Data continues to show strong local support for street safety initiatives in Prospect Heights

BROOKLYN — Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council is asking Mayor Adams to release the results of the most recent Underhill Avenue redesign survey. Mayor Adams insisted on conducting this survey in November — using City Hall’s Community Affairs Unit to go door-to-door in Prospect Heights — after ordering work be stopped on the nearly complete project and despite years of previous outreach showing support for redesign. The group wrote in their request that they feel transparency is necessary after countless street safety projects were derailed in 2023 or changed based on the whims of City Hall staffers overruling his own Department of Transportation.

“Given the opaque and extraordinary interventions to Brooklyn street safety projects by this administration, we need Mayor Adams to be transparent and release the results of the Underhill Avenue survey,” said Gib Veconi, Chair of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council. “Any further delay will cast serious doubt on the integrity of the Mayor’s unusual late-stage ‘outreach.’” 

The proposed Underhill Avenue redesign has become a showpiece of City Hall’s street safety failures, despite praise for the design and strong local support. PHNDC’s Streets for People petition, launched to demonstrate support for the project on Underhill Avenue, now has received over 3,000 signatures. A new analysis of petition signers by BetaNYC shows that most of this support is local:

• 54% live in Brooklyn Community District 8 (Prospect Heights and Crown Heights North).
• 65% live in City Council District 35 (represented by Council Member Crystal Hudson).
• Over 70% live in Prospect Heights and the surrounding neighborhoods of Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Crown Heights.
• 92% live in Brooklyn, and 99% live in New York City.

“Multiple years of city-run outreach along with our own data already show that Prospect Heights residents want this to move forward, and this most recent survey will undoubtedly show the same,” added Veconi. “The Mayor needs to accept collective opinion and complete a project aligned with the City’s stated traffic safety goals.”