“Atlantic Yards”

Well, this doesn't make up for the eminent domain abuse, inexcusable subsidies-slash-dealmaking, crappy urban design and extensive surface parking acreage, but the Wall Street Journal's Jason Gay reminds us that the Brooklyn basketball arena financed by Bruce Ratner, Mikhail Prokhorov, and the taxpayers of New York State will include 400 bike parking spaces.

The latest round of the knock-down drag-out fight over the Atlantic Yards project is underway, and it's all about parking. At issue is a potential 1,100-space surface parking lot that would be located between Pacific and Dean Streets, just west of Vanderbilt Avenue. That lot has been portrayed as temporary, "interim" parking by the Empire State Development Corporation and project developer Forest City Ratner, but could sit there generating traffic for up to 25 years. Last week several groups filed a motion to halt construction until the environmental impacts of the project are studied more fully.

Yesterday Forest City Ratner released images of the temporary public plaza slated for the triangle between Flatbush and Atlantic, and you've gotta appreciate the spin coming from the developer and his design team. Wedged between two epic traffic sewers, without much noticeable provision for shade or shelter, it will become, in the words of Bruce Ratner, "one of Brooklyn’s great public spaces." (Until an office tower gets built in its place.)

This time-lapse film by Tracy Collins at Not Another F*cking Blog is a telling indictment of poor pedestrian conditions at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. And depending on how Bruce Ratner's new sports arena is built out -- the groundbreaking is set for this week -- things could get much worse.

Norman Oder at Atlantic Yards Report has the details from Wednesday's public meeting on street closures and traffic changes near the footprint of Bruce Ratner's Brooklyn arena project. With construction apparently on the verge of ramping up significantly, local electeds, NYCDOT, and representatives of developer Forest City Ratner engaged in a Q&A session as notable for what was left unsaid as for what was revealed.

State officials announced yesterday that, starting sometime around February 1, they intend to close three blocks of the Brooklyn street grid to accommodate construction of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards arena project. Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic and two non-consecutive blocks of Pacific Street are slated to be condemned.

After yesterday's post showing the sidewalk appropriation going on at Pacific Street and Sixth Avenue as part of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, DOT sent an email explaining why this is happening:

The confluence of Flatbush, Atlantic, and Fourth Avenues is a traffic nightmare of epic proportions right smack next to a huge transit hub and shopping center. (We hear some sort of arena and housing complex might get built there too.) Crossing the street here is an unwelcome adventure for thousands of pedestrians every day, and biking is out of the question for the vast majority of cyclists.