One of the most troubling aspects of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards plan is their proposal to demolish existing buildings on the project site to construct three surface parking lots for over 1400 cars and a staging area for construction. (To read more about the buildings they propose to demolish, click here) According to the plan, the lot would be the entire block encompassed by Vanderbilt and Carlton Avenues, and Pacific Street and Dean Street. FCR says the lot will be “temporary.” In the best case scenario, temporary means from the start of construction until 2016, when residential buildings will be constructed on the lot. In the worst case scenario, if economic conditions change and the second phase of the project doesn’t materialize, temporary means permanent. Even the project's own landscape architect, Laurie Olin, estimates that the 2nd phase of the project might not be complete for 15 or 20 years, meaning that the temporary parking lots will be with us until then.

To put the size of this 944 space parking lot in perspective, it will be three times the size of Fairway’s in Red Hook, and ten times the size of Key Food’s lot on 5th Ave and Sterling Place. Familiar with the parking lot at the intersection of Fulton and Vanderbilt? Imagine one nine times the size of that. We’re talking something appropriate for a suburban big box shopping mall, not Brooklyn. And in an urban setting a giant surface lot makes for a terrible neighbor: increasing conflicts between cars and pedestrians, promoting run-down conditions on surrounding blocks, and just plain blighting the surrounding neighborhoods.

And that's not all the "temporary" parking they propose. Two other surface parking lots will be created (also by demolishing existing buildings) along Atlantic Avenue between Carlton and 6th Avenues and at the corner of Dean Street and 6th Avenue. Forest City Ratner claim these lots are necessary not only to provide parking for Arena patrons, but to stage construction. But there's no staging area for Forest City Ratner's other large development project, the New York Times building in Times Square.

Diagram showing location of proposed surface parking (adapted from rendering by Olin Partnership)

Parking generally is a problem with this plan. By 2012, if all goes according to plan, a total of 3,600 spaces will be provided on the site. A lot of this parking will be in structures or underground, eliminating some of the aesthetic concerns, but still encouraging arena attendees to drive through neighborhood streets to get to Nets games. The 3,600 parking spaces approaches, or surpasses, the amount of parking at huge traffic generators far from transit. Kings Plaza, for example, has 4,000 spaces. IKEA in Red Hook will have about 1400 spaces.

The more parking provided, the more people will chose to drive – and the more traffic created. This is true even when the parking is for a project next to a major transit hub. The Atlantic Yards site is next to the largest subway station in Brooklyn, along many bus routes, and adjacent to an LIRR station. What happened to the notion of creating a transit-oriented development?

The only explanation is that the developer and the state are employing old-fashioned transportation planning -- predict how many cars will come, supply as much parking as they need, and accept that those cars will clog streets, pollute the air, and menace pedestrians. But finding a parking space in New York City is not a right.

How can the developer and state create a transit-oriented project more suited to Brooklyn? Only provide as much parking as the capacity on the roads can take. Implement a residential parking permit system so people driving to the Arena don't just park in surrounding neighborhoods instead. Include the price of a transit fare in arena tickets and design the project to be friendly to transit-users and pedestrians. Oh, and scrap the three “temporary” surface parking lots altogether. Whatever plan for the site is finally approved, it should embody values of Brooklyn, not car-oriented suburban planning.