Broadway Boulevard : Street Reclamation - Expanded Pedestrian Areas

[gradvmedusa]

The bowtie of Times Square is supposed to be entirely given over to pedestrians according to curbed/streets blog. I think this is good news. After having experinced the wonderful pedistrianized streets of Istanbul/Thailand and Tokyo I think this could be a sign of good things to come in Manhattan. Less room for cars means more room for people and the things people like to do! Drink/Eat/Shop etc...

[ryan]

Excellent news. So happy to see the pendulum start to swing. Now if someone could please do something about widening the sidewalks on Madison Avenue...

[ZippyTheChimp]

DOT Announces Pedestrian Safety Improvements For Times Square


Release # 06-56
Thursday October 12, 2006

New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Iris Weinshall, along with the President of the Times Square Alliance, Tim Tompkins, today announced that the vehicle crossover between 7 th Avenue and Broadway in Times Square will be closed beginning November 4 th. The closing of the cross-over and the re-striping of the streets will allow DOT to provide 50% more sidewalk space for pedestrians throughout this heavily traveled neighborhood. The reconfiguration of the streets is a temporary change which will be in effect until DOT has completed its evaluation on the closure’s effects on vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

“We are continually looking for ways to provide more space for pedestrians to walk through this busy area,” said DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall. “ Times Square has some of the heaviest pedestrian volumes in the City so this is a great opportunity to experiment with reconfiguring the flow of traffic and creating larger sidewalks to provide more space for pedestrians.”

"This is a bold and innovative step to address the number one safety concern and quality of life issue in Times Square -- intense pedestrian congestion on our sidewalks," said Alliance President Tim Tompkins. "We applaud DOT for exploring this out-of-the box solution and carefully testing its traffic impact before deciding to fully implement it."

Since over 13,000 pedestrians an hour crowd the sidewalks and overflow into the roadways in Times Square during the busiest parts of the day, DOT made pedestrian improvements in 2001 by installing plastic delineators which increased sidewalk space along 7th Avenue between West 45th and West 44th streets and along Broadway between West 44th and West 42nd streets. These temporary improvements will be made permanent in 2008. The closure of the crossover will allow DOT to provide even more space for pedestrians. Broadway between 46th and 47th streets and 7th Avenue between 42nd and 47th streets will see significant sidewalk expansions.

Beginning on November 4th, vehicles traveling on Broadway will continue along 7th Avenue south of West 45th Street. Vehicles traveling on 7th Avenue will continue on Broadway south of West 45th street – they will no longer have the option of crossing over to 7th Avenue. New signs directing drivers how to proceed have been hung on large mast arms and will be uncovered on November 4th, and variable message boards will be activated to alert drivers of the changing road pattern. In addition to the closure of the cross-over, the test will change bike lane configurations, the number of roadway travel lanes and curb-side regulations.

Evaluations will consist of traffic counts at 16 locations, turning movement counts at 8 locations, travel times and speeds from uptown locations to West 34 th street and visual observations from DOT’s Traffic Management Center. Once evaluations have been completed DOT will decide whether or not to make the changes permanent.

###

Contact: Kay Sarlin/ 212-442-7033
Ted Timbers

[ablarc]

Any drawings?

[baz@eccose]

sounds good , but as a general view from across the pond and i hope yous dont mind me throwing it in the ring, New york, times square has always be know for its hussle , cars ,yellow cabs everywhere, as well as people, do you think this could take away this title or impression? as obviously a practical way it does make sence, done alot of improvements in Glasgow city centre and its makes sence, be very interesting to see how they go about this

baz

[Fabrizio]

^I agree. TS is going to be a different place, less "city". Then they´ll add the trees and planters, street furniture and assorted junk.

[lofter1]

Doubt they will add many trees -- subway stations / tracks directly below.

The interim sidewalk-widening has been in effect for awhile now (plastic "bollards" marking off a lane of traffic here and there, asphalt additions to the sidewalks in other places) and it's been a start to keep pedestrians moving -- but many of the tourists don't quite get it and continue to stay on the not-nearly-big-enough sidewalks. The result is that pedestrians, for the most part, just get bottled up. Meanwhile some NYers move quickly along their way using the interim spaces -- or just move right out into the street and walk with the traffic.

Since traffic moving south into TS on Broadway will no longer have the option of continuing south on Broadway out of TS they're going to have to keep an eye oin left turns from 7th towards Broadway on 41st / 39th or those intersections will start getting bottled up (same situation above TS where traffic might try to jump from Broadway to 7th so they can continue south diagonally across Manhattan instead of getting tossed into the Penn Station mess at 7th / 32nd).

The work around Father Duffy Square / TKTS island at the north end of TS is coming along -- new wider pedestrian areas have been put in and it seems that they've finished the grating installation for the subway below -- all the preliminary electric / plumbing connections for the new TKTS "amphitheater" look to be in place and construction of the above-ground parts of that new structure should begin soon.

The new "pedestrian friendly" -- and treeless -- Father Duffy Square (http://www.timessquarenyc.org/facts/duffy.html) ( TKTS Thread Here (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3690&highlight=tkts) ) :

http://timessquarenyc.org/facts/images/Duffy_Square_Booklet01.gif

http://timessquarenyc.org/facts/images/Duffy_Square_Booklet08.gif
Renderings: William Fellows Architects

[ryan]

I disagree with cars=city. The times square of movies and the wider popular imagination was gone a long time ago with the porn. (and the only hustle is pissed of ny-ers pushing past the stationary tourists).

I don't have any attachment to TS myself, I'm happy to see it used as a laboratory for car-free (or at least car-less) streets.

[baz@eccose]

yes bud, your quite correct, you would defo have the better opnion on ny than me, you are lucky enough to live there, i can only reply on what i have heard from friends and family that have been, im planning to go next year for my 30th, just going on my experience from glasgow, it certainly has its pros and cons


baz

[Fabrizio]

Lofter: That illustration is amazing. A wide empty expanse IS the way to go. One would expect the usual planters and flower beds, tall grass, weeds, sunflowers and corn. This is nice.

[lofter1]

Something you have to envison there ^^^ are the hundreds (thousands?) of hopeful people who start lining up @ 12 Noon to get tickets for shows at the TKTS booth (at the opposite end of the red staircase) -- the line will snake all around this square, so it will be filled with people all afternoon. (While the square is under construction the booth / lines have been moved to enclosed pedestrian pass-thru at the Marriott Marquis Hotel just west of B'way / 46th.)

Once the TKTS booth closes @ 7:30 PM hopefully the square will be taken over by people just hanging out and having a good time.

Once complete it's going to be a great addition to TS, especially since there will be a lot more room on the square (they've widened the southern end by about 75%).

How it used to be:



http://www.blacktable.com/images/0408pics/rnc/whitney/tkts.jpg
Times Square protest?
Even worse.
The line for discount matinees at the TKTS booth.

The new plan over-laid with a photo of the crowds pre-constuction (doesn't include the widening of sidewalks -- notice all the folks in the streets):


http://www.metropolismag.com/images/images_0400/ob/tkts.jpg

[MidtownGuy]

The seating is brilliant. It will get loads of use. The idea reminds me of Rome's Spanish Steps.

[Strattonport]

This is fantastic news. More space given to the people, the way it should be in a place like Times Square.

[NewYorkJets]

I'm kind of disappointed. Times Square's known for it's hustle and bustle of people and cabs. I think it's great the way it is. Just maybe some more skyscrapers around it.

[pianoman11686]

Times Square traffic plan unveiled by city

by patrick arden / metro new york (http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/Times_Square_traffic_plan_unveiled_by_city/5098.html)

OCT 13, 2006

TIMES SQUARE — The city announced a traffic plan here yesterday intended to make streets safer and to provide more space for pedestrians.

Beginning Nov. 4, the vehicle crossover between Seventh Avenue and Broadway will be closed, forcing cars and trucks traveling on Seventh to continue on Broadway south of 45th Street. Posted signs will tell these drivers they no longer have the option of crossing over to Seventh. Taxis make up two-thirds of the cars using the crossover during peak hours.

The street reconfiguration will be temporary until its full effects are studied after six months, but yesterday Iris Weinshall, commissioner of the city’s Department of Transportation, said the change will lead to one big improvement: larger sidewalks.

“Anyone who’s walked through Times Square knows that it requires squeezing, standing and twisting your body to get through the crowd,” Weinshall said. “Our engineers have counted over 13,000 pedestrians an hour in this area, and these sidewalks are simply not big enough to handle the crowds. We’ve also found that the crossover is the site of the most vehicular accidents of any of the intersections along this stretch of road — two to three times as many [accidents] in some cases.

“With the help of our new signs going up along Broadway and Seventh Avenue, drivers will be able to adjust to the new traffic pattern, and we will have created up to 50 percent more pedestrian space throughout the neighborhood.”

While the change will bring “significant sidewalk expansions” on Broadway between 46th and 47th streets and along Seventh Avenue between 42nd and 47th streets, the change will also mean the end of one bus stop and the closing of a bicycle lane on Seventh. The plan was advocated by the area’s business improvement district, the Times Square Alliance.

“The same way that crime was a problem for Times Square 20 years ago, the intense congestion on the street is our new quality-of-life issue,” said Tim Tompkins, president of the TSA. “In the longer term, it threatens people’s willingness to come to Times Square.”

© 2006 Metro. All Rights Reserved.

[ablarc]

Interesting to see how this pans out.

[milleniumcab]

Less road?....:eek::eek::eek:....

But if they have to do it anywhere, it is TS... I certainly understand... I'll live with it...Altough it would be a much easier to live with if they eliminate the pedi-cabs and the spider-bikes along with the bike lanes....

[gradvmedusa]

Eliminate the bike lanes?! Are you serious? This city is absolutely dreadful when it comes to bike friendlyness. I dream of a Manhattan where a child can safely bike just about anywhere on the island. I want dedicated and seperated bike lanes, secure bike parking lots and an overall increase in respect for bikes by drivers (and vice versa).

[BPC]

The new plan does not go nearly far enough. Either Broadway or Seventh Avenue should be pedestrianized in its entirety at Times Square. There is no reason for TWO downtown avenues to be running through TS.

[ablarc]

There is no reason for TWO downtown avenues to be running through TS.
Keep from having traffic jams.

[ryan]

You'd have to tear the buildings down and build an interstate to avoid traffic jams. Ideally, the minority of people getting around by car should get a slice of road proportional to their numbers.

[BPC]

I once saw a proposal to make Broadway fully pedestrian from Columbus Circle all the way down to MSG at 34th Street. I think if you added a light rail/trolley, it might actually work. Downtown car traffic could take 7th Avenue.

[ablarc]

You'd have to tear the buildings down and build an interstate to avoid traffic jams.
They did just that most places in the U.S. and it didn't eliminate traffic jams. But it did eliminate the cities.


Ideally, the minority of people getting around by car should get a slice of road proportional to their numbers.
Or possibly better still, none at all.

It's the cabs, delivery trucks and emergency vehicles you do need to accommodate and keep from getting stuck in traffic; they're an indispensable part of the city's infrastructure, and they represent the lion's share of Manhattan traffic anyway. It wouldn't bother me in the least if private cars were banned in Manhattan --or at least a congestion charge instituted.

It doesn't advance discussion to set up straw men and knock them down. The interstate idea was purely yours, and entirely rhetorical. No one but you has advocated it, and they don't prevent traffic jams. Haven't you noticed?

[ablarc]

I once saw a proposal to make Broadway fully pedestrian from Columbus Circle all the way down to MSG at 34th Street. I think if you added a light rail/trolley, it might actually work. Downtown car traffic could take 7th Avenue.
And there's a proposal making the rounds to do that on 42nd Street.

[ablarc]

The new plan does not go nearly far enough. Either Broadway or Seventh Avenue should be pedestrianized in its entirety at Times Square. There is no reason for TWO downtown avenues to be running through TS.
Give it a chance; I think the present proposal strikes a judicious balance. You need cabs, delivery trucks, emergency vehicles and even those double-decker tourbuses --maybe even those rubbernecking out-of-staters cruising in their cars. Eliminating the connection between 7th Avenue and Broadway may be all the adjustment traffic patterns need or can tolerate. It allows substantial widening of the sidewalk --which after all was the original impetus for reconfiguring the square.

[milleniumcab]

Eliminate the bike lanes?! Are you serious? This city is absolutely dreadful when it comes to bike friendlyness. I dream of a Manhattan where a child can safely bike just about anywhere on the island. I want dedicated and seperated bike lanes, secure bike parking lots and an overall increase in respect for bikes by drivers (and vice versa).

Hey, it's not my idea to eliminate the bike lanes in TS. The city came up with that one. Read the article carefully...:mad: ...

Which bike riders you want respect for?..Messengers?..Pedi cabs?..Recreatioanl riders in CP?...How about them respecting the rules of the road?..Little things like stopping for red lights..Not weaving in and out of the traffic..Belive it or not, staying within the speed limit(30 mph)...

By the way both of my kids grew up in the city..They did not ride their bikes in the streets..We have Central park for that..Anyone riding a bike for recreational purposes does not have to ride in TS..We have proper bike lanes for that purpose.. You can ride from lets say GWB to all the way to Battery Park..Is that not enough?..Why would you want your kids to ride their bikes in the middle of the city?.. That one I don't understand..
So do not come to me with that nonsense about having bike lanes in the middle of the city for recreational riding...NYC is a little too busy for that..

[antinimby]

You tell 'em, millenium. :D

[lofter1]

What about biking for commuters?

NYC could be much more forward-looking in that direction -- although I've sworn off of it due to the number of times that suddenly-opening car doors have nearly taken me out.

ergo: I'm forced to stick with separate "designated" bike paths (rather than the ones that are merely painted on the avenues) that don't come into proximity with cars.

