City Hopes Bike Lane, Traffic Light Will Ease Chaos in Grand Army Plaza

City officials are hoping that a series of improvements will help tranquilize the chaotic, traffic-clogged Grand Army Plaza – including adding in a brand-new, two-way bike lane and traffic light.

The agency presented its plans for improvements to the historic traffic circle – once even referred to as "Dante’s 10th circle of hell" – on Saturday morning at a meeting of the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, which works to improve public use of the space.

Officials said that a two-way bike lane on Flatbush Avenue at the circle’s south end would allow riders to cross between Eastern Parkway and Prospect Park without having to go around the circle.

The lane would also have a leg to make it easier for bicyclists to get in and out of the park. The DOT has, for the time being, ditched its one-time plans to upgrade the one-way lanes on Plaza Street East and West to two-way lanes.

Local drivers, though, will likely be most excited by the traffic light – currently, any Prospect Park West- or Union Street-bound cars traveling northbound in the plaza must dash across four lanes of traffic in order to cross Flatbush Avenue.

This new light – at the point where drivers merge between the lanes heading to Union Street, Prospect Park West, Prospect Park, Flatbush Avenue and Eastern Parkway – will be timed in order to give those in the innermost lanes time to get across several lanes of traffic without having to jockey for a position on the frenzied roundabout. The city would also add a raised concrete separator between the lanes before the light to prevent vehicles from trying to merge early.

Under the plan, the farmer’s market space and other areas will become protected pedestrian plazas with granite blocks to ward off wayward cars. Some of the crosswalks at the north end of the roundabout will also get additional pedestrian islands, some of which will be landscaped. Still other crosswalks will be shortened.

An almost identical plan was floated last year, with construction expected to be finished by the end of 2010. The plan was waylaid by "logistical issues," according to Chris Hrones, DOT’s Brooklyn transportation coordinator.

The city said that work on the project will begin in June.

Before work on the plan moves forward, it will go before both Community Boards 6 and 8. Next Thursday, the city will present the plan to CB6’s transportation committee.