I hope they are planning similar enforcement during the morning and evening hours when cars tear through our lovely park.

It's about time they do something!!

OK chicken, bikers hit pedestrians in crosswalks when they didn't yield (and when cars were banned from the park) and your solution is to turn off hte red lights when cars aren't in the park. Brilliant!

Thank you Deputy Inspector Argenziano for addressing a serious and dangerous situation. Let's hope we can prevent these tragedies from continuing to occur.

ANd what would make the bikers stop and look? Ah the onus is on the pedstrians rather than the racing bikers. Nice.

Look both ways before you cross the street.

Can the NYPD also crack down on reckless drivers all over Brooklyn or is it only interested in ticketing bikes? I've never in my life heard of a crackdown following a car-on-ped accident.

Rick, let's say the NYPD has limited resources. At one intersection, 5 people a week are hit by cars. At another 5 people are hit by cars every six months. Where would you station your officers if you knew they couldn't be in both places at the same time?

Is there a traffic light near the Vanderbilt playground / on the downhill?

The cars don't stop at this intersection for this light either, yet I've never seen the NYPD set up a sting there.

As a cyclist -Im fine with enforcement if it includes the pedestrians who walk in the road at any time and the bike lane when cars are present. Pedestrians are not blame free and fair is fair.

1. Pedestrians always have the right of way.
2. This article is about bikers not cars
3. Bikers need to obey the rules of the road, they are not special
4. If this article was about cars - yes, cars need to obey the law also

I'm curious how these two serious bike-ped collisions occurred. Why has nobody reported such absolutely crucial information? People keep spouting off about the causes of these collisions and who was at fault, but nobody knows a thing about either!

Hello? Is anyone here even aware of what speed a bicycle is capable of?

The legal speed limit for bicycles is 25 MPH. But the laws man aside, we're bumping up against the laws of human capability, if not of physics. The NYPD cannot ticket someone because they LOOK like they are going over the speed limit. They must actually be doing it. Is it really worth police time to nab the rare rider that might be doing 30 MPH at one very small stretch near the bottom of one hill? Really. Even there it's almost impossible for mortals to do.

Why not try to understand why it is that people who can easily cross streets where large motor vehicles do 40 MPH can't seem to keep from getting hit by cyclists in the park going less than half that speed and then try to keep them from doing it?

This whole line of reasoning is just silly.

I know pedestrians have the right of way always ...in the CROSSWALK but from what I can see of NY TVL they do not have the right of way on the roadway, vehicles have the right of way, which requires them to yield to vehicles (like bikes) although if they do cross vehicles are required to do the utmost not to hit them... and I see more pedestrians crossing where ever they happen to be... what's up?

Prospect Park has 585 acres where pedestrians can stroll at their leisure with no bikes or cars. The thin ribbon of road around the park should be for cyclists and runners to get a nice non-stop ride for cardio or training. There should be signs posted for the walking public crossing the roadway to yield to all bikes and runners and that it is their responsibilty to stay out of the cyclists and runners ways. Have the traffic lights flash red for the pedestrians crossing the road and yellow for the bikes and runners.
Sorry for being harsh but there are few places for cyclists and runners to be able to safely ride and train and people and their off-leash dogs should be the ones exhibiting due diligence and care in this situation. It was the cyclists 20 years ago that lobbied to get the cars out of the park's drives so everyone could enjoy the pastoral setting without noise and pollution. Now the lobbying group of walkers who don't like to look where they are going want to make bicyclists stop their bike every 5 minutes for red lights?

Chciken I have seen you post as a biker and even a driver but now you are suddenly a runner. I guess whatever suits the argument at the moment. But the thing is runners have not been mowing down pedestrians.

Rick, please offer your advice and comments on what to do about this:

http://brooklynian.com/forum/park-slope/cyclist-accident-with-a-grey-van-in-prospect-park-121-at-approx-430pm

A van driver mowed down a cyclist.

Hay Rick

It is not that simple. The van/bike crash happened at 4:30PM. At that time CARS ARE ALREADY BANNED FROM THE PARK.

Prospect Park is a park in New York City and subject to NY Traffic Vehicle laws, which state that pedestrians always have right of way in crosswalk, and that vehicles have the right of way on roadways (drive is a roadway) and if you go to the Prospect Park website you will see it say at the bottom that rules of the road apply at all times on the roadway.... hence pedestrian do not ALWAYS have the right of way, although one must do their utmost not to hit pedestrian in violation....so if a cyclist gets hurt avoiding a pedestrian in the roadway they can sue like we are seeing in Central Park

Rick Oshea and Amy

You clearly live in a well intentioned fantasy world. Drivers wizz around with their cell phones to their ears and double park like it is OK, bikers run red lights in front of police stations and yellow cabs wont go to Brooklyn.

People get tickets ALL THE TIME for these things and they still happen ALL THE TIME.

HERE and NOW we have a chance to change the rules to something will make sense and be enforceable.

