CB 5 wants lowdown on Highland access

Cyclists and pedestrians long have expressed their concerns about the difficulty and danger of approaching Highland Park and the Ridgewood Reservoir from the west along Vermont Place and Cypress Avenue.

Members of Community Board 5 on April 10 agreed to ask the city’s Department of Transportation to take a look and study possible changes.

A report on the matter presented by Eric Butkiewicz, chairman of Board 5’s Transportation Services Committee, was tabled at the group’s March meeting.

“The committee recommended that you ratify the report, which would be a letter to the DOT asking to perform a study on Cypress Avenue and Vermont Place leading to the Ridgewood Reservoir,” Butkiewicz said last week.

He said the letter would request the agency to focus on things like pedestrian access along the entire corridor.

A number of residents, including members of the group Ridgewood Rides, have pressed for a study during public comment sessions at the last two CB 5 meetings.

Vermont Place is a narrow two-lane street that runs north-south between Cypress Avenue and Highland Boulevard. A double yellow line runs down the middle. There is one crosswalk between Cypress and Highland, connecting the park with a parking lot on the west side of Vermont Place. There are no shoulders on the sides of the roadway before one encounters metal guardrails.

Cypress Avenue is wider, with room to park in places along the north shoulder.

The reservoir and most of the park are on the Queens side of the border, while most of Highland Boulevard is in Brooklyn.

On April 10, board member Fred Haller expressed the same reservations he had in March.

“One of the things we spoke about, one of the reasons it was tabled, is there are only a few roads that cross from Queens to Brooklyn from Bushwick Avenue all the way to Woodhaven Boulevard,” Haller said. “And there are only two, really, from this area of Ridgewood and Glendale — Cypress Hill Avenue and Cypress Street.”

Haller said since Cypress Hill Street was outfitted with bike lanes and became a two-lane road, it has had long backups.

“You can’t get up it in the afternoon and you can’t go down it in the morning,” he said.

He asked that if any changes are made that would result in narrowing Cypress Avenue, that Cypress Hill Street be considered for changes back to its original design.

Board member Donald Passantino said there is a good reason for the DOT to look at Cypress Avenue and Vermont Place, just as there was for the bike lanes on Cypress Hill.

“One of the reasons [for narrowing streets] is traffic calming,” Passantino said of Cypress Hill. “There were too many people speeding over the bridge and the hill and they thought that by narrowing it down it would help. That’s what we want the proposal to do — have the DOT look over the whole thing.”

He also was less than sympathetic for folks who might be delayed on Cypress Hill.

“When you’re driving, you deserve what you get,” he said. “You are just inviting yourself for a narrowing down.