🚌 80+ Signatures to Improve the Bus Stop on Franklin & Fulton

🌟 Author’s Note

Hello to the 6 new subscribers of the Better Block Project, bringing our total group to 116 members 📈 As we grow, our ideas get better and our capacity to drive change becomes stronger, and I am excited to welcome the new folks to the group.

🗑️ Reminder for December 13th: Trash Clean Up on Fulton Street

As we announced last week, we’re going to host a 🗑️ trash clean up on Fulton Street from 10am-12pm on Saturday, December 13th. We are still finalizing all the details but mark your calendars. Better Block has been mostly focused on advocacy with the city, but we want to get our hands dirty and solve problems ourselves to help inform if this is the best way to drive change in our neighborhoods. We’re going to ensure a few blocks on Fulton Street are spotless, even just for a single day.

🖊️ 80+ Signatures to Improve the Bus Stop on Franklin & Fulton

After 2 weeks of advocacy, we’ve got 80+ signatures from community members to petition the MTA to improve the bus stop on Franklin and Fulton. As a reminder, our asks are to remove the construction in front of the bus stop, add permanent lighting, remove the seating closer to Fulton Street and add security to the bus stop until it returns to a safe condition.

We now have signatures from residents of both the Franklin-Brevoort Place Block Association and Lefferts Place Block Association, along with several other key stakeholders in the community including:

• Leader of the BedStuy Gateway BID

• Shop Fair

• Golda

• Cafe Calaca

• Blink Fitness

• Lincoln Market

• Residents of 523 Franklin

It’s truly remarkable to learn how the troubling activity at this corner affects so many different members of the community, and we’re grateful everyone is coming together to push the city to do something. Huge shoutout to Isis, Flo, Chris, Andre and others who have helped us get signatures over the last couple of weeks. We plan on submitting the petition to City Council tomorrow, who will then have elected officials and the Community Board sign before we return the document to the MTA. If you want to sign on before then, you can do so here at this digital petition Flo graciously created.

I also had the opportunity this Thursday to meet with the Lefferts Block Association directly to learn about their experience with the bus stop. As we shared in last week’s update, they also communicated they have sent multiple letters to the city about the corner over more than a decade, with little action taken. It’s disappointing that consistent outreach from the community has resulted in no progress, but it is unfortunately a common theme with our current city government. Regardless, we’re going to push forward and we’re excited to work closely with them to get it improved.

We’re also pursuing a few other avenues to improve the bus stop:

1. On Tuesday, I’ll be meeting with Deputy Borough Commissioner, Leroy Branch, of the Department of Transportation (DOT), to assess if it is possible for DOT to take over the bus stop and replace the old shelters with new shelters. We believe if DOT runs the bus stop, and not the MTA, it will be easier to manage improvements in the future since it is a city agency. We also believe if we are able to get a new bus shelter, it will promote a deeper sense of pride in the bus stop, encouraging better behavior

2. We’re also following up with multiple media contacts to raise awareness of the issues at the bus stop and the intersection. We want to ensure higher-level city officials are aware of the situation so we can improve what’s happening there as fast as possible

We will circle back after we submit our letter to the MTA to the City with progress on next steps. Expect more updates soon.

🗺️ Takeaways from our Mapping For Equity Event

Yesterday, several of us joined BetaNYC for an event in Herbert Von King (HVK) Park to map public amenities to add to the Open Street Map, with more than 35+ individuals attending 🥳 .

At the event, we split up into teams across HVK to map all of the amenities including playground equipment, benches, trash cans, lights and more. From our mapping, all of this data will be later entered into the Open Street Map, so it can be used as a tool for advocacy with the city. As an example, we’ll be able to compare the volume and quality of playground equipment to parks that have newer equipment, like Brooklyn Bridge Park. It was a valuable experience to think more deeply about all of the amenities that exist in the park. It made me both grateful for all that the park has, but it forced me to take a closer look and realize many of the public amenities could use renovation, given how popular the park is. It was also an opportunity to meet new neighbors, both living in Bed Stuy and individuals from Queens and Staten Island that came out to attend the event. I got to learn about one group that wants to expand the outdoor gym in the park and others requesting that the benches be improved.

Thanks so much to Sam for helping organize the event with BetaNYC, and Jenny, Olivia and Omar for attending. That’s all for this week’s update. As always, if you like what we’re doing here at the Better Block Project, forward this to someone else you know who wants to do more work in the community!

See you next week,

David