[Ninjahedge]

I bladed for a while in NYC to get from A to B. The same problems arise all over the place. Yuo have bike lanes, but the damn DHL or Fed Ex truck wil be parked there. OR you get a cab to pull up right in front of you and cut you off OR they are sitting there when someone in the back seat does not check before flinging the door open.

The thing is, I agree that messengers, delivery people and pedicabs are a nuisance, but at least TWO of them are needed in NYC (I still see little need for those slow moving, space hogging, rule ignoring pedi-cabs). The only thing is, they should be forced to follow the rules like everyone else (red lights, stop signs, NO RIDING ON THE SIDEWALK, etc etc).

I also think they should impliment a congestion charge and try to do things like close off chinatown from ANY vehicular traffic during buisness hours (It would help with refuse collection, street cleaning, and the HEAVY pedestrian traffic). I believe areas like TS should have mass transit and other transportation available, but other things should not be given dominance over pedestrian travel. When you have intersections that are SO busy that when the light is red you cannot walk around them without going out into traffic it is time to look at a way to accomodate it.

In a city like this, mass transit and pedestrian travel should be top dogs when it comes to any transportation initiatives.

[milleniumcab]

The city can try all they want but unless they eliminate some of the cars coming in, the situation will not improve much for anybody..

[MidtownGuy]

When you have intersections that are SO busy that when the light is red you cannot walk around them without going out into traffic it is time to look at a way to accomodate it.

yeah...Chinatown really could use less cars. Is there some way to at least reduce the lanes on Canal and widen the sidewalks?

[milleniumcab]

yeah...Chinatown really could use less cars. Is there some way to at least reduce the lanes on Canal and widen the sidewalks?

Canal Street connects to Manhattan Bridge on the east side and Holland Tunnel on the west side...How is that possible?....

[Ninjahedge]

You prevent parking on both sides (which I think they do), you provide signals with turn lanes, and yuo make it so less cars travel on it!! ;)

I think that area would be great if it was penned off. Anyone who has driven through CT (try Mott street, if you want) knows that that area is not car-friendly, especially with all the shops set up on the sidewalk and people parking anywhere they can fit.

I think more parking has to be made available somewhere, and at affordable costs for RESIDENTS AND OWNERS IN THE AREA and then just pen the streets off between 7am and 10pm. Deliveries can be made at night, and street cleaning and garbage collection could also be done then, but no all-night parking allowed.

When they had "China fest" or whatever it was there and they had the streets clear, it was like a giant pedestrian mall! It was so much nicer! And I think, so long as you allowed the shop owners to set up to the curb (NO FURTHER) they would not have as much of a problem with the no-parking rules....

[Strattonport]

Congestion pricing anyone?

[lofter1]

I'm all for it -- it could be the best thing to happen to NYC since the subway.

[lofter1]

How is that possible?....

Get rid of the "one way" fare on the Verrazzano Bridge

[milleniumcab]

What would Staten Islanders have to say to that?...I wonder Lofter1...SIE would probably become one of the biggest parking lots in the States...

[milleniumcab]

Congestion charge is a must... Also HOV 2 requirement between 6 and 10 am will help...They will have to do it in the near future..

[lofter1]

SIE would probably become one of the biggest parking lots in the States...
So why shouldn't Staten Islanders join in the fun that those of us who live in SoHo / Chinatown get to experience???

[milleniumcab]

I guess they should...

[LeCom]

I actually like the Times Square crowds, they are more of a local landmark than any skyscraper in the area, but sometimes it does get on your nerves. And all the crowds around the area in December are a sight to behold (but not experience).

[Fahzee]

the crowds never bother me too much.
Now the guys trying to get me on a tour bus, tell me about the best improv ever, or convert me to scientology.....

[ZippyTheChimp]

Improved bike lane, new pedestrian spaces on Broadway between Times Square and Herald Square.

Broadway Boulevard (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/broadwayblvd.pdf)

[The Benniest]

I love this! http://wirednewyork.com/forum/images/icons/icon14.gif

[BrooklynRider]

This is the area I talked about where crowds standing the middle of the bike lane waiting for the light. Best bike lanes in the city are on 9th Ave south of 23rd.

[BPC]

The problem with this plan is that it is not nearly ambitious enough. The boulevard really should run from Columbus Circle (and thus Central Park) to Union Square. Hopefully, they will do this right, and leave New Yorkers handkering for more.

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
Yes, they're like appetizers.

But you've got to keep in mind that these projects are funded right out of the budget, so they can be done quickly. Something more elaborate would have to be financed, bidding, contracts.

The big thing is that they stake a claim on the street.

[BrooklynRider]

I appreciate that point. It is something positive to focus on. I hope we get to the stage that ninth ave south of 23rd is at: a bike lane with an island and cars parked at the curb, between it and traffic.

[scumonkey]

And keep your fingers crossed that cb4 gets it's way...they want to extend that 9th ave bike lane all the way up into hell's kitchen as far north as they can! ;)

[spatulashack]

And keep your fingers crossed that cb4 gets it's way...they want to extend that 9th ave bike lane all the way up into hell's kitchen as far north as they can! ;)

I'd love this! I live right on 45th and 9th and have been itching for an excuse to blow a couple hundred on a bike. :D

[brianac]

Front-Row Seats on Broadway, if You Dare

By WILLIAM NEUMAN (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=WILLIAM NEUMAN&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=WILLIAM NEUMAN&inline=nyt-per)
Published: August 25, 2008

As if New York wasn’t stimulating enough already, the city has provided a new kind of thrill right in the heart of Midtown: an esplanade carved into Broadway where people can sit and relax as cars and trucks whiz by.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/26/nyregion/26broadway_650.jpgRuth Fremson/The New York Times
Strategically placed planters, weighing 600 to 1,000 pounds, help protect people on an esplanade from wayward traffic.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/26/nyregion/26broadway_2_650.jpgRuth Fremson/The New York Times
Mala Ghisai, left, with her daughter, Sangeeva Van Elleswijk, 16, said that the nearby traffic enhanced their lunch on the Broadway esplanade on Monday.

And while the esplanade seems to have become an instant hit with office workers and tourists — the metal benches, tables and chairs (some under red umbrellas) were rarely empty on Monday morning, even though they have been out for only a few days — many eyed the traffic warily.

“I think it’s dangerous,” said Vicki Lee, who nonetheless sat with two friends eating lunch at a cafe table on the esplanade just south of 38th Street. Ms. Lee, a clothing designer at a Midtown fashion company, was careful to sit so that she could keep an eye on the traffic heading downtown.

Her concern, she said, centered on the gray plastic planters arrayed every few feet along the edge of the esplanade as a buffer for the passing traffic. The planters were filled with soil, flowers and other plants and were too heavy for one person alone to budge. Yet they did not make Ms. Lee feel safe.

“You hear so many accidents of the cars going out of control and all they have here is plastic pots,” she said. But she dug into her salad and added, “We’re going to roll the dice and eat lunch here today.”

Not far away, Eric Sachinis and Grace Ong sat on two metal chairs pulled up to the edge of the esplanade closest to the traffic. They ate sandwiches and gazed at the passing cars.

“It’s a death trap,” Mr. Sachinis, a network administrator for a garment company, said with a laugh. “It’ll be up for a month and then somebody’ll get hit and they’ll take it down.”

“I like it, though,” said Ms. Ong, an administrative assistant, who observed that a pedestrian would be no safer on the sidewalk than on the esplanade if a car lost control. Besides, she said, the esplanade was a good spot for people watching. “That’s why you live in New York,” she said, “to watch everything go by.”

The city Transportation Department, which created the esplanade, assured that it was safe.

“The plaza is protected by parked cars in some locations and in others by planters weighing 600 or 1,000 pounds and stationed in positions that prevent vehicles from passing in between,” said Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the department. “We have used planters as a pedestrian safeguard in this way at numerous locations throughout the city.”

To create the esplanade, the city took away two of the four traffic lanes on Broadway from 42nd to 35th Streets. On the eastern portion of Broadway, it created the new pedestrian areas, which have a gravel coating glued to the pavement, and a bike lane that runs next to the sidewalk. And it bought the benches, tables, chairs and planters, which were set out last week. The project cost $700,000.

The city also created parking areas along parts of the esplanade, and the parked vehicles create an added buffer for pedestrians.

Richie Frakes, 61, a state worker, sat undeterred at the corner of 37th Street with his back to traffic.

“I think it’s great,” he said, munching on a salad from a plastic container. “It’s the first time in my life I ever had lunch in the middle of Broadway.”

Eric Osorio, 45, an electrician who was eating lunch with a colleague at a cafe table, said that the esplanade was a nice change from eating lunch at the construction job he was working on nearby.

“This is way better,” he said. “We’re in our glory here.”

But Mr. Osorio also looked dubiously at the leafy planters.

“A truck would wipe us all out,” he said.

Three business improvement districts, the Times Square Alliance, the Fashion Center B.I.D. and the 34th Street Partnership, have agreed to maintain the esplanade and pay for the plantings.

Karis Durmer, 29, who works at Condé Nast (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/conde_nast_publications/index.html?inline=nyt-org) in Times Square, said the esplanade had transformed a part of the city that she had thought of as unbearable: “Just people and the noise, the traffic, it’s all cars and smoke and honking.”

“It’s amazing how a few plants can make you feel removed from all that,” she said, as she sat near the northern edge of the esplanade. (At one point her conversation was interrupted when the siren of a passing fire truck drowned out her words.) “They transport you to a calmer place.”

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/26/nyregion/26broadway_3_650.jpgRuth Fremson/The New York Times
The city is monitoring the esplanade, which runs from 42nd to 35th Streets, to see if it affects traffic conditions in Midtown.

Ms. Durmer looked at the nearby benches and chairs, which were full of people. “What I find amazing is the minute this pops up, overnight people are already utilizing it.”

The esplanade seemed to be especially popular with tourists.

Mala Ghisai, 44, and her daughter, Sangeeva Van Elleswijk, 16, of the Netherlands, took a lunch break on the esplanade with plastic containers of salad bar food after a morning of shopping in Manhattan.

Far from being bothered by the traffic, they said that it was what they had come to New York to experience.

“I enjoy it because of the crowds, because of the traffic,” Ms. Ghisai said.

Although Broadway has been narrowed, the flow of traffic on Monday did not seem to be noticeably tangled as a result of the recent changes.

Janette Sadik-Khan, the transportation commissioner, has said that traffic patterns might shift and that there was enough capacity on other nearby avenues for drivers.

A spokesman for the Transportation Department, which created the esplanade as part of a program to make streets better places for pedestrians and bicycles, said on Monday that officials were monitoring the esplanade’s effect on traffic.

Robert Stribley, 39, an information architect at an Internet design firm with an office on Broadway, said that he found the experience of sitting on the esplanade surreal.

“You look around and expect a truck to veer off and plow into you at any moment,” he said. “It’s not Bryant Park. You’ve got exhaust coming at you. But it’s kind of cool.”

A co-worker, Rachel Lovinger, 37, suggested a way to eliminate the risk: turn all of Broadway from Times Square to Herald Square into a pedestrian park, with no cars or trucks at all.

“If the entire thing were a pedestrian walkway it would be great,” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/nyregion/26broadway.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=nyregion

Copyright 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[ablarc]

“It’s a death trap,” Mr. Sachinis, a network administrator for a garment company, said with a laugh. “It’ll be up for a month and then somebody’ll get hit and they’ll take it down.”

The city Transportation Department, which created the esplanade, assured that it was safe.

The project cost $700,000.
Curbs would help, though they would doubtless quintuple the cost.

Might be worth it anyway. This is a case of less being too little, I think.

[NYC4Life]

Interesting concept. Now hopefully there won't be a funeral included.

[Ninjahedge]

I don't like it.

It looks fine when things are not crowded, but walking home last night, they had performers out around TS that made the corners almost impassable.

There are just TOO MANY PEOPLE IN TIMES SQUARE to try and fit more people in standing around doing nothing.

they should remove the tables and benches from the corners and keep them mid-block, or someone is going to get forced into oncoming traffic.

[stache]

Needs curbs and bollards, or fences.

[NYatKNIGHT]

They're on the right track.

[Jasonik]

I bet we'll see a bike collision before an automotive one. I can so picture someone stepping off the curb only to be blind-sided by a bicyclist zipping along in the relative safety from traffic.

[ablarc]

Yeah, it's hard to hear a bike --and you're not as fearful of them.

[NYatKNIGHT]

That's true all over town where these new green bike lanes have suddenly appeared. It's often like a free-for-all for drivers and pedestrians alike.

[Ninjahedge]

They just watered the plants today and I am noticing things that noone could have really seen before without actually doing this.

That stuff they use for the coating seems to stain easily. or, at least, discolor. I see the brownish trails coming from the plants and it makes the area look old even though it is only a few weeks new!

Also, the corners are already starting to flake off. I have no clue how as these areas seem to be really close to the signs and plants. It may be the street cleaners that are scrubbing it off.

Oh, as for the green bike lanes... they are almost impassible. I can't see a bike getting through there without running someone over or using a cattle-bar. They are only slightly better INSIDE the pedestrian zone because they do not have to deal with cabs or double parkers/standees, but they are MUCH worse because they are supposed to follow traffic regulations. People are not going to stop at the concrete curb now at a red light, they will cross the bike lane when they are supposed to have the right of way.

It is a nice idea, but I do not think they thought about this 100%

[stache]

I wonder what the snowplows will do with all of this.

[ZippyTheChimp]

It's really a traffic study, and has to be easily dismantled if it doesn't work out.

They could have just cordoned off the lanes, and conducted a traffic study, but this way, they get public participation and possible support for something permanent.

[stache]

I'm all for that!

[Ninjahedge]

Suggetsions:

Move the green lane back out next to traffic. Prohibit parking and standing of ANY sort on that side of the street (get aggressive with the ticketing).

SOLID curbs and "benches" (crash barriers with seats) between the "waiting at the corner to cross" nubs they have lined out now.

