Meeker Avenue Still Extremely Terrifying For Pedestrians: Petition

WILLIAMSBURG-GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN — Over the past few years, Meeker Avenue has come to be synonymous with near-death experiences, says Becca Kaplan, activist committee chair at Transportation Alternatives. "Every day people talk about their own near hits that happen on Meeker because cars are just flying by," she told Patch.

Kaplan and Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit that advocates for traffic and pedestrian safety, have been fighting for Meeker to get safety improvements along all of its intersections. The latest in the safety improvement effort is a petition started this week to call upon Williamsburg and Greenpoint's community board to request a comprehensive redesign of Meeker as a whole. By Tuesday afternoon, the petition had more than 3,500 signatures.

The idea to advocate for Meeker Avenue safety came about after TransAlt asked residents to vote on which streets in the neighborhood they considered to be most dangerous, and Meeker received a lot of votes.

TransAlt convinced the Department of Transportation to allot money in 2016 to improve three intersections out of more than a dozen that are along Meeker. The Department of Transportation implemented new safety changes to the intersection of Metropolitan and Union avenues, and North Sixth, Seventh and Eighth streets, in August 2016. It added crosswalks, made curbs wider, repainted lanes and inserted orange bollards to signal to cars to slow down, especially when making a turn.

"I think that when the Department of Transportation implemented those, they realized the area was very, very dangerous, and they needed to do something as fast as possible," Kaplan said. "But the reality is, they could do a lot more when it comes to changing the way the street works."

TransAlt also received $500,000 of 2016's participatory budget for City Council District 33, which encompasses a big chunk of Williamsburg, to go toward those safety enhancements. The organization says it's urgent that the whole street gets the same treatment as those three intersections.

"It's definitely a very big ask, but it's necessary," Kaplan said. "I talk to a lot of parents. There's a school on Meeker between Union and Metropolitan, and it's really scary for them. Kids are crossing it to get to school while cars are flying by that street."

Kaplan said the money the organization received from participatory budgeting in 2016 was helpful but not nearly enough. "It's very limited funds, everything has to be under $500,000. That basically affords us one curb extension."

The Meeker conversation especially relevant given that after a handful of pedestrian fatalities in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, residents are concerned that their streets are not safe. Kaplan said the purpose of the petition is to put pressure on the de Blasio administration to spend more money on what she considers to be an urgent safety issue. "It's taken people a long time to realize that something can be done, and you don't just have to accept the status quo."

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