Demonstration for a Car-Free Prospect Park

April 20, 1999

Demonstration for a Car-Free Prospect Park
Friday, April 23rd, 1999
5:30 - 7pm at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, just inside Prospect Park.

Hundreds of Brooklynites and Prospect Park lovers armed with potted plants and banners will erect a green barricade across the Park's Grand Army Plaza entrance. Participants will call on the city to follow through on the long-ignored demand for a three-month trial closure of the park to cars.

After years of deliberation, the City recently announced its new plan for the Prospect Park main loop road. Their "solution" is merely to add three hours per day to summer weekday hours. This is unsatisfactory to the thousands of park users that have written letters and testified at public hearings in favor of a trial closure and an end to the danger, noise and air pollution that cars bring to the park.

The City blatantly ignored the popular call for a trial closure to automobiles, despite the support of Community Board 6, Council Members DiBrienza, Rodriguez, Fisher and Clarke, and the support of an overwhelming majority of residents as evidenced by the public hearing held in the Brooklyn Borough President's building last April.

"Prospect Park should not be a highway - people come here to relax and breathe free, not to be surrounded by cars. It's time for a trial closure of Prospect Park to automobiles," said event organizer Alan Mukamal of Transportation Alternative's Brooklyn Committee.