That is about it. The plants are nice, but unless you find a way to get some trees out there, I don't know how long they will last w/o disney-like care and attension.

Hmmm.....Disney......... ;)

[NYatKNIGHT]

February 25, 2009

Mayor Plans to Close Parts of Broadway to Traffic

By WILLIAM NEUMAN (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/william_neuman/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and MICHAEL BARBARO (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/michael_barbaro/index.html?inline=nyt-per)


The city plans to close several blocks of Broadway to vehicle traffic through Times Square and Herald Square, an experiment that would turn swaths of the Great White Way into pedestrian malls and continue Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s effort to reduce traffic congestion in Midtown.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/02/26/nyregion/26broadway_map.jpg
The New York Times
Broadway traffic would also be barred in Herald Square.

Although it seems counterintuitive, officials believe the move will actually improve the overall flow of traffic, because the diagonal path of Broadway tends to disrupt traffic where it intersects with other streets.

The city plans to introduce the changes as early as May and keep them in effect through the end of the year. If the experiment works, they could become permanent. The plan was described by several people who were briefed on it this week.

Mr. Bloomberg was expected to announce the plan Thursday.

A City Hall spokesman declined comment in advance of the announcement.
The plan calls for Broadway to be closed to vehicles from 47th Street to 42nd Street. Traffic would continue to flow through on crossing streets, but the areas between the streets would become pedestrian malls, with chairs, benches and cafe tables with umbrellas.

Seventh Avenue would be widened slightly within Times Square to accommodate the extra traffic diverted from Broadway.

Below 42nd Street, Broadway would be open to traffic, but then would shut down again at Herald Square, from 35th Street to 33rd Street. Then, below 33rd, it would open again.

The plan is the latest move by Mr. Bloomberg to change the way the city thinks of its streets, making them more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists and chipping away at the dominance of the automobile.

Once the changes are in effect, a large stretch of Broadway in the heart of Midtown would be radically changed.

Last summer, the city narrowed Broadway from 42nd Street to 35th Street by setting aside two lanes on the east side of the street for a bike lane and promenade with tables, chairs and planters.

That project, called Broadway Boulevard, met with some skepticism at first but quickly became a popular lunch spot for office workers and tourists. Under the new plan, officials are considering creating a similar promenade from 47th Street north to the vicinity of Columbus Circle.

A theater industry executive who was briefed on the plan this week said the reaction among Times Square business leaders was largely favorable.

“I think it potentially could be a big plus if it speeds up traffic flow through the Times Square area,” said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the briefing was considered confidential until the mayor announces his plan. “If you have a major pedestrian area, that actually could be something welcoming and lovely.”

Cora Cahan, president of the New 42nd Street, a nonprofit group that oversees seven historic theaters, said she was not briefed on the latest plan but had seen preliminary proposals last year.
“I think it’s very worth trying,” she said, adding that Times Square badly needs more room for pedestrians.

The plan has some risks, especially if it does not deliver on the promise of decreasing congestion.

New York drivers, including cabbies and truck drivers, can be zealous in defending their use of the city’s streets. Their passion helped doom Mr. Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing proposal last year to charge drivers to use the most heavily traveled streets of Manhattan.

Some may also question the timing, now that the city is struggling with a recession. The theater executive who was briefed on the plan said one worry was whether taxis and other vehicles would have difficulty leaving people in front of theaters.

Jeffrey Zupan, a senior fellow for transportation for the Regional Plan Association, an independent organization, said planners had been calling for similar changes for years.

He said Broadway tended to foul up traffic at each intersection with an avenue. To allow for green lights on Broadway, the duration of the green lights on the avenues and cross streets had to be shortened, backing up traffic.

“The lower the volume is on Broadway — or if you eliminate it altogether — then traffic is going to move better,” Mr. Zupan said. “That’s one of the positive things that’s going to come out of this. The win-win is that the space that you’re freeing up will be used by pedestrians.”


Copyright 2009 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/nyregion/26broadway.html?_r=1

[Ninjahedge]

It sounds good, but Broadway is not a small area. It is not like closing Mott street in Chinatown. I wonder if they could really do sonething like that on ALL the major intersections with broadway, from maybe the Park down to City Hall?

Are there areas where a pedestrian mall would just be a waste? Some areas would be great to have some seating, but others would front things that had no real need or desire for it (office buildings?)

[lofter1]

Mayor Mike: You can do this to Broadway in my neighborhood anyday.

Fat chance. it would be like trying to divert the Hudson.

[NYCDOC]

I think this idea is pretty bad. Anyone who has walked down the stretch of Broadway between Macy's and Time Square can tell you a-that the design with the yellowish gravel like surface cover is ugly and belongs in Florida not New York City and b-that the area is dead and almost depressing.

Better squares and focused public spaces are great, but a narrow long stretch isn't what we need. I hope this plan is rejected by years end.

[Jasonik]

http://nycgo.com/uploadedImages/devnycvisitcom/venue/forbiddenbroadway_v1_460x285.jpg (http://www.forbiddenbroadway.com/)
Photo: Carol Rosegg

[ZippyTheChimp]

It soundsI wonder if they could really do sonething like that on ALL the major intersections with broadway, from maybe the Park down to City Hall?Above 14th St, Broadway meanders across several of the north-south avenues.

Below 16th St, Broadway itself becomes a major route. In the Village area, it's 6th Ave (northbound) and Broadway (southbound).

[lofter1]

If only Robert Moses had succeeded in cutting Fifth Avenue through the middle of Washington Square Park all Broadway traffic problems would be solved.

It's never too late to dream :cool:

[londonlawyer]

I like it.

http://curbed.com/uploads/2009_2_bwaymall.jpg
curbed.com

[ZippyTheChimp]

Funny how the difference is magnified by arranging the traffic in an orderly formation.

[Merry]

http://www.chelseanow.com/cn_123/hsq.jpg

Broadway traffic plan could create pedestrian oases in sea of congestion

By Heather Murray

A new city plan to close Broadway to vehicles at Times and Herald Squares could make streets safer for pedestrians and ease Midtown traffic congestion, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced at a press conference for the new pilot program late last month.

The DOT program “Green Light for Midtown,” which will launch on Memorial Day weekend, will divert traffic from Broadway between 47th and 42nd Sts. and between 35th and 33rd Sts.

The department expects the modifications to give drivers up to a 66 percent increase in green lights at Herald Square alone, as well as reduce accidents.

Midtown traffic along Sixth and Seventh Ave. currently crawls at about only 5 miles per hour, according to DOT statistics, with the slowest speeds at the gridlocked Times and Herald Squares. The department expects the initiative to decrease travel times from 59th to 23rd Sts. by up to 17 percent on Seventh Ave. and by 37 percent on Sixth Ave.

The 356,000-plus people who visit Times Square each day will benefit from over 2.5 acres of open space added to the area through new pedestrian plazas built between late May and September along Broadway as part of the $1.5 million project.

Esplanades will also be created on Broadway from Columbus Circle to 47th St., and from 33rd to 26th Sts.

“By making targeted adjustments at Broadway’s two main pinch points, we believe we can ease traffic congestion throughout the Midtown grid,” Bloomberg said at the Feb. 27 press conference. He indicated that the pilot program, which is set to run through December, could be extended beyond the trial period if it has the positive impacts on traffic that the DOT has predicted.

“We’re going to the heart of the matter and piloting a simple solution to a complex problem,” Sadik-Khan added. “The ‘Green Light for Midtown’ plan will work with the grid instead of against it, correcting the complicated intersections that create traffic congestion, while creating enough space to enhance safety.”

A DOT online presentation on the program shows that Broadway at Times Square has, on average, 137 percent more pedestrian crashes than at other avenues in the area.

The city already claimed two Broadway traffic lanes from vehicles between 42nd and 35th Sts. last summer, turning them into a bike lane and a promenade with seating and green space. The DOT found that those improvements cut traffic-related injuries in half.

Christine Berthet, co-chairperson of Community Board 4’s Transportation Planning Committee and co-founder of the Clinton Hell’s Kitchen Coalition for Pedestrian Safety, has long advocated for the city to make streets safer for pedestrians. Berthet said that she planned to attend an open house and community board presentations on the plan to learn more about its specifics and hear community feedback. Generally, any plan that would give pedestrians more space and make streets safer would be “very, very attractive for us,” she said. “At this point, I feel we need to focus much more on the pedestrian than on the traffic.”

Berthet added that she had heard rumors that the project could slow traffic along Ninth Ave., citing a recent news report, but noted, “It’d be hard to make traffic worse. It is already impossible to go through there. Who in their right mind would use Ninth Avenue to avoid traffic?”

She explained that drivers on Broadway have different destinations in mind than those using avenues farther west. The traffic on Ninth Ave. is exacerbated by drivers heading for the Lincoln Tunnel, and Berthet is looking forward to a DOT study on the tunnel’s traffic flow to be released later this spring.

Wiley Norvell, communications director for Transportation Alternatives—an advocacy group for bicycling, walking and public transportation—sat through a DOT presentation on the proposed project, which predicted that some cars normally traveling on Broadway would instead opt to use Ninth Ave.

“I feel that’s not really what we’re going to be seeing,” Norvell said. He feels the model was built on the conservative assumption that all drivers who currently travel along Broadway between Times Square and Herald Square will choose to continue taking a similar route after the closure.

“Some feel that traffic is just like water,” he added. “You change it a little and it pops out somewhere else. There is a bit more give to our streets than you might otherwise think.”

Norvell thinks that many drivers will instead use mass transit to get around the city, which would in turn ease congestion even further.

“The solution is to give less of our limited street space to traffic,” he said.

Transportation Alternatives has big hopes for the project, seeing it as “the start of something big,” Norvell noted. “This could prove to New Yorkers that streets don’t have to be all car all the time.

“For us, this is one of the most iconic stretches of street in the world,” he continued, painting a picture of Thanksgiving celebrations at Herald Square and New Year’s Eve at Time Square. “This will really give the space back to pedestrians.”

Fifteen-year taxi driver Javaid Tariq, who co-founded the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and serves as an organizing committee member, also thinks the plan has merit.

"We are not completely against the plan,” he said, citing pedestrian safety as an issue his members care about. He explained that there isn’t currently enough public space at Times Square for the many tourists and New Yorkers who flood the area.

But, “It’s going to create a lot of traffic,” Tariq said emphatically of the pilot program.

He envisioned major problems with Broadway’s closing before and after evening theater performances.

“How can we drop off an elderly person or someone who’s disabled blocks away from the theater?” he said. Theatergoers likely won’t want to trudge through the snow or rain after paying to take a cab to their performances, Tariq noted, and he suggested that one lane remain open for taxis heading to Broadway shows each evening. He would also like an area to be designated for pick-ups and drop-offs at the Herald Square Macy’s.

Taxis would benefit if they were allowed to use bus lanes for pick-ups and drop-offs and as an express lane, Tariq said.

Bill Lindauer, Taxi Workers Alliance campaigns coordinator, who worked as a taxi driver for 30 years, said workers met with the DOT last week to discuss the plan.

“They were very agreeable to our suggestions,” he said.
Lindauer added that his organization proposed allowing drivers to drop patrons off at theaters on 45th St. They also don’t want to be ticketed for dropping off and picking up passengers in designated bike lanes, such as the one by Macy’s, and want the city to put in a green-arrow left turn onto Seventh Ave. from 57th St.

“We don’t know whether it’s a brilliant idea or a hair-brained idea,” he said. “I called for an independent review after the test period … We’re willing to keep an open mind, but we have our doubts.”

The DOT will be making presentations on the proposal at meetings of Boards 5 and 4 on March 16 and 18, respectively.

http://www.chelseanow.com/cn_123/broadwaytraffic.html

[Hof]

I can't wait to see what these esplanades will do to Midtown traffic.

The ripple effect will probably spread out all the way to The Bronx.

Anyway, it's a really good idea to reclaim some of Gotham's asphalt for those on foot, especially around Times Sq and Herald Sq.

[Merry]

7th, 9th Aves. bracing for Broadway traffic with new project


By Diane Vacca


http://www.chelseanow.com/CN_124/34th.jpg
At left: This image shows how through traffic on Seventh Ave. will remain on the avenue while heading southbound instead of being rerouted to Broadway, which will have no vehicle access between 47th and 42nd Sts. Right: This image shows how the elimination of traffic on Broadway will improve northbound travel on Sixth Ave. and crosstown travel on 34th St. at Herald Square.

The city’s “Green Light for Midtown” pilot plan to ban vehicular traffic on Broadway at Times and Herald Squares ran up against some yellow lights last week when the Department of Transportation sought input from the community at two public hearings.

Cabdrivers, cyclists, theater owners and retail merchants came out to the hearings held by Community Boards 5 and 4 on March 16 and 18, respectively, to express concerns related to passenger drop-offs and pickups, deliveries and garbage collection on and around the affected streets, from 47th to 42nd Sts.

But the greatest cause for alarm for the residents of District 4 was the specter of increased congestion resulting from the diversion of traffic away from Broadway, especially on Ninth Ave., which they said is already choked by more traffic than it can handle.

According to DOT, 1,000 vehicles per hour crawl south down Broadway in the 40s at peak hours. With plans to add another lane for traffic on Seventh Ave., as well as increased signal time and improved alignment, the avenue is expected to carry 750 to 800 more vehicles per hour and take on the bulk of Broadway’s traffic.

Randy Wade, DOT’s director of Pedestrian Projects, estimated the effect on Ninth Ave. would consequently be “very minimal.” But Jean-Daniel Nolan, Board 4’s chairperson, spoke for all the attendees when he said, “The concern of the residential neighborhood on Ninth Ave. is this increase in vehicular traffic.” In their worst-case scenario, the remaining 250 of those 1,000 vehicles will end up shunted over to Ninth Ave.

