Proposed Park Slope traffic changes driven by AY?

At Streetsblog (source of the map), Aaron Naparstek points out that the planned narrowing of Fourth Avenue and conversion of Park Slope's Sixth and Seventh avenues to one-way streets seems suspiciously like an effort to relieve Atlantic Yards traffic jams than to fulfill the explanation of pedestrian safety.

After all, the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement would bar vehicles from the northbound segment of Fourth Avenue between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues. "Could it be that DOT's Park Slope plan is aimed at shunting Fourth Avenue's Manhattan Bridge-bound morning traffic jam over to Sixth and Eighth Avenues?" Naparstek writes.

(Answer: if that's the goal, then there may have to be another bypass for Fourth Avenue northbound traffic than the extremely narrow Pacific Street.)

"Historic" expressway

Naparstek's waiting for answers. Meanwhile, consider the observations of Park Slope resident and former City Planning Commissioner Ron Shiffman, speaking at the Historic Districts Council conference last Saturday.

"Seventh Avenue needs to be calmed, not made one way. Take a lane and make it pedestrian," commented Shiffman. He added that the community should not "allow a historic district to become an expressway to alleviate congestion created by Forest City Ratner."

Stay tuned for a donnybrook of a Community Board 6 meeting on Thursday at 6:30 pm.