When: Monday, September 15th, 5pm
Where: Steps of City Hall
What: March and rally for a Car-Free Prospect Park
Who: City Council Members de Blasio, James and Yassky; hundreds of Brooklyn youth, Brooklyn Steppers Marching Band, Transportation Alternatives

Brooklyn students will march across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall today and call on Mayor Bloomberg to make Prospect Park car-free. The Prospect Park Youth Advocates, a summer program sponsored by Transportation Alternatives, will lead the march along with their City Council members who have endorsed the campaign for a car-free park.

This past summer, the youth advocates –Oswald Bowman, Michael Cheng, Farah Karimova and Kelena Matthews—have galvanized Brooklynites and collected 10,000 postcards to the Mayor in support of a car-free Prospect Park. They will present all the cards at City Hall, and have asked Mayor Bloomberg to personally receive them.

"Prospect Park is our park, and on behalf of kids in Brooklyn, we're calling on the Mayor to take the cars out and give us a safe place to exercise and relax," says Oswald Bowman, one of the Youth Advocates. "Brooklyn's kids deserve it."

"Prospect Park is a respite, a slice of heaven, a bit of the country, for all Brooklynites. Today, more and more residents of Brooklyn want car-free zones, and they need places where they can relax and exercise without fear of speeding vehicles," says Council Member Letitia James. "Our parks need to be for people, not for cars."

"Prospect Park is one of Brooklyn's most precious resources, and we should fully explore how to make it a more inviting and safe destination for Brooklynites," says Council Member Bill de Blasio. "Prohibiting cars from the park has many benefits, and conducting a three-month study and trial closure to examine the effect on traffic in the surrounding community will help us to determine the feasibility of this policy."

"It is clear that something needs to be done to ensure the safety of the increasing number of people using Prospect Park," says Council Member David Yassky. "We must work to protect park-goers and ensure the long term vibrancy of Prospect Park as a Brooklyn destination."

"After decades of increasing car-free time without negatively affecting traffic on surrounding streets, now is the time to implement a fully car-free Prospect Park," says Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives.

Transportation Alternatives research has shown that during the hours in which cars are permitted on the Prospect Park loop drive, recreational users leave the park in large numbers. Cars are currently allowed in the park from 7 am to 9 am and from 5 pm to 7 pm; these are precisely the hours when demand for recreational space it at its highest.

###