Christine Berthet, chairperson of Board 4’s Transportation Planning Committee, asked where traffic moving south on Broadway below 59th St. would be able to head west.

“Would you like us to make accommodations to help them to get to Ninth Ave.?” Wade quipped, as laughter rippled through the room. Then Berthet asked him how DOT was going to dissuade drivers from using Ninth Ave.

“By making the move to Seventh Ave. as smooth as possible,” he replied, noting that signs and illuminated message boards would direct traffic to Seventh Ave.

A member of the West 44th Street Block Association questioned whether there was any way to channel traffic over to 11th Ave., and Berthet wondered how DOT plans to alleviate the effect of the expected extra traffic on Ninth Ave.

“We’re working on it,” Wade responded. “We’re studying improvements at key hotspots.”

Elaine Marlovitch, a lifelong resident of 52nd St., stressed that conditions are already over-congested on the western avenues.

“Traffic on Ninth, 10th and 11th Avenues is so bad that New York State has given us a grant to study the situation from 30th to 57th Street,” she said. “And you’re talking about bringing more traffic there?”

The Lincoln Tunnel, Javits Center, Madison Square Garden and ongoing construction work all contribute to the problem, she explained. “So saying ‘Push it west’ doesn’t work,” Marlovitch added. “Push it east. I’m NIMBY—I don’t want it in my backyard.”

Both hearings also raised concerns about adequate handicap access in the Theater District. Margaret Forgione, DOT commissioner for Manhattan, told Board 5 that anyone with a disabled permit can park in truck loading areas on side streets, though probably not in front of the TKTS booth.

In 2006, DOT redirected the traffic flow at Times Square so that cars heading south on Broadway would be forced to continue on Seventh Ave., while traffic southbound on Seventh Ave. was channeled onto Broadway, eliminating crossover.

Under the new plan, Seventh Ave. will be widened with a fourth traffic lane and drivers will continue southbound on the avenue at 45th St. without being transferred onto Broadway, which will be closed to vehicles from 47th to 42nd Sts.

Similarly, Sixth Ave. will be uninterrupted northbound at Herald Square, where Broadway will be reserved exclusively for pedestrians between 33rd and 35th streets. South of Herald Square to 26th St., Broadway will have a single lane for through traffic, a turning lane and a bicycle lane. The stretch of Sixth Ave. from 47th St. to Columbus Circle will have two lanes for traffic and a bicycle lane.

Additionally at Times Square, turns will be restricted from Seventh Ave. onto 46th, 45th and 44th Sts. Pedestrian volume is so great in that area that cars turning right, which are obliged to yield to pedestrians, would block one lane, thwarting the goal of expediting the flow of southbound traffic.

Much of the discussion at both hearings centered on the effects of these banned turns on congestion, business and theater patrons.

In particular, the loss of the westbound turn onto 45th St. raised many concerns, as some felt the ban counterintuitive.

“How does a car driving down Seventh go to 45th between Seventh and Eighth without being able to turn?” asked one attendee. “The block has two large parking lots and about 10 theaters.” The DOT’s answer: Drive south down Ninth Ave., turn left on 44th St. to Sixth Ave., turn north on Sixth Ave. to 45th St., and turn left on 45th St. to continue westward.

Alternatively, the motorist could drive south on Fifth Ave. and turn right onto 45th St. A member of the Midtown Citizens committee, representing the Theater District, wondered whether DOT would reconsider its no-turns policy if access to theaters and other businesses on 45th St. became a serious problem.

The situation at 47th St., the last place for southbound cars to exit Broadway before it becomes pedestrian-only, presents a different problem. Turning right onto 47th “is a nightmare now,” said a resident of the street. The DOT acknowledged that all traffic will be forced to turn at 47th St., but that the volume of traffic will be reduced because signs will warn motorists in advance to exit Broadway. During the initial adjustment period, traffic agents and DOT personnel will direct traffic, but the department is wasting no time in getting there. The project’s roadway improvements will start next month, with the preliminary narrowing of Broadway to begin in May. Vehicle traffic will officially be discontinued at Times and Herald Squares beginning Memorial Day weekend.

Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, which co-sponsored the Board 5 hearing, appeared enthusiastic about the plan.

“We think it could be a great, great thing for Times Square,” he said, despite having reservations about the restriction of right turns onto 45th St. and handicap access. Stops for tourist buses must all be relocated, he said, and the DOT acknowledged that it has to find a way for trucks to service and install signs in Times Square, even during the day.

A bus stop at 45th St., proposed by DOT as a drop-off point for taxis, is insufficient, especially at curtain time, Tompkins added. Following the recommendations of a traffic engineer, the Alliance is recommending the addition of a fifth lane on Seventh Ave. from 46th to 42nd streets to accommodate turns and drop-offs at 45th and 44th Sts.

Berthet proposed eliminating the right turn option on 43rd St., which has a school, and making the first right turn after 47th St. at 42nd St., which is wider.

Cyclists at both hearings decried the current Broadway bike lane between Times and Herald Squares, calling it “truly problematic,” a “scary ride” and a “de facto pedestrian texting lane.” They said pedestrians crossing the lane are oblivious to the bike traffic, creating safety concerns for cyclists.

Wade explained, however, that Broadway has a “bicycle route,” not a bicycle lane. Between Times and Herald Squares, Broadway has no public space to sit, have lunch or hang out, unlike other avenues. In order to create those spaces, he said DOT combined parking space with pedestrian space.

A cyclist at the Board 5 hearing suggested making Broadway two-way for bicyclists in order to make bike commuting easier, but DOT rejected the idea because it would be too complicated to implement.

John Wilson, a Chelsea resident, thought all of Broadway, from Union Square to Columbus Circle, should be strictly pedestrian.

Upon leaving the Board 4 hearing, Noland didn’t mince words while speaking to DOT representatives.

“This process is from the top down,” he said. “We prefer to work the other way around. We should have been consulted before this was dropped on us.”

http://www.chelseanow.com/CN_124/7th9th.html

[BrooklynRider]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/nyregion/20closings.html

May 20, 2009
Parts of Broadway to Be Closed to Traffic

The city will begin converting part of Broadway into a major pedestrian thoroughfare this weekend, as stretches in Times Square and Herald Square are closed to vehicles.

Part of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s efforts to combat traffic in Midtown and resolve longstanding complaints about crowded sidewalks, the plan has moved swiftly since it was first announced in February.

With the closings on Sunday, during the Memorial Day weekend, the pedestrian malls in Times Square and Herald Square will be open to the public for the full summer season. The areas are to be outfitted with tables, benches and other amenities and they are to play host to special events, including a simulcast of the Tony Awards on June 7. The project is scheduled for completion in mid-August.

Broadway from 47th Street to 42nd Street and from 35th Street to 33rd Street will be closed to vehicles, with all traffic, including bus routes, diverted to Seventh Avenue. The city says that the new plan will improve traffic, because the diagonal path of Broadway creates three-way intersections in both areas that frequently pile up with cars.

[BrooklynRider]

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/broadway-promenade-conversion-starts-sunday/

May 19, 2009, 5:51 pm
Broadway Promenade Conversion Starts Sunday
By A. G. Sulzberger

The city will begin converting part of Broadway into a major pedestrian thoroughfare this weekend, as the first stretches of the road in Times Square and Herald Square are closed to vehicles.

Part of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s efforts to combat traffic in Midtown and resolve longstanding complaints about the crowded sidewalks, the plan has moved swiftly since it was first announced in February to a mixture of applause and concern from the theaters, businesses and taxi drivers who will be most affected.

With the closures coming this Sunday, during the Memorial Day weekend, the new pedestrian malls in Times Square and Herald Square, two of the city’s most frenetic junctures, will be open to the public for the full summer season. The area will be outfitted with tables, benches and other amenities and will host special events beginning almost immediately, such as a simulcast of the Tony Awards on June 7. The project is scheduled for completion in mid-August.

The move means that Broadway from 47th Street to 42nd Street and from 35th Street to 33rd Street will be closed to vehicles, with all traffic including bus routes being diverted instead to 7th Avenue. The city says that the new plan should actually improve traffic because the diagonal path of Broadway creates three way intersections in both areas that frequently pile up with cars. With just two roads remaining open, the intersections should be faster and safer, city officials said.

“It will take a little while to get used to,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s transportation commissioner, at a press conference in Times Square. “But New Yorkers are savvy drivers. They know how to get around town.”

Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, urged patience with the changes, calling the plan “an experiment worth trying.”

[lofter1]

As reported today at Curbed (http://curbed.com/archives/2009/05/20/broadway_prepped_for_pedestrian_takeover.php) a pedestrian-zone will extend up Broadway all the way to Columbus Circle, but with shared space (as had been put in place previously below Times Square.

[MidtownGuy]

Just walked across town and passed Broadway; I could see islands being installed in the street with dirt for trees/plantings. Excellent.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Herald Square

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/1843/broadwayped01.th.jpg (http://img15.imageshack.us/my.php?image=broadwayped01.jpg) http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8605/broadwayped02.th.jpg (http://img15.imageshack.us/my.php?image=broadwayped02.jpg) http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/1020/broadwayped03.th.jpg (http://img190.imageshack.us/my.php?image=broadwayped03.jpg) http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/3010/broadwayped04.th.jpg (http://img190.imageshack.us/my.php?image=broadwayped04.jpg)

Times Square
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/4527/broadwayped05.th.jpg (http://img190.imageshack.us/my.php?image=broadwayped05.jpg) http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/7970/broadwayped06.th.jpg (http://img190.imageshack.us/my.php?image=broadwayped06.jpg) http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/5388/broadwayped07.th.jpg (http://img505.imageshack.us/my.php?image=broadwayped07.jpg) http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/8141/broadwayped08.th.jpg (http://img505.imageshack.us/my.php?image=broadwayped08.jpg)

[BrooklynRider]

Can anyone comment on how the traffic was moving on Fifth and Sixth avenues? Traffic snares and congestion were supposed to be reduced by this change.

I hope it stays this way.

[NYatKNIGHT]

I don't think we could know for sure until the weekdays (like today), but from what I saw everything was flowing fine. Makes sense - traffic through a regular grid should be the more efficient than traffic through a grid with a diagonal road cutting through.

[Merry]

The novelty of taking in the scene while relaxing on a banana lounge right in the middle of Manhattan is quite appealing.


Broadway closures cause some bumps along the ride

http://weblogs.amny.com/entertainment/urbanite/blog/bfd314a29d33439680b9b3c39dd666a3.jpg
Pedestrians take a break on lounge chairs in the middle of Broadway in Times Square. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

By Heather Haddon (hhaddon@am-ny.com)

It wasn't quite a nightmare for drivers, but cabbies still griped about the first workday closure of Broadway Tuesday.

“I hope the mayor changes his mind for those who are trying to make a living,” said Nick Pierre, 55, who struggled to pickup passengers at the Marriot Marquis on Broadway Tuesday.

The Department of Transportation has implemented a six-month car ban on five blocks of Broadway in Times Square and two blocks in Herald Square to increase pedestrian space and clamp down on pollution. Chairs and benches now sit where cars once drove between 42nd and 47th streets and 33rd and 35th streets.

“Instead of reading in the train, and getting a headache, I can study here for 15 minutes,” said Paul Son, 29, of Midtown, as he sat in Times Square.

Broadway north of 47th street experienced some delays periodically throughout the day, with four lanes of traffic having to merge into two, said Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance. Traffic flowed smoothly down Seventh Avenue, he said, but volume was lighter than usual after the holiday weekend.

"We'll have to see how things go on the weekend,” Tompkins said.
Cars turning off of Broadway at 35th Street experienced some backup at the busy intersection, which runs next to Macy's and leads to the Lincoln Tunnel, said corner coffee vendor Mohammad Mahdi. Cars must maneuver through one lane on 35th, as workers are digging next to an entrance to the Herald Square subway station.

“The traffic is always so bad here,” Mahdi said.

About 50,000 vehicles a day travel through Seventh Avenue and Broadway in Times Square, the DOT estimates. More than 350,000 people walk through the congested area daily.

Traffic moved well through both intersections and the DOT is not planning any immediate changes to the six-month plan, said spokesman Montgomery Dean.

“It's still a work in process and we'll make an adjustments in the coming weeks or months,” Dean said.

http://weblogs.amny.com/entertainment/urbanite/blog/2009/05/broadway_closures_cause_some_b.html

[ZippyTheChimp]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo153x23.gif (http://www.nytimes.com/)

July 9, 2009


Broadway’s Car-Free Zones:
This Space for Rent

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/07/09/nyregion/09sidewalksA_xl.jpg
Kristina Hurlburt promoted Glidden Paints last week at a pedestrian plaza at 23rd Street and Broadway.
Glidden paid $11,000 a day to rent the space.


By LIBBY NELSON

When Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced plans in February to close stretches of Broadway to traffic to create pedestrian plazas, it was billed as a way to ease congestion and create oases for walkers, people watchers, idlers (chairs and tables were provided) and cyclists. Since the car-free zones were opened in May, they have been home to predictable urban vignettes: tourists resting with their shopping bags, New Yorkers pausing with their cellphones as buses go by a few feet away.

But the plazas can also make money for the city.

All or any of them can be rented by private companies, which could pay substantial fees — the highest is $38,500 a day. So far, the city said, 10 permits have been granted for the plazas in Midtown, with one — for a VH1 special in Herald Square — bringing in $20,250. Roughly 18 others have been granted for other pedestrian malls around the city, including the plaza at 23rd Street and Broadway.

It was there last week that Glidden Paint paid $11,000 a day to promote its products. That plaza, which opened in 2008, is visually identical to the Midtown plazas. Glidden’s fee, officials said, was high because it was part of a previous schedule that has since been adjusted. The company will pay, in all, $66,000 to set up at several locations around the city.

