The New Broadway
Incidentally, for a great example of what I was talking about in the post below about choosing how to allocate space on our streets, check out Streetsblog’s photos of the makeover Broadway’s getting in New York City — fewer traffic lanes, more of everything else. That kind of treatment isn’t right for every street or for every city, but it’s the kind of thing that should be considered much more widely and at least be in the mix. It’s crazy to dedicate so many resources to car transportation that everyone goes everywhere in cars, and then throw up our hands and decide that because everyone’s driving everywhere we have no choice but to dedicate more resources to cars.
NYC is a pedestrian town. If it apportions its streets accordingly, suburban commuters will find themselves more inclined to take commuter rail into town and suburban politicians will find that agitating for better commuter rail service — rather than for more highways — is their new transportation funding priority.
33 Responses to “The New Broadway”
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August 19th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Blah blah blah mass transit sucks blah blah cars are awesome blah blah blah.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Matt, I tend to agree with much of what you say but this (at least as far as it relates to what’s going on on Broadway) is nuts. I work in the Conde Nast building on 42nd and Broadway. I see what this neighborhood is like every day of my life. The idea that the city will effectively take out 2 traffic lanes of the busiest street in the city is completely insane.
The funny thing is that I am not sure what this is even meant to accomplish. Are they seeking to alieviate the pedestrian traffic in Times Square that requires 12 minutes to walk 4 blocks? If that’s the case then perhaps it would have made sense to do this north of 42nd in the heart of Times Square instead of south of 42nd. This is an idea that would make sense almost anywhere else in this city except for the busiest street in all of Manhattan.
Oh and I love how they’re putting plants and have plans to put patio tables out on Broadway. I am waiting for the first person that gets plowed into by a car/taxi/bike/bus before they scrap the idea entirely.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
This re-design looks smart and cool, but it also looks like it is aimed less at influencing the behavior of suburban commuters and more at influencing the behavior of resident Manhattanites and tourists, with more shoppers and potential shoppers strolling through in a leisurely way, and sitting down to hang out. It will be great business for the cab drivers, the hotels, the boutiques, the restaurants and coffee shops, etc.
Obviously, Manahattan and the rest of NYC are among those extremely congested areas of the United States where major investments in public transportation options make lots of sense. But I think it is a bad idea to think one can handle our energy issues by mounting a (very) long-term strategy of trying to induce people in all of the rest of the much less densely populated areas of the US to move to more densely populated areas where their transportation needs can be met by public transportation. Too many Americans don’t want to live that way. They like space, individuality and privacy – at least when their work day is over. If we invest in doubling or tripling the energy efficiency of personal transportation, i.e. cars, we can do far more in five years than we will accomplish in several decades of attempting to socially engineer Americans to change their way of life.
August 19th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Getting rid of traffic lanes in New York has to be one of the most stupid ideas I’ve ever heard.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
The funny thing is that I am not sure what this is even meant to accomplish. Are they seeking to alieviate the pedestrian traffic in Times Square that requires 12 minutes to walk 4 blocks?
It looks to me like the aim is to increase pedestrian traffic, not decrease it, by turning the stretch from Macy’s to Times Square over time into something approximating an extended outdoor mall and the shopping heart of the city, for tourists and NYC day shoppers. I would guess it will help revitalize the garment district, and increase hotel room values there.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
The debate of car culture vs. pedestrian/public transit reminds me very much of other arguments over social change… usually, the people who’ve become accustomed to having the bulk of law and custom favor their side (in this case, auto enthusiasts) see it as a great inequity if the pendulum begins to swing even slightly in the other direction.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Hey, what happened to the “Pants on Fire” post?!
August 19th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
AN -
So you agree with Matt, for every place except where you are.
Don’t have a link handy, but I believe that Herald Square is actually the most congested part of the city. I think it has the slowest average speed for motor vehicle traffic.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
My workplace is on lower Broadway, near the northern end of the Financial District, and construction has reduced Broadway to two (narrow) lanes. It is a complete traffic mess.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
That area and cars are generally not a good match. The streets are too narrow and the workday density of humanity is very high.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
jesusgodchrist we need more of this! There are so many parts of NYC which are completely clogged because the sidewalks are too small. Trying to walk down just about any street in Chinatown or Jackson Heights or any number of other neighborhoods takes forever. It gets even worse if there are tourists around who aren’t used to walking as a means of transportation.
