Barclays Center developer Forest City Ratner has “scrapped its plan to offer MetroCards to ticketholders for Nets games or other events ... in order to encourage people not to drive,” according to Rich Calder of the N.Y. POST. The arena transportation plan announced yesterday instead “includes beefing up subway and bus service on game nights and relies on a massive marketing campaign to promote mass transit use.” Residents and elected officials were “fuming that the plan potentially creates more headaches -- including jacked-up parking garage rates that could drive away shoppers in local business strips -- while doing little to prevent traffic nightmares.” Officials “estimate up to 2,500 vehicles could come to arena events.” Most parking “would be pre-paid online with private operators setting rates.” The arena’s transportation plan -- “which also includes 400 spaces for bicycles -- could be tweaked” before the Sept. 28 opening and “will be re-evaluated” in spring ’13 (N.Y. POST, 5/23). Traffic engineer Samuel Schwartz, who consulted on the transportation plan, said, “We will scare drivers away from the arena. My message to New Yorkers is, Don’t even think of driving to the Barclays arena.” He added that the goal “is for visitors to travel instead by subway and the Long Island Rail Road, which is to add extra trains to accommodate the fans.” In N.Y., Joseph Berger notes Schwartz’ assurances “were met by intense skepticism from several” Brooklyn officials. Forest City Ratner was “required by the state to come up with a traffic mitigation plan to win approval of the project.” Schwartz said that the strategy -- "counterintuitive as it might seem -- was to provide fewer, not more parking spaces for the 2,500 cars expected.” He said that he “hoped to ‘educate the public’ that mass transit would be less nerve-racking than driving,” and added that “a similar education campaign had cut down on the number of drivers heading toward Citi Field” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/23).