Other approved events in Midtown have included promotions for “Top Chef,” the cooking competition on the Bravo network, Hula-Hooping classes and a simulcast of the Tony Awards. Permits have also been issued for classes in yoga and capoeira (a Brazilian martial art), for a woodwind performance and for Come Out and Play, a festival dedicated to street games.

Of the events in Midtown, the city said, only the VH1 event resulted in a fee being paid; the others paid only $15 for a permit.

On the new fee schedule, permits for commercial events or activities on the plazas can range from $200 a day, for events that are not intended to draw the attention of passers-by; to $6,200 for “medium-size events,” which include significant setup, equipment and coordination; to $38,500 for large events that require big tents or street closings. Those wanting to set up at Times Square or Herald Square will pay a premium: $8,950 for a small event or $20,250, which VH1 paid for its medium-size event.

A deputy press secretary for Mr. Bloomberg, Marc LaVorgna, emphasized that clearing Midtown traffic congestion was the major motivation for the project.

The permit fees are fair because events place a burden on city services, he said. “You are using the city’s assets and it requires the use of city services to clean up afterward,” Mr. LaVorgna said. “You’re getting a city asset, so it’s paid for. It’s not irregular in that regard.”

The fees go to the city’s general fund. Street permits, which are also charged for the use of sidewalks and open streets, bring in “a significant amount” of revenue, said Evelyn Erskine, another deputy press secretary.

City officials would not say whether they considered the plazas’ moneymaking potential while planning the changes to Broadway. The Department of Transportation referred all inquiries to the Street Activity Permit Office. That office administers the permits and in June adjusted its fees — which were already charged for the use of streets and sidewalks — to include the plazas, but it was not involved with the planning process.

Holding events has the benefit of making public space more visible, but it bears risks as well, said Fred Kent, the founder and president of the Project for Public Spaces, a group that advocated for the pedestrian plazas and was involved in their early planning stages.

“If it’s a public event, then that’s O.K., but what can happen very quickly is they can be privatized and limit public use and public access,” Mr. Kent said. He cited the Bryant Park fashion shows as an example of the latter, calling them “the most egregious private use of public space anywhere in the world.”

Pedestrian plazas are on Broadway at Times Square from 47th to 42nd Street, at Herald Square from 35th to 33rd Street, and where Broadway and Fifth Avenue meet between 22nd and 25th Streets. Smaller plazas, called Broadway Boulevard, take up one lane of Broadway between 42nd Street and Herald Square.

At Glidden Paint’s event last weekend, just behind the planters that separate the plaza from traffic at 23rd and Broadway, stood four large purple cylinders, each stocked with brochures and color swatches from Glidden Paint. Three young men and women in bright T-shirts stopped passers-by to hand out paint chips and chat about colors.

“Paint usually gets a good response,” said Kristina Hurlburt, a Glidden representative who said she had sold all types of products. About one in every 15 pedestrians stopped to talk or glance through brochures filled with steel blue and deepest aqua.

New Yorkers pausing on the plazas Tuesday said that some events could be good, but they said they hoped the city would choose carefully.

“They’ll make more money, and I think it’s nice to engage the passers-by,” said Pamela Pekerman, a freelance writer. But the city should take into account the crowds that events would draw, she said.

“Would I have Mariah Carey here performing?” Ms. Pekerman asked. “Probably not.”

Michael O’Donnell, eating his lunch at the plaza just south of 39th Street, said he thought more space for pedestrians in Midtown would be ideal.

“I think they should be public space,” Mr. O’Donnell said, adding that he thought the size of the plazas constrained the possibilities. “Free concerts like in the park? That would be great.”

Evan Korn, director of the Mayor’s Office of Citywide Event Coordination and Management, said the permits office was being “diligent” in looking at the applications; though some are still processing, none have been rejected.

Wiley Norvell, the communications director for Transportation Alternatives, a group that strongly supported the plazas’ creation, said that maintaining the pedestrian areas could be expensive and that events would generate revenue for maintenance.

“We definitely see a place for these sorts of events, to help find the revenue stream to keep these spaces operating,” Mr. Norvell said.

He added that he hoped the city was keeping the public’s interests in mind.

“It’s really important to strike a balance,” he said. “To do these things in very close consultation with the communities who actually use the spaces, so we don’t end up with public space that’s perpetually being occupied by events and not available to the residents that it was installed for in the first place.”

Previous versions of this article online misstated the number of permits the city has given to use the Midtown plazas. It has granted 10 such permits, not 28.


Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

[lofter1]

Bloomberg can turn anything into a business venture. I don't necessarily like it all, but unfortunately I seem to be getting used to it.

[Ninjahedge]

SO long as it is regulated. The last thing we need in TS is MORE advertisements!!! (especially ones that walk up to you!)

[stache]

They used to say, "Want a date?" :D

[MidtownGuy]

It's been done, and in my eyes it's been a booming success. Since they've closed the portion of Broadway to cars, it has become a very pleasant place to hang out.

In fact, New Yorkers are enjoying it right along with the tourists. This New Yorker included. I barely went there before, but now I've found myself taking a walk over there several times a week.

For the critics who thought this would dampen the energy, or damage business...no way! I have never seen the area so lively.



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[MidtownGuy]

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[MidtownGuy]

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[The Benniest]

Great photos MTG! Thanks for posting 'em! :cool:

[meesalikeu]

totally agree with everything you said. it's wonderful now. remarkably even ok for us local yokels to visit...and who would have ever imagined that?!!

[ablarc]

Holy Cow!

[NYatKNIGHT]

I agree too, it is a vast improvement. Great energy.

[BrooklynRider]

I'm not loving the beach chairs. It looks a bit like Coney Island at the end of July 4th.

[ZippyTheChimp]

This is what I was talking about in the TKTS Booth thread - NYers aren't avoiding TS.

[Haz]

Hmm, Well i am a little skeptical about the new rules and layout of Times Square. Infact i'll Probably continue to be until i see it for myself first hand. I think it's already been said in this thread, that i believe apart of the attraction and appeal that times square generates is the fact it's absolute organized chaos! The image of my first introduction to times square will always be etched into my memory as it had such an impact on me. I decided that i wanted to see it at night time for the first time, to really get the true appeal of times square. What a great decision that turned out to be. As i was walking down one of the side streets leading to 42nd. I was totally unaware of where i was in relation to Times Square as i was talking to my sister at the time. Then all of a sudden as if a bomb had exploded i hit the corner of 42nd and 8th(??) Never in all my life have i had somthing crop up on me like that What initially was a peaceful walk turned into total madness. As i was blinded by the lights. Then all of a sudden i had to watch myself as a Cab driver came screaching around the corner, the lights bouncing off the yellow paint to give it a great shine. Was just the most amazing expierence ive had, what a Buzz!! haha. No other city comes close in that regard. Then ontop of that everyone was jousting for thier position for thier right to be on on times square...Bloody awesome!! For the rest of the time i spent on times square that night i was looking up at the buildbords whilist trying to stay alive haha..i looked like rain man.
Altho i can totally understand the safety aspect of the new rule. Apart of me wonders in return has it lost that crazy felling you get when you are in times square that drew the crowds from all around the world....

[MidtownGuy]

part of the attraction and appeal that times square generates is the fact it's absolute organized chaos!It still is, don't fear. The crowds from all over the world are still there, Haz. They are more than ever.
The crazy, chaotic feeling is still there too, because 7th avenue still has a river of cars passing through. Plus all of the side streets. So you see, you have the best of both worlds. The only thing that has changed is that now people get an equal importance and availability as cars do. It feels MORE dynamic than it did before.

7th avenue: car traffic
Broadway: People traffic
So, everyone gets some love. What's wrong with that?

Clearly something had to be done. Anyone that disagrees clearly has not recently witnessed the size of the crowds previously bursting from the edges of the sidewalks.

As for the lawn chairs: they are fulfillling a temporary need. More permanent furniture will be on the way.

[Haz]

It still is, don't fear. The crowds from all over the world are still there, hof. They are more than ever.
The crazy, chaotic feeling is still there too, because 7th avenue still has a river of cars passing through. Plus all of the side streets. So you see, you have the best of both worlds. The only thing that has changed is that now people get an equal importance and availability as cars do. It feels MORE dynamic than it did before.

7th avenue: car traffic
Broadway: People traffic
So, everyone gets some love. What's wrong with that?


Wasn't condoning the decision. I was merely saying that i hope it doesn't get rid of that madness that has made times square what it is today. Im sure im thinking it a lot more dramatic then it actually is. Lets be honesty nobody can have a truly representive view unless they have seen it. My knowlege of where exactly it's taking place is a little hazy as im not that certian where everything is. Glad to hear that it hasn't lost that madness.:cool:...So have the NewYorker's taken it in a positive way?

[lofter1]

It's still chaotic, but much easier for pedestrians to make their way through from Point A > Point B and beyond.

I wish they'd widen sidewalks on some of the side streets -- or take away a lane of traffic on a few of them.

[BPC]

My office overlooks Father Duffy Square and so I have witnessed the transition. I can only say that the new configuration has been a resounding success. Traffic actually flows much more smoothly, and a great new pedestrian space has been created. Obviously, the new space could stand for some aesthetic improvements beyond the beach chairs and orange barrels, but that will come with time. What is important for now is that space in Times Square is being allocated sensibly for the firts time in decades.

[Haz]

It's still chaotic, but much easier for pedestrians to make their way through from Point A > Point B and beyond.

I wish they'd widen sidewalks on some of the side streets -- or take away a lane of traffic on a few of them.

Maybe the DoT didn't wanna go all out first time and change everything. Probably did this as a tester, see how it's received and how successful it is. If it is indeed a success which it sounds as if it is. Then they might take other areas into consideration.

[ZippyTheChimp]

This project, and similar ones like Madison Square and Meatmarket, were done quickly using funds directly from the DOT budget. If something permanent had been planned, it would have involved a capital expenditure where funds are allocated, contracts put out for bid and awarded. A longer process.

And you're right that if the experiment bombs, they can easily dismantle it. Right now, the important thing is that the area is claimed as pedestrian space. Over time, as people (and traffic) accept it as normal, a project can be proposed to do something more permanent.

[stache]

They would still have to figure out a way to let emergency vehicles next to those buildings.

[lofter1]

When Mike gets reelected everything will change. He'll see it as a mandate to go forward with his pet programs.

Prediction: One of his first deeds will be to try and outlaw smoking in NYC Parks.

[Ninjahedge]

It's still chaotic, but much easier for pedestrians to make their way through from Point A > Point B and beyond.

I wish they'd widen sidewalks on some of the side streets -- or take away a lane of traffic on a few of them.

Agreed. What would probably work is prohibiting (and TOWING) vehicles on one side of those streets.

The side roads should not be the parking garages for delivery trucks and livery cabs.

Hopefully this is one small step to make cars an INTEGRAL rather than DOMINATING aspect of areas like Midtown.


They would still have to figure out a way to let emergency vehicles next to those buildings.

Not really. You only have, at most, one half a small block to get into these areas. If they really wanted to make sure they could get a truck in there, they would only have to make the bollards either removable or retractable (like in Barcelona), and make sure they had a lane they could pass through if needed (nothing permanent installed like benches).


When Mike gets reelected everything will change. He'll see it as a mandate to go forward with his pet programs.

Prediction: One of his first deeds will be to try and outlaw smoking in NYC Parks.

I think that is a bit silly. Although I WOULD like us to take after Japan a bit and consider cigarette butts as LITTER. Good luck on that, seeing how many cops like to flik their butts to the street.

Maybe we can get the Shanghai Gum Law!!! ;)

[Derek2k3]

Nice photo thread of the recent changes in Times Square. You really feel like your at the center of the universe there.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=172684

[ablarc]

They used to say, "Want a date?" :D
"Want to go out?" is what I remember.

[Fabrizio]

Ok clobber me, but those shots of the new traffic-free Times Square look just so uninteresting and less special.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/DSC_0206.jpg

[NYatKNIGHT]

Less special than what?

[ablarc]

^ Well, to me it looks like Coconut Grove, Miami, FL. That is less special than Times Square 2008 and Times Square 1978.

Suburbia in the city.

[Fabrizio]

They've made TimesSquare look like Universal Studios City Walk.

[MidtownGuy]

That is less special than Times Square 2008

You guys are just wrong, or at least should wait until you see it in person.
Judging from pictures? Foolhardy.
That picture above shows nothing of the energy. It's a curious picture to choose as a way of representing the reality of the place. Is that like the emptiest picture the poster could find to make their point?

Most of the pics fail to show any of the huge river of traffic STILL flowing right through it all down 7th avenue at the back of whoever took that picture.

Times Square in 2008 was unwalkable...at the point of being avoided by New Yorkers unless they worked there. That ain't special, it's being desperate for change.

People who want to criticise this from a distance should reserve judgement until they have gone there at 10 pm on any night and experienced the turnaround that has happened for themselves. I live walking distance from Times Square and hardly went there for years. Now I'm there a few times a week. Do I like Coconut Grove? Hell no, but I do like the new Times Square.

It feels balanced: one side of the bowtie is a river of cars, the other side of the bowtie is a river of people.

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This is not Universal Studios. This is not Coconut Grove.

[lofter1]

The biggest positive is that a pedestrian doing business in the area can actually move about without doing the Dodge-the-Tourist two step.

Visually it's lousy. Farther north on Broadway (near 57th) they've actually built curbs and planted some trees out in the area that used to be roadway. If the TS section becomes permanent they'd be wise to do some major reworking of the surface-scape.

[MidtownGuy]

Visually it's lousy.

I assume you're talking about the road surface/furniture, and not the river of people walking, talking, eating, sitting, and laughing??

[ZippyTheChimp]

Gee, you mean there are other pictures that show a different perspective?
I had no idea. :rolleyes:

At any rate, there's already talk of a permanent installation, so I guess the traffic aspect is a success.

