North Brooklyn street redesign paves the way for NYC's 'low-traffic neighborhood' plan

Liam Quigley

Published Nov 12, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. ET

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Plastic bollards around Driggs Avenue are designed to force cars to turn. After drivers kept running them over, community members installed concrete planters to help fortify the intersection.

Liam Quigley / Gothamist

Liam Quigley

Published Nov 12, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. ET

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A new street design seeks to slow drivers and force traffic away from McGolrick Park in north Brooklyn.

The city transportation department in late October finished installing new road markings and chunky plastic bollards at two intersections of Driggs Avenue that force drivers to turn. The traffic diverters now in place on Driggs Avenue at Monitor and Sutton streets aim to stop drivers from speeding through Greenpoint to bypass gridlock.

Crews this year have also extended curbs to shorten crosswalks, added bike corrals and reduced parking spaces on the streets around McGolrick Park. It’s the type of “low-traffic neighborhood” treatment that a group of city lawmakers wants to implement across the city. And the city may be able to make such changes more quickly due to a ballot measure approved by voters last week to fast-track street redesign projects.

Some drivers are still adjusting to the new bollards. Soon after they were installed last month, cars smashed them up. The transportation department installed replacements.

“These are our plastic little soldiers in the street. They're gonna get run over. That's fine with me,” said local parent Chris Roberti, who helped organize his neighbors to call for the redesign. He said drivers spilling from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway onto local streets need to be forced to slow down.

“This has been a major dangerous intersection. And there was no stop sign here. So now cars are stopping, they're turning. There's not that conflict anymore,” he said. “It’s like night and day.”

Transportation officials said similar equipment was installed in Sunnyside, Queens, in 2021. Crews eventually upgraded the redesign using stronger concrete barriers.

Katie Denny Horowitz, the executive director of the North Brooklyn Parks Alliance, worked with city officials to bring dozens of heavy planters to the area around the park on Sunday to fortify the plastic bollards and reduce drivers ability to barrel through them or speed around them.

“You might be less inclined to run over a planter filled with beautiful plants than you are one of these bollards that kind of flips back and forth,” she said.

Roberti said two people killed in car crashes near McGolrick Park over the past three years show why the street changes are necessary. One of the deaths was at Monitor Street and Driggs Avenue, which now has the new bollards.

Diego Flores, who uses his personal car to deliver packages for Amazon, gingerly drove through the bollards on Monday morning. He said the devices make his hard job even harder.

A heating oil truck ran right over the bollards near McGolrick Park this week.

Courtesy of Noel Hidalgo

“It complicates the routes a lot,” Flores said. “It is too complicated to work.”

Noel Hidalgo, who lives at that intersection, photographed a heating oil truck driving right over the new barriers Monday morning.

“This weekend was the most quiet weekend that I have been in the neighborhood,” he said, adding that trucks running over the plastic bollards make a “very distinct sound.”

The truck’s owner, Ferrantino Fuel Oil, said through a spokesperson that the company was looking into the incident.

“We understand and support the city's efforts to improve traffic and pedestrian safety,” Ferrantino spokesperson Michael Alba said. “However, the continued narrowing of city streets presents challenges for larger commercial vehicles.”

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brooklyn

new york city

public safety

transportation