Aug 15, 2018 2 min read Central Brooklyn

Cortelyou Road & Coney Island Avenue Intersection To Get A Redesign In September

Coney Island Avenue and Cortelyou via DOT

DITMAS PARK/KENSINGTON – After more than a decade of saying nothing could be done, NYC DOT revealed last week it has a plan to drastically change the intersection that has been frustrating neighbors for years. Work is expected to start in September.

The NYC DOT posted on FB and sent to Community Board 14 the above flier, which informs that a third crosswalk with a concrete pedestrian island is coming to the intersection to formalize the route so many take informally, crossing from Highbury Pub to the Deli/Mondays Off on the other side of Coney Island Avenue. There has been no public discussion of this proposal.

This is where we expect the island and new crosswalk to be, based on DOT descriptions.

The new crosswalk will have a separate traffic light, but no detail on how it will be timed with the others. They are adding a concrete pedestrian island in the middle of the crossing on Coney Island Avenue to shorten crossing distances, provide refuge for pedestrians, and calm left turns by making them quite narrow, it seems. It is unclear where exactly the crosswalk would be and whether this means that a parking spot by Highbury gets eliminated.

In the flier above DOT compares this crossing with those on Caton by the Ocean Parkway overpass, and we fail to see the similarities, as those are straight crossings where Cortelyou zigzags across Coney Island Avenue – the images above do not include the southernmost crosswalk at all. We asked DOT for an aerial rendering of what this would look like, and will update if we receive one. here it is:

“The project will also include flashing yellow arrow left turn signals for the northbound and southbound directions. At the beginning of the green signal phase for Coney Island Avenue, left turns will be held for seven seconds before a flashing yellow arrow, giving pedestrians a head start to cross before left turning vehicles proceed,” a DOT spokesperson told us – a step in the right direction though not a dedicated left turn.

Hopefully, accidents like this will become less frequent, and this redesign is nothing but good news for the businesses on the North – East corner of Cortelyou and Coney like Monday’s Off and Maria Y Ricardo’s Taqueria as patronizing them will be a lot easier.