Impact awareness

What do Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights and Prospect Heights have in common? They all include landmark districts, they all border the Atlantic Yards Project, and they all were recently ranked among the top ten most livable neighborhoods in New York City by New York magazine.

A report released last month by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign named Atlantic Avenue the most dangerous road for pedestrians in Brooklyn with 9 deaths over the three years from 2006 to 2008. Nearby Fourth Avenue ranked third with 6 pedestrian fatalities in the same period. Both roads ranked among the most dangerous in the entire NY/CT/NJ region with Atlantic Avenue ranking third overall. With 20,000 additional car trips a day projected to be generated by the Atlantic Yards project, these numbers may get much worse.

It’s been six years since the announcement of the Atlantic Yards Project. During that time, the project has been heralded by some as a harbinger of a new Brooklyn renaissance with “historic” benefits for the borough. Others have criticized its design, anticipated environmental impacts, and lack of community involvement.

However, all of the press releases, consultants’ reports, public hearings and board meetings since then were just so much political theater. Nobody beside the project’s developer and a few political appointees really knew what the public was likely to get in exchange for massive subsidies and years of construction. Now that the master closing among the State, the City and Forest City Ratner has taken place, New Yorkers can finally see what we have to look forward to. And it’s not the picture we’ve been promised.