"Just enforce the law" is going to get more people hurt.

Ricky's hypocrisy here is astounding. A pedestrian is hit by a cyclist and there are dozens of comments about reckless and arrogant and dangerous bikers who must be stopped. But a van driver enters the park illegally and strikes a cyclist and all Rick has to say about it is, "Well, if the cops had been there ticketing bikes they might have been able to do something." Rick and others are so blinded by irrationality that they can't be bothered to show any outrage over a clear crime: a van driver in a park when it is CLOSED to automobiles.

Tells you everything you need to know about trying to argue with such reflexive bike hatred.

Tally, go back up to my post at 9:01 this morning. I said if a van hit a biker it is a tragedy and something should be done about it. And I also commented that if there had been police patrols the van might have been stopped from being in the park and thus prevented someone getting hurt. Your moral outrage is misplaced. I don't know if you are being disingenuous or just don't have any reading comprehension.

7 pm so I was close and that van was not driving illegally since the 1st was a Thurs.

Prospect Park

The Park Drive is a 3.35-mile loop around the entire Park that is open to vehicular traffic during weekday rush hours only. Visit the Prospect Park website for more information.

Park Drive Hours

Weekends: Closed to motorists

Weekdays (except holidays):
West Drive (Southbound): Open to motorists 5 p.m. - 7 p.m.
East Drive (Northbound): Open to motorists 7 a.m. - 9 a.m.

from my contacts at the Prospect Park Alliance, I have been told that the car was unauthorized and did get a ticket.

Rick:
Your assumptions are incorrect. The accidents have NEVER been described as having happened in crosswalks. The description of the Dana Jacks incident indicates that it occurred on West Dr. "near the intersection of Center Drive" and the Linda Cohen incident is described as occurring "on West Drive, near the Vanderbilt Playground". With the scarcity of any adequate or useful information that has come out about either of them we can only assume that the collisions did not occur at crosswalks or the reports would say so, the better to hammer cyclists with.

As for the role that speed might have played, it is unlikely that the cyclist in either accident was going much over the speed limit, if at all, but only the 2nd accident occurred near the bottom of the hill, so the one in the earlier incident almost certainly was not. It's just not possible at that location for anyone but Superman to go 25 MPH.

It was not speed alone, if at all, that caused these accidents. We know nothing about what these cyclists were doing or how fast they were going. Making this ONLY about speeding bicycles is WORSE than stupid. It's a useless and unneeded distraction. You could put 10 times the number of "racing bicycles", it's the easiest street that anyone will ever cross getting from home to the middle of the park, but people need to be reminded that it is still a road and it needs to be used appropriately by EVERYONE, not just cyclists.

Your violin is way off key. Please spare us.

According to the Patch the 2 accidents did NOT happen at the same place. The Dana Jacks accident occurred near where the hill starts to descend. And I doubt that the cops handing out fliers know more than the general area where either of them occurred. Be that as it may, if you ever rode a bike in the park you would know that the hill is not that steep. What you might mean by "a lot of speed" is subjective. The basic laws of physics make it difficult to break the speed limit, and that is where the NYPD is misplacing their effort to make the park road safe.

There is much that we don't know. I wasn't there, and I don't doubt you were either. The cyclists apparently were not charged with anything, but there are boneheads on 2 wheels as well as on 2 feet. But I know what I, and I see a HUGE number of people acting in dangerous ways every time that I bike there, and the park does nothing to discourage them. People make mistakes. It's unfair that ONLY cyclists need to be cautious. I would love it if people would use the crosswalks to cross the roads. If they could somehow get people to use them I wouldn't mind if there were more of them. But they seem to be irrelevant except for a few hours when cars are there.

I care very much about what happened. It sucks when people get injured. But cycling in the park is an activity that I love and that I've been safely engaged in for more than 20 years. And stop pretending that you are the only one that cares. It's tiresome.

And wk, as for my pretending to be the only one who cares- I haven't seen much in the way of expression of concern and sympathy expressed here. It's been a constant stream of pointing fingers in other directions and not a self searching to see what should be done to protect people. Your blaming everything and everybody but the bikers who hit people is tiresome.

Rick Oshea, said "I am glad to know that you would deem to approve of more crosswalks if they fit your view of how things should be. But ultimately it is a park and not your personal "training" track."

But that is what people do in parks. I run, some people bike. No matter how many times you scream "slow down" people will ride fast in the Prospect Park. We need to make EVERYONE aware of reality. We need to let people know that just because you have a green light and walk into a crosswalk you should LOOK. Then less people would get hurt.

I was just in the park. There is no crosswalk or traffic light anywhere near Grand Army Plaza or at the popular entrance at Garfield Place. One of the most popular places to walk into the park and nobody get hit by a bike there because pedestrians know that they have too look.

yes, rick

I am used the the fact that half the car drivers are texting at every red light. So I tell my kids to look before they cross. This is the real world. Get used to it.