By Helen Klein
The breadth of the intersection and the quantity of traffic can make crossing the Junction a challenge for pedestrians. For this reason, members of Community Board 14, during a recent meeting of the board’s Transportation Committee, asked representatives of the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) to study the situation, with an eye to coming up with solutions that would make venturing into the roadway a less hair-raising experience. “The timing of the street lights actually doesn’t allow anyone to cross safely,” opined board member Florence Valentino, speaking to the group gathered at the board office, 810 East 16th Street about the diagonal crossing of the intersection that currently is not painted as a crosswalk, though it is controlled by traffic signals. Valentino added, “It is sort of intimidating for most people because when you get in the middle of the street, the light is already flashing.” Board member Barbara Sheeran agreed. “I make it halfway across,” she reported. Sheeran also questioned the wisdom of allowing left turns from Flatbush Avenue into Hillel Place. “There’s absolutely no need for it,” she contended, stressing that having the left turn into the small street, “Backs up traffic all the way past Avenue H, sometimes to Avenue I.” “You have competing traffic,” added Alvin Berk, the board’s chairperson. The situation there, he said, “Dates back to the Lindsay administration.” Some changes to traffic patterns in the area are planned as part of the long-awaited Junction streetscape project, according to Lori Raphael, the executive director of the Flatbush Nostrand Junction District Management Association. These include striping for a pedestrian crosswalk between Hillel Place and the Rite Aid on the other side of Flatbush Avenue, she said, as well as bump outs at nearby intersections, “To help guide the cars in the direction where they should be going to avoid the possibility of accidents.” The bump outs, she said, would be placed, “Where cars are making dangerous turns off side streets,” such as at East 28th Street and Flatbush Avenue, and at East 32nd Street and Avenue H. As for the timing of the lights, DOT’s Claudette Workman said she would, “Put in a request for them to check the timing.” One model, suggested DOT’s Seth Berman, might be the pattern of lights at Avenue J and Coney Island Avenue, “Where pedestrians have a head start so they start moving before the traffic. It seems to work very well,” Berman added.