[MidtownGuy]

^excellent


Farther north on Broadway (near 57th) they've actually built curbs and planted some trees out in the area that used to be roadway

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3494/3842223417_208bc9213c_o.jpg
not the greatest photo, but it shows one of the trees they put in.

[lofter1]

I assume you're talking about the road surface/furniture, and not the river of people walking, talking, eating, sitting, and laughing??

Yeah, the "scape" aspect of it.

This has been my area of business for 30 years. That river, while now entertaining & fun, had -- when its flow was confined to sidewalks -- made moving about the area ridiculously troublesome. Which is why this re-vamp is over-all a great plan.

[Fabrizio]

Visually it's lousy.

Traffic free and crowds is fine, but right now I'm seeing cheap tables and chairs and a slobby look. For me it's a question of urban design and street amenities that are worthy of a great city. The steps look great and I like the way that kind of structure directs a crowd. I would not want to see trees and greenery... but proper bences, the encouraging of side walk cafes, wide open space for milling about... but IMHO the arrange-your-own-chair-&-table thing looks out of place... just not the right direction.

[MidtownGuy]

It's been said repeatedly that the street furniture and streetscaping is not finalized. They've already gotten rid of the lawn chairs which had everyone distracted from the greater concept. Naysayers were fixated on those for a while, like the "death panels".

People need to look at the big picture and focus on the overall improvements to the area...details like what chairs to use will evolve with time.

[ablarc]

They've already gotten rid of the lawn chairs which had everyone distracted from the greater concept.
Can we pick those up for 10 cents on the dollar (us suburnanites)?

[Fabrizio]

They've already gotten rid of the lawn chairs which had everyone distracted from the greater concept. Naysayers were fixated on those for a while, like the "death panels".


I have to admit that lawn chairs in Times Square did get me a little distracted from the greater concept. Lawn chairs have a way of doing that.

Although I wouldn't quite equate them with Death Panels...

(now that's an idea: executing suburbanites gone-wrong in the "Electric Lawn Chair")



It's been said repeatedly that the street furniture and streetscaping is not finalized.

I did not see that being said repeatedly here, but if that's the case that's good.

For me closing the streets and redirecting traffic is the easy part... making the whole thing look good and not like other pedistrian mall tourist destinations will be the hard part.

Perhaps the experience is wonderful and I can only comment on that after being there ...but we are are commenting on the photos shown: For now? IMHO it does not look good.

--

[ZippyTheChimp]

This isn't a done deal.

I think we discussed the temporary aspect of the installation procedure in one of the other threads - either Madison Square or Gansevoort.

Not just the furniture, but the entire reconfiguration is temporary. If it was permanent, there would have to be a demapping proposal which would get voted on in the City Council. There would have to be rerouting of infrastructure, like sewer lines and drains. Funds would have to be allocated to a capital project, with contracts going out to bid.

What was accomplished was done in a matter of months. The DOT was responsible for the work, and the money came out of its operating budget.

If traffic problems were discovered after the change, they had to be able to revert back cheaply and quickly.

I'm not sure, but there may be a legal consideration to putting something permanent down, like a kiosk, unless the street is demapped.

-----

If you go to the large cobblestoned space in Gansevoort, you'll see that new traffic flow was laid out with painted lines, the pedestrian zones defined by heavy objects - granite blocks and planters.

The permanent design may have the same pedestrian zones, but it will look different. One of the ideas is to raise the street to sidewalk level, and define the sidewalk border with street-furniture.

[MidtownGuy]

Although I wouldn't quite equate them with Death Panels.

Good, because neither did I.
The distractions were being compared, not the lawn chairs.

[ASchwarz]

Why are people fixating on the street furniture and such? This is the temporary trial period.

At the end of the year, they will make final recommendations and then issue a permanent plan.

[Fabrizio]

^This forum is also about design, asthetics... of course there will be people here fixated on the look of things.



At the end of the year, they will make final recommendations

And we'll be interested to see them.

[dtolman]

Here are a few pics from earlier this month - it was really amazing wandering down the middle of Broadway without dodging trucks and cabs... I've seen other pedestrian malls, but none with this kind of energy.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2436/3866306262_ab93f4e6a1_b.jpg http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3467/3865516507_7bd5d81a15.jpg

[MidtownGuy]

Umbrellas have arrived, and new furniture to replace the lawn chairs. Also some planters.
They kick everyone off of the furniture in duffy square at 12 am and everyone off the steps at 1am. WAY TOO EARLY FOR THAT!!! It's still in HEAVY use at that time. People are in chillout mode, and to see how the mass eviction ruins the whole scene is upsetting. The tourists get such a confused look on their faces upon being evicted...like "this is Times Square in the city that never sleeps and you're telling me to get up and go at midnight, like Cinderella?

It will suck to live in New York if the "powers that be" think the main Square should open and close like we're at Disney World.

[Merry]

Without Cars, a Different Sort of 42nd St.

By ALISON GREGOR

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/10/13/realestate/commercial/rail600.jpg
A citizens’ group has proposed building a light rail line to run the length of 42nd Street,
which would be closed to car traffic

With parts of Times Square converted into a pedestrian mall, at least temporarily, some people say they believe the city should take an even more radical step: close 42nd Street to car traffic and build a light rail system to run the width of Manhattan.

The main proponent of this far-reaching proposal is an organization called Vision 42, a citizens’ group with dozens of supporters. It was formed in 1999 by the Institute for Rational Urban Mobility, a nonprofit corporation that finances its initiative with grants from the New York Community Trust/Community Funds Inc. and the John Todd McDowell Environmental Fund.

Vision 42 would like to turn the full length of 42nd Street into a pedestrian mall, while adding a light rail line that would connect the 39th Street ferry terminal on the Hudson River, near the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the West Side Highway, with the 36th Street ferry terminal on the East River, near the undeveloped Con Edison sites on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive.

The light rail system, which would cost an estimated $500 million, would run from terminal to terminal in about 20 minutes, half the time that the current bus system takes, said George Haikalis, an engineer who serves as a co-chairman of Vision 42. He is one of three board members of the Institute for Rational Mobility. Through October, Clear Channel/Spectracolor is running a free public service announcement for Vision 42 on its Times Square billboard at 1567 Broadway between 46th and 47th Streets.

“The real gain here is you could handle three times as many people with roughly the same cost,” Mr. Haikalis said. “A lot of people have expressed interest in this, but have not signed on, because they’re awaiting interest from Mayor Bloomberg.”

While three large owners of real estate on 42nd Street and a real estate company that manages office buildings there have signed on to support the proposal, advocates for Vision 42 said they had not been able to engage the city in a discussion.

“We think the mayor considers this competitive with his No. 7 subway line extension,” said Roxanne Warren, an architect who is co-chairwoman of Vision 42.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s office said it was not inclined to support the proposal and deferred to the city’s Department of Transportation for comment. Scott Gastel, a spokesman for the department, said in an e-mail message, “While there are no plans for a project like this at this time, we are working closely with the M.T.A. (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/metropolitan_transportation_authority/index.html?inline=nyt-org)/N.Y.C. Transit to extend the 7 line, which will greatly improve commuter access throughout the corridor.”

The extension of the No. 7 subway line from Times Square to 34th Street and 11th Avenue would connect Times Square to the Javits Convention Center and the Hudson Yards area, which has been rezoned for development. That development, through taxes and financing mechanisms, will largely support the cost of the subway project, which as far back as 2005 was projected to cost $2.1 billion.

Advocates of light rail, which would stop at every intersection along 42nd Street, said that there was still a need for better surface transportation, since the No. 7 line has no stops east of Grand Central Terminal at Lexington Avenue.

Douglas Durst, the chairman of the Durst Organization, which owns five office buildings on 42nd Street, including One Bryant Park and 4 Times Square, said it made sense to build light rail, which is faster and creates less pollution than buses.

“Real estate people should take a look at what’s happened with real estate values in other cities where there are these walking streets,” said Mr. Durst, who visits pedestrian-friendly Copenhagen frequently, as his wife is Danish. “They’ve increased tremendously.”

Vision 42 advocates said light rail lines in Dallas had stimulated more than $1 billion worth of development. In Portland, Ore., light rail has catalyzed about $1.2 billion worth of development. In Jersey City, about 33.3 million square feet of development is under way, Mr. Haikalis said.

An economic study commissioned by Vision 42 with grant money and done by the consulting firm Urbanomics of New York, projected that about 398 office properties along 42nd Street would have an average increase in lot value of $188 a square foot because of the time saved with a light rail line, a combined increase in value of 4 percent. Jeffrey Gural, the chairman of Newmark Knight Frank, a real estate company that manages office buildings along 42nd Street, said it would make sense to connect the Javits Center to the United Nations, which currently has no subway stop.

“I think light rail would be a great tourist attraction, and I’ve never understood why it never got any support by the local government,” Mr. Gural said.

In fact, a proposal to put a trolley line along the south side of 42nd Street, keeping the north side open to car traffic, has been around for decades. The City Council voted to support the idea in 1994, but Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani let the proposal languish, and it lost steam, Vision 42 advocates said.

Tim Tompkins, the president of the Times Square Alliance, a group that represents local businesses, said that while some board members had signed on as supporters of Vision 42, the alliance as a group had not taken a stance. “There’s two ways to do light rail: one is where you completely close the street, and one is partial,” he said. “If we were ever to take a position, we would want to look at both those options and understand the pros and cons.”

According to Urbanomics’ study, completely closing 42nd Street to cars and adding light rail would increase the pedestrian volume by about 35 percent, producing a proportional annual increase in sales of about $380 million for the street’s 126 retail outlets, Mr. Haikalis said.

Jeffrey Katz, the chief executive of Sherwood Equities, which owns One Times Square as well as the building housing the Renaissance Hotel in Times Square, said he supported the light rail concept, but he would like to see further study of the effect of closing 42nd Street to car traffic.

“I’m skeptical about it,” Mr. Katz said. “We’ve just tried to close down a major artery in Times Square, on the Broadway mall, and the jury hasn’t come back on that yet.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/realestate/commercial/14rail.html?ref=realestate

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
The Vision 42 proposal has been around for years, and we have a dedicated thread (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6036&highlight=vision) about it.

Since that time, much of Broadway from Times Sq to Herald Sq has been closed to traffic, so maybe Vision 42 isn't seen as such a radical idea.

The negative response from the city seems to indicate that they're in a "protect the #7 extension" mode. Maybe that was understandable back when this proposal was introduced and the #7 project was still looking for funding, but it's well underway now.

[londonlawyer]

Vision 42 Could compliment the No. 7 extension. In terms of traveling within Midtown, the No. 7 could be used really only for three stops: Grand Central, Times Square and the Hudson Yards. Therefore, it's not that convenient. It's value is to serve the Yards and make that area more suitable for development.

By contrast, the street cars would make traveling across 42nd Street far more convenient. Due to the traffic on 42nd, it takes forever to cross it on the bus. This train would zip across.

More importantly, wider, landscaped sidewalks would be a boon for pedestrians.

I'd like to see this introduced all of the two-way streets below the park (i.e., Canal, Houston, 14th, 23rd, 34th and 57th).

[Alonzo-ny]

The light rail would hardly compete with the 7 in my opinion. If you are going from GCT to Times Sq you would take the shuttle. I can't see anyone going way deep down to the 7 to go a few blocks. It would replace bus service and probably the shuttle.

[lofter1]

The light rail would connect areas to midtown that the minimized 7 Line Extension apparently will never serve (the Hudson waterfront with Pier 84, tourist boats & the Intrepid Museum -- not to mention the large residential developments along W 42 west of Ninth).

Mr. Tompkins sits idly atop the fence :mad: Seems it's time for the Alliance to get involved, gather the needed info and figure out what would work better for NYC than what we have now, rather than sitting back and doing nothing ...




Tim Tompkins, the president of the Times Square Alliance, a group that represents local businesses, said that while some board members had signed on as supporters of Vision 42, the alliance as a group had not taken a stance. “There’s two ways to do light rail: one is where you completely close the street, and one is partial,” he said. “If we were ever to take a position, we would want to look at both those options and understand the pros and cons.”

[londonlawyer]

One thing that Chicago does best is landscaping. (Charlotte does a great job too.)

Pedestrianizing 42nd Street could also result in a nicely landscaped, tree-lined thoroughfare like Michigan Avenue.

[Derek2k3]

Yea, for whatever reason, the city plants the same boring trees and bushes everywhere. Here in San Francisco I'm amazed by the variety of plants lining the streets, it helps give them their own character. Of course there's a different climate here, but I'm sure there are more that 2 varieties of tree species in the NE.

I could only imagine the red tape involved in planting different kinds of trees in NY - you probably need a 500 page Environmental Impact Statement. You'll need to poll all the pigeons to see if they approve and it would be turned down when the squirrels complain the trees are too tall.

[londonlawyer]

Hi, amigo.

Are you in SF for vacation or for work?

For how long will you be there?

NY really needs to have more pride in itself and have more landscaping projects. For example, if I were in charge, I would close two traffic lanes on every avenue in order to dramatically widen the sidewalks, and I'd add landscaping like on Michigan Ave.

For the putzes who complain about traffic, my response is: don't drive in Manhattan. NY has great mass transit. In this regard, I'd also add an exorbitant congestion fee.

Chicago rules the roost when it comes to the streetscape.

http://www.minnpost.com/client_files/alternate_images/5958/mp_main_wide_michiganave452.jpg

[Derek2k3]

My thoughts exactly. Have you seen how narrow the sidewalks are on Ninth Avenue, you'd think you were walking on a hiking trail next to a highway. Plus since all our garbage is dumped onto the sidewalks, it usually smells and looks awful.

I'm in SF for a little bit of both.

I'll be back in a week and will post some pictures. The city does many things NY could learn from. I really hope city officials aren't arrogant enough to believe the city is the best at many urban planning issues because there is so much that could be improved upon that fellow US cities already have implemented.