More please!
August 19th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
I work in Times Square. I couldn’t care less about getting rid of the autos. What they really need to do is get rid of the tourists. How one goes about that, though, I have no idea.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:01 am
I’ve got a number of plans for removing the tourists, but all of them end up with me being arrested. I’d settle for giving them pedometers that give them a shock if they drop below 2mph when they’re on the sidewalk.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:27 am
I’m also familiar with the area and agree that this is a dumb idea. Also, it has nothing to do with encouraging people to get out of cars. Its all about turning that part of Manhattan into a mall.
We really won’t need to “encourage” people to drive less. The rising price of oil will take care of that. What we have to work on is that most of the US is set up so that you have no choice but to drive. If things stay that way, as the price of gas continues to increase, people’s commuting costs will go up and their quality of life suffers. Or they will move to the remaining areas with alternate forms of transportation, which for various reasons are not set up to handle an influx of people coming in that rapidly, driving up the rents and also hurting quality of life. We need to be expanding people’s transportation options, not constricting them, and we certainly don’t need more streets turned into pedestrian malls, an idea that has failed something like every time it has been tried.
Manhattan has been swamped by ex-suburbanites moving in within the past decade who obviously have no idea how to adapt to urban living, and who meander down the streets, stop suddenly, decide that intersections are great places to have conversations, etc. Start having the police ticket people for this sort of thing and you will clear up a good deal of pedestrian congestion. Start having the police actually enforce traffic regulations on automobiles (under Bloomberg we have had a number of hit and run incidents where the police have done nothing) and you clear up another chunk of the congestion problem. The fines levied can than be used for maintenance on the subway system.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:02 am
As you probably can guess by my handle, I live in New York. I have, in the past year, sold my car, and for the majority of my transportation, rely on a bicycle. The subway is the second choice of transportation. I’m no Lance Armstrong, at 52 and only in average shape, but I can pretty much get anywhere in the city faster by bicycle than by car, and be in a much better mood once arrived. There are no amounts of road that will make driving in NYC better, without destroying what is most wonderful about the city. I often wonder if, had we known the impact cars would have on this world, before we became so addicted, would we have continued on such a path? I don’t think anyone here would argue about how destructive the automobile has been. So, the question is, why should we keep going down this same path? This world needs to really reassess they way it does things. If it starts in one section of New York, well, then that makes me all the prouder to live here.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
And the best thing about Matty’s take on pedestrian-centered urban redevelopment is that he’s not a totally off-putting, condescending prick about it, like Duncan “Atrios” Black.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Michael,
Perhaps you should go back and reread what I wrote. I said that’s an idea that would work really well almost anywhere except where they’re putting it right now. And I also said that I WORK in Times Square. I live on the Upper West and if they took out 2 traffic lanes in my neighborhood and created more walkable areas I’d be very happy.
As it is I don’t care all that much about what they do in Times Squre since I am never here unless I am at work.
But my point all along was that its an incredibly busy pedestrian and automobile area. The automobile congestion has two components: 1) Cabs bringing people to Times Square; 2) Cabs taking people from uptown to downtown (or vice versa). There is little (aside from diverting traffic east or west) that can be done to change that and if you do divert the traffic you just create a bigger mess elsewhere. Taking out 2 lanes of traffic anywhere else would not have nearly the impact this will have.
Realistically if the city can find a way to convince people (especially tourists) to take the subway or buses in place of cabs especially during busier hours then the impact might not be so bad but short of that its a dumb idea.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
The debate of car culture vs. pedestrian/public transit reminds me very much of other arguments over social change… usually, the people who’ve become accustomed to having the bulk of law and custom favor their side (in this case, auto enthusiasts) see it as a great inequity if the pendulum begins to swing even slightly in the other direction.
Great point. Not only “a great inequity”, but “insane” and “utterly stupid”. I’ve got a feeling these types are not in for an easy time over the next half-century.
Pretty amusing.
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