Manhattan Project: Proposal seeks to shut down NYC traffic
Anyone who's ever driven into or through Manhattan knows what a nightmarish experience it can be, with gridlock congestion and a lack of available parking spaces. Jim Gehr wants to make it even tougher in the hope of drastically reducing traffic altogether by further reducing parking, shutting down the biggest intersection, and increasing green space.
Gehr is the urban planning consultant whose plans have already been famously (or infamously, depending on your perspective) imposed in London, as well as Copenhagen, and he's proposed similar policies for Stockholm, Oslo, Edinburgh, Cape Town, Zurich and Melbourne. His plans for Manhattan would include shutting down Times Square to almost all traffic, while eliminating parking on some avenues in favor of wider sidewalks to accommodate park benches and sidewalk cafes. The result would be a more pedestrian, cyclist and public transit-oriented Manhattan.
While some elements in the city are opposed to the idea, he appears to have the ear of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the municipal transportation department wants to hire him as a consultant, and several prominent civic and commercial organizations have his support, as well. If Gehr gets his way, Project Gotham Racing might be the closest we'll ever get to driving Manhattan's streets ever again.
[Source: NY Daily News via Kicking Tires]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Dave 11:12AM (7/11/2007)
There are plenty of folks who would be glad to avoid driving in Manhattan. And paying Manhattan parking rates.
NYC should spend their money educating people on park n ride programs.
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Mr. Oak 12:14PM (7/11/2007)
Dave: What The Hell? Park and Ride works in the suburbs. The conjestion in NYC mostly caused by commercial traffic.
18,000 restaurants & bars, 100,000+ other business taking deliveries, Fedex, UPS, DHL, 13,000 Yellow cabs, thousands of Limos, 8,000 buses, Ambulances, Fire trucks, police cars, 6,000 school buses, hundreds of tow trucks. All that plus the endless cycle of construction that has been going on for the 30 years that I have lived and worked around NYC.
People who live in Manhattan seldom use their cars in and around Manhattan during the day. It's the folks from the 'burbs.
Rick 12:44PM (7/11/2007)
Here, Here Mr. Oak!
Even the impact of commuters coming in is minimal (in terms of people driving themselves to work) .. Anyone with half a brain (and/or a bank account devoid of zeros in front of the decimal point) takes the bus, subway, LIRR, PATH, or Metro-North into Manhattan.
Robert Moses is turning over in his grave..
Dave 12:48PM (7/11/2007)
"People who live in Manhattan seldom use their cars in and around Manhattan during the day. It's the folks from the 'burbs. "
Mr Oak-
Your post agrees completely with what I said.
The only traffic that can be decreased is the folks from the burbs - the ones who need to be educated on park n ride. Just like I said.
There is almost nothing that can be done about commercial traffic without crippling services.
Atomicbri 1:43PM (7/11/2007)
Dave the problem here is there is no such thing as a Park and Ride in NYC boroughs like Queens, Brooklyn, etc. Sure you can walk to a train like I do (thank god one is close) but a lot of people ride in cause they can't park near a train. If the boroughs created huge parking spots at the larger stations that could be a possibility but the amount of space that would take and the cost would make that null and void. People who come in from L.I. take the LIRR and they have places to park, but they have more in terms of land to build those things and spread out. So it is easier said than done. Like I said, I purposely found a place to live in the borough close to a train so I do not have to put up with Manhattan's traffic mess. I do have a car, but I use it to go out Long Island or cross to other boroughs.
John 11:15AM (7/11/2007)
Yeah cause prohibiting cars worked really well on State St. in Chicago. SF ditched a similar plan with Market St. after learning about it.
from wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Street_(Chicago)
State Street became a shopping destination during the 1900s and is referred to in the song "Chicago", sung by Frank Sinatra where Frank refers it to "State Street, that Great Street." In 1979, Mayor Jane Byrne converted the downtown portion into a pedestrian mall with only bus traffic allowed. Mayor Richard M. Daley oversaw the State Street Revitalization Project and on November 15, 1996, the street was reopened to traffic.
During the 20th century, State Street was largely eclipsed by Michigan Avenue's Magnificent Mile shopping district. Various projects to restore State Street's glory have been met with some success, and the State Street corridor is gaining residential as well as more traditional commercial development.
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The Other Bob 12:01PM (7/11/2007)
Sounds like some streets in Lansing, MI.
Here in downtown, the city closed several blocks to traffic to create a walkable shopping area. Several blocks completely died. Now that the city is reopening the area to traffic, its booming again.
People will walk across a parking lot to go to a mall, but will not walk several blocks from their car to shop and eat on a street.
