After several months of community outreach and workshops, including a One-Day Plaza event, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has heard the community’s concerns and is working to alleviate the problems at the dangerous Myrtle/Wyckoff Avenue intersection.
Representatives from DOT presented their findings to Community Board 5’s (CB 5) Transportation Services and Public Transit Committees during their joint monthly meeting in Glendale on Tuesday, May 24.
DOT previously held a workshop in Queens on March 29, and another one in Brooklyn on April 27 and discovered that out of the 21 people surveyed during the Queens workshop, 89 percent feel that a failure to yield by vehicles is the number one concern on their roadways. Only one category, “Long wait to cross,” was named a problem or major problem by less than 50 percent of those surveyed.
During the One-Day Plaza event held at the intersection on April 30, 95 percent of the people surveyed — a total of 130 people — said they would approve of having a permanent plaza there. Of those surveyed, 47 percent said that a permanent plaza would increase their spending, while 46 percent said it would not affect their shopping habits.
The number one neighborhood priority ranked by those surveyed at the One-Day Plaza event was safety.
Another thing DOT learned during the One-Day Plaza was that 65 percent of people surveyed walked to get to the plaza, 16 percent used the train and 10 percent arrived by bus. That, coupled with a DOT study showing that during peak hours, there is three times more pedestrian traffic on Wyckoff Avenue where the proposed plaza would be than vehicles (184 vehicles versus 676 pedestrians), shows that the street is most heavily used by pedestrians.
“In this block, if you compare the peak hours of vehicle use and pedestrian use, you have three times as many pedestrians,” the DOT representative said. “So that speaks to the number of pedestrians here at this transit hub. From a transit perspective it really makes sense: this is a subway hub and a bus hub, there are a lot of pedestrians and a major intersection in this neighborhood.”
Now that DOT has gathered this community information, it will continue to present its findings to the full board of CB 5, as well as Community Board 4 Brooklyn’s Transit Committee and full board. NYC Transit will also present its proposed bus route changes.
If approved by both boards, implementation of the plaza would begin in late summer.
