Flexible Vanderbilt

Open Streets Brooklyn-Style

Yes, that's a parked car. No need for Inspector Javert.

Call it Vanderbilt 2.0. On a chilly Saturday recently, I had a look at the Open Streets installation on Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights neighborhood. It's been there for a while, but this was my first visit.

The thing that struck me right off the bat was the two-way bicycle lane on the east side of the street. This is a temporary lane. It's only there when Vanderbilt is Open - Friday, 5 to 10 pm, and Saturday and Sunday, noon to 10 pm. 

This section of Vanderbilt runs from Atlantic Avenue to Grand Army Plaza, which is the front door to Prospect Park. (As Philadelphia's traffic engineers redesign Eakins Oval in front of the Art Museum, they could look at Grand Army Plaza for things not to do.) 

Prospect Park is Brooklyn's version of Manhattan's Central Park. Both parks had the same designers - Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux - and some people think Brooklyn has the better park. I love both parks equally. 

Like Central Park, Prospect Park is a mecca for bicyclists. And many of the cyclists heading to Prospect Park from places like Fort Greene and Clinton Hill seem to favor getting there (and back) by way of Vanderbilt. However, I hasten to add that my impression of the bicyclists on Vanderbilt is that many of them are not out for a recreational spin, but rather using their bikes as utility vehicles to get from one place to another. I judge this largely by their dress and the bikes they're riding.

My sources tell me the two-way lane is a relatively recent innovation. When Vanderbilt first became an Open Street, I'm told, it simply maintained the two separate bike lanes next to the parking lanes on each side of the street. This apparently led to some conflicts between bicyclists and pedestrians and diners, which were resolved by creating the two-way bike lane on the east side of the street, leaving the rest of the area for pedestrians. Here's a view of the current setup on the west side of the street. 

Even booksellers love the outdoors.

Vanderbilt is a wide street, and at some point in the past a street designer had the lovely idea of including a median strip, something I'd like to see more of in Philadelphia. Little islands like this have their uses, and people seem to pick up on this flexibility pretty quickly.

Another use of the median is storage of the barriers when Open Streets is on hiatus.  I managed to get out on Sunday morning and got this shot. I also bought some fabulous pastries at a French patisserie named Mille Feuille, 622 Vanderbilt. My four-year-old grandson just loved the raspberry croissant.

And here's a shot of the one-way bike lane on the west side in operation. The expression on the face of the first bicyclist may have something to do with the hill that he's climbing. This area is called Prospect Heights for a reason.

Some people may question why Vanderbilt is only an Open Street on weekends. I instead am impressed by Vanderbilt's flexibility, which shows itself in several ways.

First, separating pedestrians and bicyclists palliates the conflicts between people on bikes and people on their feet that bicycle advocates often seem reluctant to talk about. Certainly the conflicts are less dangerous than those created by motor vehicles, but still they exist, and here Vanderbilt has taken steps to reduce conflict.

Second, motorists also have a right to the street, and in this neighborhood I think parking is probably a bigger issue than passage. There is remarkably little off-street parking in Prospect Heights, and there are a lot of cars. In this respect, the area is very different from Center City Philadelphia, where we are so overbuilt for off-street parking that many garages are being demolished and replaced by residential construction.

And I do like that there is tolerance for the occasional laggard car that's still at the curb when the Open Street opens. No need to tow. We can work around it.

Although I don't suppose I'd be opposed to a parking citation. 

See also Fitting the Solution to the Problem,  Don't Tell Me That Peace Has Broken Out!