[scumonkey]

Have you seen how narrow the sidewalks are on Ninth Avenue, you'd think you were walking on a hiking trail next to a highway.That's because they had to remove some of the sidewalk to widen 9th- so it could handle all the bus/tunnel traffic.

[Ninjahedge]

The light rail would beat the 7 for one important reason. You do not have to go spelunking to catch it. The 7 is one of teh deepest lines out there in some stops!

Not only that, it really does not cross the entire city, and those narrow claustrophobic tunnels are a pain to go hiking through with so many others. Why would I want to PAY MONEY to ride that? I actually WALK faster cross-town (yes, I beat some co-workers into work from Port Authority to the East Side one day... We all could not believe it).

The only problems I see would be the same as for the Ferry shuttle. Too many stops and the lights not being timed for cross-town efficiency. Was it the M42 that was rated the slowest bus in the city with an average speed just over 3mph?


As for pretty trees, I would like that too, but I would rather have cops start enforcing litter laws and things like gum and cigarette butts taken more seriously. We need NYC to be taken care of and appreciated more rather than just lived/worked in.

[ZippyTheChimp]

The #7 is geared toward commuting into Manhattan. There are no stops east of GCT.

Surface transport would be geared toward moving people along a busy street.


The only problems I see would be the same as for the Ferry shuttle. Too many stops and the lights not being timed for cross-town efficiency. Was it the M42 that was rated the slowest bus in the city with an average speed just over 3mph?The situation would change with no vehicle traffic on 42nd St.

[londonlawyer]

... We need NYC to be taken care of and appreciated more rather than just lived/worked in.

I agree. NY has the potential to be a beautiful city if people would simply spruce it up. Landscaping would help. The Broadway malls on the UWS and the median on Park really enhance those boulevards.

[Ninjahedge]

Zip, the problem with crosstown travel is rarely because of teh cars on your road, but with the cars crossing it.

The lights are not timed for quick cross-town travel, so you will still be stuck at 3-4 lights when coming crosstown (I get that when going from in-laws in Queens back to NJ...)

I do not know how they will be able to time the lights w/o ruining the up/downtown traffic flow and how they will expedite the passenger loading/unloading.....

[ZippyTheChimp]

^
If you eliminate left and right turns, in which cars get hung up by oncoming traffic or pedestrians crossing the street, it's much easier to time north and southbound traffic. Especially in Manhattan, where almost all avenues are one-way.

Again, this isn't a speed thing, as long as it beats a 3 mph bus. It's more convenience. If you're at Lex and want to get to 10th Ave, is a 10 min ride a problem?

[Stroika]

I don't understand the logic for light rail on 42nd St. Don't get me wrong, trams are fun, but I haven't heard a good argument for putting one on 42nd. The rationale seems to be twofold: 1) That light rail would reduce the commute from the UN to the Javits Center to 20 minutes from 40 minutes (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/realestate/commercial/14rail.html?hpw); and 2) that tourists would dig it.

Neither of these options seems to justify the $500 million price tag (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/realestate/commercial/14rail.html?hpw) for light rail on 42nd when much cheaper bus enhancements -- such as giving buses the "power" to turn red lights green, introducing quicker ways to pay the fare (e.g., at the stop or with "Oyster"-style cards), and enforcing dedicated bus lanes -- would have the same effect. All of those enhancements were rolled out successfully in London by Jay Walder (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/10/05/2009-10-05_new_man_at_helm_fresh_from_london_aims_for_diff erent_customer_experience_here_th.html), the new head of the MTA, who seems likely to try to implement them here. As for spending half a billion out of the MTA's already-smashed piggybank to please tourists with a gratuitous tram ... it seems unbelievable that New York City would attract any more tourists by adding a light rail (if the Empire State Building and Wall Street can't draw them, the same kind of tram that any second-rate former East German city has surely won't), and 42nd St is hardly lacking in tourist sites.

Trams are great in cities where there are no subways, such as Milan, or in areas of cities where the subway doesn't provide any service, such as in parts of Moscow or Kiev. But putting a relatively short tram line on 42nd St (where you already have good subway and bus connections) seems redundant, unneeded and just plain random -- a bit like the useless and unused vanity Monorail in Moscow, for anyone who's been there. If the tram were to be combined with banning cars from running East-West on 42nd, it'd also ruin the grid's feature of having two-way streets roughly every 9-10 blocks -- not only potentially snarling traffic patterns but upsetting a fairly successful system.

I'd be much, much happier seeing light rail/tramlines rolled out in areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn that need it and have the ridership levels to support them, such as down Second Avenue (should the subway fail, again), in Alphabet City, or in Brooklyn from Red Hook through Downtown Brooklyn and up to Greenpoint, or through Bed-Stuy, or even down through the Gravesend/Bensonhurst area in the southern part of the borough.

[antinimby]

^ Agreed. Light rail on the West Side is so much more needed.

Right now, the entire West Side of Manhattan west of Eighth Ave from the UWS to the West Village (you can say all the way to BPC) has very little to no mass transit.

Even the bus lines are thin and spread out and not really that convenient.

Light rail in underserved parts of Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island can also do wonders in reducing vehicular traffic all around the city.

[londonlawyer]

...Right now, the entire West Side of Manhattan west of Eighth Ave from the UWS to the West Village (you can say all the way to BPC) has very little to no mass transit.....
Light rail in underserved parts of Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island can also do wonders in reducing vehicular traffic all around the city.

I have had these very thoughts on many occassions. Sadly, because the US is addicted to feeding the military-industrial complex and to waging unjust wars, we don't have a dime for sorely needed infrastructure projects.

[Ninjahedge]

^
If you eliminate left and right turns, in which cars get hung up by oncoming traffic or pedestrians crossing the street, it's much easier to time north and southbound traffic. Especially in Manhattan, where almost all avenues are one-way.

Again, this isn't a speed thing, as long as it beats a 3 mph bus. It's more convenience. If you're at Lex and want to get to 10th Ave, is a 10 min ride a problem?

Yep. If it takes me 15 minutes to walk it and I have to pay... Sorry for forgetting, $2.25 to save it while being jostled on a crowded bus......

That is why something like a light rail sounds interesting. If they can get them to go regularly every 10, and you can get from 1st to 10th in 10 minutes, then you will be talking.

Oh, if this would have a seperate ticket option, say "light rail only" for $1 a ride I would be on it in no time. But paying another, what is it now, $80/mo for a 5 minute savings each way?

[Ninjahedge]

I have had these very thoughts on many occassions. Sadly, because the US is addicted to feeding the military-industrial complex and to waging unjust wars, we don't have a dime for sorely needed infrastructure projects.


Well, if they started using some of the soldiers standing there "protecting" us in stations and the like for most of the day to start carrying building materials, help build and maintain our infrastructure instead of just looking scary in DESERT camoflage and a fully automatic RIFLE in Grand Central.... Maybe we would get our money's worth.


I am not begrudging THEM, just our use of them. Similar to the original Iraq invasion where we did not station troops to guard the historical treasures that were stolen shortly after the capture of Baghdad, we have the manpower, but we pay them to stand around and be shot at (on occasion).....

As for no tram, meh. I can see that busses would work on 42'nd if a couple of thnigs were done.

1. GET RID of the extended busses. They are a traffic nightmare in and of themselves. Go Double Decker.

2. Stop all other traffic on those crossroads during commuting times. There has to be an alternative to allow people to get around, but we need to get some clear routes through to maximize volume transportation.

3. Remove free parking. We have WAY too much free parknig in the city. I have no problem with 12/24H meters, but maybe we should start having them more on some of these routes. Maybe premium rates for rush hour parking in some areas.

4. Encouragement to get rid of delivery trucks during congestion hours. Maybe increasing the cost of tickets to them during prime hours? Major discounts to bridge and tunnel before 6am? Maybe even install tracking stations on all entrances and exits to the city and charging them "parking fees" merely to be ON the island....

Oh, BTW Stroika.... The train would not just be for tourists. Port Authority, Grand Central, the LIRR and even Penn Station are right near by. Maybe a line somewhere around 38th street would make a bit more sense (as to hit all 4). I do agree, however, that these guys might help a LOT if they were used to web the cities outer boroughs a bit more. The West Sde would also be nice to have some transport.....

[Merry]

Surveying Broadway’s postmodern pedestrian experience

By Diane Vacca

Last spring, some West Side residents came out against the city’s plan to ban vehicular traffic on Broadway at Times and Herald Squares, fearing the diversion of southbound traffic onto Ninth Ave. would exacerbate congestion there.

Five months after the full implementation of the plan, however, an informal survey found the merchants and residents most affected have noted little or no impact on traffic in the surrounding areas.

Kathleen Treat, chairperson of the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association, said the traffic on Ninth Ave. is “abominable,” but not noticeably worse.

“I don’t think we’ve seen a visible change,” added Christine Berthet, co-chair of Community Board 4’s transportation committee, which hasn’t received any complaints thus far.

“The traffic on Ninth Ave. is always horrific, regardless,” observed Mark Maclean, as he walked his dog along the avenue in the 40s.

In and around the newly created Times Square pedestrian plaza, many people think the elimination of cars is an improvement.

“I think it’s better,” said Carrie Sampson, who works Downtown. “It offers people a place to sit. Right now, it’s cold, so it doesn’t feel as great because there’s nobody sitting there and making use of it. But overall, I think it’s helped the traffic, and it gives people a place in Midtown to hang out. Good for tourism.”

Shirley Charlton, visiting from England, said “pedestrian-izing” is “a brilliant idea so everybody can walk freely and you can take photographs and have coffee.” Her companion added, “They do that in London.”

Still, others are not convinced.

A man rushing to work said things in Times Square seem to be better, but “you gotta watch out when you cross the street, because there’s less traffic and you’re not sure where it’s coming from.”

Others with commercial interests in the area are also less enthusiastic, depending on their business. An owner of several larger nearby properties, who works in the neighborhood but declined to give his name, said there is potential danger in the new design. “People walk around wherever they please,” the person said. “There’s a tragedy waiting to happen to people waiting at the discount-tickets booth. They can step off into Seventh Ave. and get killed.”

Pedestrians cross the street randomly, the property owner explained, because there are no wrought-iron barriers as at other busy intersections in Manhattan. The person also noticed “a lot of east-west congestion” between 44th and 47th Sts., all the way up to 57th St.

Stan O’Connor is a “green” tour guide who operates a pedicab. In late November, pedicabs were banned from bike lanes, and now he’s constrained to pedal alongside cars, which forces him to slow down traffic. “I don’t see any benefit for myself or for pedicab drivers,” he said. “There is no bike lane on Broadway. The pedestrians have the whole thing. The bike lane goes to Seventh Ave., and it’s OK, but it’s not great.”

Raj Sikder, manager of the Raj Delicatessen on the corner of 47th St. and Broadway, has noticed a drop in his business, though he doesn’t attribute it solely to the new traffic pattern. The economic recession hit at the same time cars were removed from Broadway, he noted, so both factors must be taken into account.

At 44th St. and Broadway, Tarek Abdel Meguida said business at his hot dog stand has been “very slow for two years now.”

Yet others have clearly benefited.

“I’ve seen some [business] going down,” said Patrick Grant, who carries a sign directing people to a nearby comedy club. “But that was happening before they even closed [the street to traffic], with the economy going south. There’s more people walking because now they have a pedestrian walkway, so they’re not all crammed onto the sidewalk. Later at night it’s easier,” he explained, because some of the vendors who occupy sidewalk space are gone. “For us it’s better,” Grant added. “People can read my sign and walk over.”

Angel Martinez, who works at the Sunglass Hut in Times Square, likes the new arrangement. Business is better, he said, because “There’s more [foot] traffic, less cars. It opens up traffic flow for the tourists to walk around better.”

Area business and civic organizations are awaiting a report with the results of a comprehensive study by the Department of Transportation regarding the project.

The study, done in conjunction with the mayor’s office, will analyze traffic and pedestrian volumes, traffic speeds, injuries and fatalities since the project’s completion in August. The report is expected this month, though the DOT is still soliciting feedback on the project on its Web site.

The Times Square Alliance, the local business improvement district (BID), has nearly completed its own survey of people’s reactions to the pedestrian walkway and its effect on traffic and business. Alliance president Tim Tompkins said his organization queried people who work at Times Square, New Yorkers in general, tri-state residents, individual storeowners and property owners. The study should be ready within two weeks.

On the other hand, Jerome Barth of the 34th Street Partnership, another local BID, didn’t hesitate in calling the project “extremely positive for the neighborhood.” He said it has improved traffic on Sixth Ave. and 34th St. at Herald Square, as well as pedestrian safety. “It’s definitely led to people spending more time outdoors,” and “it’s brought down noise quite a bit,” Barth said. “We see only positives, and we hope that City Hall will decide to continue the program.”

The Broadway League, an association of producers and theater owners, is more measured in its approval. “The test has been fairly successful,” executive director Charlotte St. Martin said in an e-mail.

But the opinion of the membership is not unanimous. “The success of the long-term closure would be dependent on their continuing with traffic supervision on the side streets,” St. Martin noted. “As long as our theater-goers are not inconvenienced, we want to be part of the solution and would like to be in the loop with any changes to the structure of this change.”

Wiley Norvell, communications director for the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, has only anecdotal evidence pointing to the effectiveness of the conversion. He, too, is awaiting the city’s report, and said that “similar experiments in other areas make streets significantly safer, with fewer injuries among pedestrians and cyclists.” Regarding traffic management, he characterized the mayor’s plan as “really an elegant move to tame Midtown congestion.”

Norvell isn’t surprised that the habitués of Ninth Ave. notice no significant change in the traffic flow on that thoroughfare, contrary to their expectations. “There’s a long-standing public perception that traffic’s like water—that when you dam it up in one place, it reappears one or two blocks over,” he said. “New York City has actually proved that false, time and time again.”

