at St. Francis College on Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights. Here’s a bit about it:

For anyone not familiar with this area, it is truly dangerous. The speeding cars and lack of amenities for safe pedestrian movement endanger thousands of pedestrians coming from the adjacent shopping centers and subway & LIRR hub. Atlantic Terminal is an epicenter of activity in Brooklyn, yet people literally run across the immense street rather than walk. Cyclists avoid the area because of high volume of bridge-bound truck traffic on the multi-lane Flatbush Avenue cross street. The Atlantic Terminal crossing is also where Atlantic Avenue widens (a throwback to the original plan Robert Moses had to make it an actual highway) and is the planned home of the new Ratner basketball arena among embedded in 21 acres of mega-development.

The bottom line is that it’s a vital part of Brooklyn that has streets that are as ‘un-livable’ as you could imagine, and will only get worse as more development occurs. Thankfully the DOT is considering some changes to the area. To ensure that its suggestions are truly bike- and pedestrian-friendly, please attend the meeting on October 21 and ask questions, bring suggestions, and really make them address your concerns. These are our streets….let’s make them safe.

Now, there’s an urban planning and transportation planning challenge if we’ve ever seen one.