James Sonne 12:05PM (7/11/2007)
The Lansing example may be more fully attributed to the death of the city of Lansing, MI, itself, known widely as the home of the destitute and unemployed.
dave 1:08PM (7/11/2007)
In that case, one doesn't have anything to do with the other. State Street floundered because of Michigan Ave's development (you have it right there in your comment), and because of blemishes like block 37. Closing it off to pedestrian traffic should have been a good idea, but with nothing but Marshall Field's and Carson's, what reason was there to go down State St., on foot or four wheels? I doubt Daley's re-opening of State St. to automobiles has had as much impact as simply rebuilding and advertising.
thesawzall 1:30PM (7/11/2007)
Same thing happened with Chestnut St. (west of Broad) in Philly. All the stores, traffic (both car and foot) moved to nearby Walnut, and the street became pretty dead. They finally undid the mistake a couple of years ago.
davido 11:21AM (7/11/2007)
I made the mistake once while living in Manhattan of taking a taxi crosstown from Penn Station on the West Side to a friend's office near the UN on the East Side. The walk would have taken 25 minutes, the cab ride took half an hour and cost thirty dollars. It's not that you can't drive at all in Manhattan but midtown and downtown traffic (Wall Street up to Central Park) is truly absurd. Walking is often faster for short trips and the subway for virtually all trips that use the surface streets as opposed to the East and West Side highways.
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Toy Yoda 11:28AM (7/11/2007)
What about banning all cars, and issuing state-supplied bikes and golf carts instead? Trucks and buses are still allowed.
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Stéphane Dumas 11:51AM (7/11/2007)
don't forget the ones who must pass thru Manhattan to go to and from Long Island despite the presence of the BQE(Brooklyn-Queens Expressway), there was some cancelled projects like the Lower Manhattan Expressway http://www.nycroads.com/roads/lower-manhattan/ and the Mid-Manhattan Expressway http://www.nycroads.com/roads/mid-manhattan/
maybe we could revive them as bored tunnels going under from NJ to the LIE and BQE a bit similar like the Cross City Tunnel in Sydney Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_City_Tunnel or the ill-fated "Big Dig" in Boston
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Yggdrasilly 12:07PM (7/11/2007)
Well, it's not as if they can just widen the roads.
It's probably an idea whose time has come; sounds like there's just too little road space in Manhatten to handle the roadtraffic necessary to move all the people who want to travel by car.
So you either tolerate permanent gridlock, price road access out of most people's reach, or move people onto other modes of transport, in this case walking and oublic transport. Which the city was originally set up to accommodate anyway.
It didn't work in Chicago, but Chicago is a different city. I say let the New Yorkers try it. If it works, great, if not, it's no skin off my back.
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Mr. Oak 12:19PM (7/11/2007)
Will not help, private cars are the least cause of NYC traffic. See my response to Dave's post above.
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calebe 2:35PM (7/11/2007)
it might work, People in NYC walk a lot just from my visits.
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Mr. Oak 12:47PM (7/11/2007)
That is my point. 90% of all parking below Canal street is taken up by vehicles with Municipal permits. The city needs to construct Municipal garages and make those parking spaces available to the public. The parking meters will generate revenue. The lack of parking is what creates the traffic jams. Since most delivery trucks end up double parked. It takes 30 mins. to find a parking spot.
The area below Canal Street is approx. 30 blocks X 10 blocks.
dave 1:02PM (7/11/2007)
@ Mr. Oak:
While I can't speak for anything below Canal Street, There's an awful lot of Manhattan above it, and it's filled with cars. Suburbanites' cars, Manhattanites' or other borough-dwellers' cars, just lots of cars. Sure, there is municipal congestion, but that's what I would call necessary congestion. The personal cars create a load of unnecessary congestion. Remove the personal cars, and you'll ease a great deal of the congestion. It's like removing a clot from an artery--sure, the artery will still be filled with blood, but that's necessary, and it will flow much freer without the clot.
I like your idea of municipal parking garages, though, freeing parking, or at least some off-hours vehicles, from the streets.
Chris P. 12:50PM (7/11/2007)
I believe this is what they did to Denver's 16th street, and that appears like it worked great. Now there's just a bunch of bicycle rickshaws and pedestrians. It's a neat street to go shopping!
I think this would work great, but someone would need to make sure they maintain an adequate level of disability access. And I'm pretty sure New York has a program, but they just need to make sure. It's easy to step on the most vulnerable in our society.
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Chris P. 12:50PM (7/11/2007)
Haha, "Manhattan Project."
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