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Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park FAQ, timeline, and infographics (pinned post)

Which way would Pacific Street go? The FEIS confuses

If the government is going to recommend traffic changes in to mitigate adverse impacts from the Atlantic Yards project, you'd hope the message would be consistent. However, two separate chapters of the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) offer contradictory accounts of the fate of Pacific Street between Fourth and Flatbush avenues. That street, currently one way going west, would be made one way going east, as indicated in Chapter 19, Mitigation of the FEIS (p. 19-11). Text below; click to enlarge.

"The Fourth-to-Flatbush Two-Step"

The Brooklyn Paper, source of the above map, called it the “Fourth-to-Flatbush Two-Step.” The south side of the street is residential, mostly row houses. The north side is Site Five, part of the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area (ATURA), housing P.C. Richards, Modell's, and a parking lot, slated to be replaced by a 250-foot tower. (The Brooklyn Bear's Garden would remain, albeit with more shade.)

Wait, it's two-way?

However, if you read Chapter 12 of the FEIS, Traffic and Parking, you might conclude that the writers had not consulted Chapter 19.

On page 12 (excerpt at right), the FEIS claims:
(Under the proposed project, Pacific Street would be closed between Flatbush and 6th Avenues, and between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues, and would be converted to bi-directional operation between 4th and Flatbush Avenues.)

[UPDATE: A reader writes that this may only be during the construction phase. If so, it should be clearer. Another reader says the documents don't spell out that scenario.]

While large documents inevitably are imperfect, this error further suggests that proofreading and harmonizing the document was less of a priority than the rush for approval before the end of Gov. George Pataki's administration.

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