Norvell cited the collapse of the West Side Highway and the closing of Fifth Ave. through Washington Square Park in the ’50s, neither of which caused a major change in traffic volume on nearby streets.

“I think the quality of the public space in Times Square and Herald Square is substantially better than it ever has been,” Norvell continued. “There’s so much more room to breathe for pedestrians. In places where pedestrians would literally be pushed into the street because there was so little room on the sidewalk, we’re seeing a much more convivial and world-class public space taking shape.”

http://www.chelseanow.com/articles/2010/01/14/news/doc4b4f743535e37767039296.txt

[Ninjahedge]

@9th avenue:

It was at saturation point anyway. More people would have made it impossible rather than just impractical to drive on. It was not pushed much further by closing down BWay.....

As for some of the complainers, I have no pity for the Pedicabs not being able to use the bike lanes. they are for BIKES, not those double wide slow moving obstructions.
The barriers would probably be a good idea near the areas mentioned, like near the TKTS booth, but I really do not see much different from normal pedestrian traffic. AAMOF, the people that seem to step off into traffic and the like are usually natives, not tourists. The tourists still cross at crosswalks and wait for the signal! ;)

[Merry]

Great photo :).

Slow Going for Broadway Experiment

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/02/02/nyregion/02broadway_CA0/popup.jpg

It has been hailed as New York City’s most radical civic experiment in a generation: cars would be barred from driving along two sections of Broadway in the heart of Midtown. The aim was to reduce congestion in Times and Herald Squares, two of the worst areas for drivers in the city.

Now, a month after the Department of Transportation finished gathering data from the experimental period of the project, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has yet to announce a decision on whether the pilot program will become permanent. Tourists, area workers and businesses have appeared to embrace the new pedestrian plazas, but the effect on traffic flow has remained in the realm of anecdote, and some transportation experts are growing impatient.

The city is keeping its data under tight lock and key. But two officials briefed on the data characterized the results as disappointing, and one said that traffic flow did not meet the department’s goals. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the data had not been made public.

Those goals were outlined in February, when the program was announced. The city hoped that its changes would allow drivers to travel down Seventh Avenue, from 59th to 23rd Street, up to 17 percent faster than before. A comparable northbound trip up Avenue of the Americas was expected to take up to 37 percent less time. The idea, according to Mr. Bloomberg, was that eliminating the congestion where Broadway crosses the two avenues would smooth the way for cars, allowing them to spend less time at stoplights.

Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, declined to respond directly to a question about whether the traffic flow on the two avenues had met the department’s goals.

“An analysis of the project is under way and we will make the report public upon its completion,” Mr. Solomonow wrote in an e-mail message. He declined to say when it would be released.

The stakes are high for the city’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, who has gained worldwide attention for the plan. Ms. Sadik-Khan has taken an aggressive approach toward remaking the New York streetscape to roll back the car-centric policies stemming from the Robert Moses era and create a metropolis more friendly to pedestrians and bicycles. Her actions have earned her accolades and anger in equal measure.

Traffic data will not be the only factor in Mr. Bloomberg’s assessment of whether to continue the program, which barred vehicular traffic from Broadway between 47th and 42nd Streets, and from 35th Street to 33rd Street, creating pedestrian plazas through the heart of Times and Herald Squares. Besides the extension of green lights to expedite traffic flow, other small modifications to lanes and the street grid were made and furniture was set up to accommodate tired and hungry tourists.

Local business groups have surveyed their customers about the project, and reviews have mostly been positive. The Times Square Alliance, the local business improvement group, queried New Yorkers who work in offices near Times Square; most said they were happy with the improvements, noting that the square had become more hospitable as a lunch destination.

“I’d still be hearing complaints if anyone out there was an unreconciled opponent,” said Dan Biederman, president of the 34th Street Partnership, a Herald Square business group. “We hope the mayor continues it.”

Robert Paaswell, a transportation consultant and the interim president of City College, said that Ms. Sadik-Khan has accomplished in a small section of the city what London did with its central city congestion pricing plan.

“She’s created that outdoor perspective that other people live in in Paris, and London, and Rome,” Mr. Paaswell said. “That’s the most positive thing about it.”

Still, when the project was announced a year ago, the chief aim was to reduce congestion, and some argue that this has not been achieved.

At a meeting in late January, Evgeny Freidman, who runs a taxi management company and sits on Community Board 5, which oversees Midtown, said the public needed more concrete information about the project’s impact on traffic.

“You want us to support it since it’s already here,” Mr. Freidman said to the board’s transportation committee, noting that his drivers had reported trouble getting through Times Square.

The re-engineering of two of New York’s popular destinations drew admiration and derision from city dwellers and stand-up comics alike. David Letterman deemed it a petting zoo for tourists; art critics considered the kitsch of the beach chairs the city set up. Others didn’t blink.

“The city is always doing something that’s a pain,” quipped Barry Gosin, chief executive officer of Newmark Knight Frank, who said he had heard no complaints from his commercial real estate brokers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/nyregion/02broadway.html

[Ninjahedge]

A reduction in congestion should not be the primary goal. The less congestion you achieve, the more cars will use it and the more congestion you will get.

I wonder if the volume has gone up on these roads.....

Anyway, the primary concern should be, are there any NEGATIVE effects on traffic for putting in what could be described as an AMENITY for times square. You get a nice outdoor seating area in one of the biggest tourist spots in the city and it is more important that your Taxi trip is 17 minutes shorter downtown? (look at the picture. How many other cars do you see there?).


Phegh!

[futurecity]

Why are cars always prioritised over pedestrians in this ridiculous city? Its not even a proper pedestrian area anyway for goodness sake. Look at that massive road. NY could be a much better city if people were a little more progressive thinking...perhaps a proper pedestrian avenue somwhere in this city with a tram? I mean, you can't call that a pedestrianised zone from that view above -- its better than nothing however. The fact that they are even thinking about restoring traffic is outrageous and makes a mockery of Bloomberg's so-called green plan.

[MidtownGuy]

Most everybody seems to want it kept this way. I know I do. It's been great for people in Midtown. Locals and tourists alike.

[BrooklynRider]

It seems to be as practical issue for the nation's most populous city to have a pedestrian only throughfare. I don't believe cars should be predominant over all other forms of transportation. I'd support putting road repair and construction on the back burner to get some trolley, lighhtrail, and sbway line extensions started - AND COMPLETED.

[Merry]

Times Square pedestrian zone will remain closed to cars

By Adam Lisberg

The crossroads of the World has forever lost its crossing.

Broadway will remain permanently closed through Times Square after an eight-month tryout that infuriated cabbies but delighted tourists.

Mayor Bloomberg is set to announce the decision Thursday morning after weighing the complaints of area businesses against City Hall's statistics.

One person familiar with the conclusions said traffic speeds increased slightly on Seventh Ave., but less than the 17% improvement DOT engineers predicted.

The number of crashes in the heavily congested area was down sharply, the source said - helping cement the decision for Bloomberg.

"If lives are being saved, it's really hard to argue with," said Transportation Alternatives spokesman Wiley Norvell.

The closure turned Broadway from 47th to 42nd Sts. into pedestrian plazas, which were filled this summer with people lounging at chairs and tables.

Bloomberg promised to study the effect on traffic, pedestrians and businesses closely, then announce a decision by the end of last year. The delay has fueled speculation that the results were disappointing.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/02/11/2010-02-11_somethin_fishy_going_on_in_times_square_.html

[MidtownGuy]

Excellent. Curiously the Daily News is using an old photo of the lawn chairs that were long since replaced, to make it all look silly no doubt.

[Derek2k3]

I think there's lots of room for improvement, which will require more than just paint and chairs, but this is a step in the right direction.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Now that the reconfiguration is permanent, the city can move forward to demap the streets. This would allow the use of capital funding for a more comprehensive redesign.



The Man Who Closed Times Square to Traffic

By Matt Frassica
January 26, 2010

Standing along a busy downtown Manhattan street, Mark Gorton lamented all the traffic.

"It's not that cars are inevitable; it's that we've tried really hard to jam these cars in here," said the founder of The Open Planning Project (TOPP), a nonprofit dedicated to transportation reform. On a wall of the nonprofit's office, just north of the vehicular chaos of Canal Street, sprawls a map of Manhattan. To Mr. Gorton, it represents a kind of Platonic Ideal—that of a city designed before the automobile and, therefore, destined for a future in which cars are banished.

"With a little bit of effort, they go away," he went on about the abundance of cars, as if he was up against a deeply dug-in army. "And, actually, congestion goes away, traffic moves better, people move faster, it's safer for kids, it's better for the environment."

Lanky with a head of wiry black curls, the 41-year-old, who also founded the file-sharing service LimeWire and the hedge fund Tower Research Capital, is the Ralph Nader of congestion. He's voluble on the subject, given to dispensing idealistic predictions about Americans forsaking their cars for bikes and buses. Last year's congestion pricing debacle may have proved that New York drivers aren't so sanguine about that prospect.

Still, Mr. Gorton has been right before: The tangible, everyday fruits of his influence, through TOPP and other initiatives, include the pedestrian plazas in the meatpacking district, beside Madison Square Park, and in Herald and Times squares, along with miles of new bike lanes installed since Mayor Bloomberg appointed Janette Sadik-Khan as transportation commissioner. As the mayor decides in the coming months whether to make the Broadway plazas permanent, and the Department of Transportation implements bus-only lanes on First and Second avenues, the streets of Manhattan will continue to be remade Mr. Gorton's way.

Mr. Gorton stood among dozens of Buddha statues a few blocks from TOPP, in the office of Lime Group, his umbrella company. He wore a blue shirt untucked, with its top two buttons undone, and a pair of khaki jeans. He speaks loudly, and when finished with a thought he seems to withdraw slightly, as if surprised by his own vehemence. He seems like the kind of guy you might have bought physics notes from in college. Like many such young men, he went into finance. Like not so many, he was astoundingly successful.

HE STARTED THINKING ABOUT road design 10 years ago, during his harrowing daily bike commute from the Upper West Side to his office. "Almost getting killed a bunch of times really focuses the mind," he said.

In the early 1990s, after getting his M.B.A. from Harvard, Mr. Gorton moved to New York and got a job on the proprietary trading desk at Credit Suisse First Boston. In 1998, he left to start Tower Research Capital, a quantitative hedge fund, with a combination of his own money and contributions from friends and family. After a couple of years, Mr. Gorton discovered that Tower needed faster execution for its trades than any of the electronic brokers could offer. So he started his own, Lime Brokerage. But his heart wasn't in it. "I realized that what I liked was starting the company."

So, in the spirit of the tech boom, he started looking for the next company to start. His main obsession was street design, so he conceived TOPP as a transportation advocacy group in the mold of a software start-up. Getting Americans to give up their cars would be an impossible feat, but by 1999 it seemed like only an insoluble problem could keep Mr. Gorton's attention.

TOPP is a cross between a software start-up and a progressive policy think tank, and is made up of several smaller working groups. One group customizes and provides tech support for open-source mapping software that transit agencies use to keep track of their routes. Another works on applications that make it easier for people to communicate with city agencies-letting cyclists propose sites for bike racks to the city's DOT, for example. Another group produces Streetsblog, an opinionated blog on transportation issues.

Mr. Gorton "has a borderline obsessive sense of urgency," said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group formed in the early 1970s. "He dreams about this stuff. He thinks about this stuff in the shower every day. He's taken with this notion that we can dramatically improve our cities, our quality of life and go a long way toward solving the world's problems along the way."

Under Giuliani and Bloomberg's former transportation commissioner, Iris Weinshall, there was no question that city streets existed for cars alone. Despite installing about 200 miles of bike paths, Ms. Weinshall focused on increasing the efficiency of automobile traffic.

In 2003, TOPP was still a small group of programmers and planners with more ideas than practical know-how. The 30-year-old reform group Transportation Alternatives had a staff full of activists who were veterans of New York's bike-lane wars. According to Mr. Steely White, Mr. Gorton said over lunch that "he was very, very passionate about the cause" and had considerable resources to offer. He soon became Transportation Alternative's largest single source of funding, and now provides one-fifth of its $2.2 million annual budget.

But that funding came with strings. Mr. Gorton wanted a big-picture approach to reform, with an emphasis on livable streets, the idea, widely held among European officials and urban planners, that streets are not just arteries for cars but public spaces to be shared by pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit. He envisioned an larger group called the New York City Streets Renaissance that would publicize these ideas through public events and activist networking.

"He can be kind of a pain in the ass sometimes," Mr. Steely White said fondly. "He has very specific ideas about where the movement needs to go. That can be a little off-putting to some people."

Mr. Gorton hosted events with business improvement district members. He also flew in experts like Danish architect and planner Jan Gehl, and Enrique Peñalosa, who as mayor of Bogata had instituted an annual car-free day.

In 2006, Mr. Gorton launched Streetsblog to push livable streets. "We had this audience of one," said former Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek, referring to then deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding, Dan Doctoroff. "We wanted him to know that New York City transportation policy was really an embarrassment. We were being lapped by London and Paris."

Streetsblog held up European cities' policies-like slower car traffic and bus rapid transit lanes-as examples of best practices. "That's probably been their greatest impact to date," said Jon Orcutt, senior policy adviser for the DOT. "When they go to Europe and they bring back new ideas, we take a look. It just heightens the conversation in general."

MS. WEINSHALL RESIGNED resigned in April 2007. Her replacement, Ms. Sadik-Khan, was more sympathetic to livable-streets ideas. She had overseen long-term transportation planning under Mayor Dinkins, and was known for having a reformist policy bent. She brought in top aides from Streets Renaissance. In line with PlaNYC, Mayor Bloomberg's 25-year scheme for managing the city's growth, Ms. Sadik-Khan has started enacting those plazas and bike lanes proposed by Mr. Gorton's campaign.

Gale Brewer, a councilwoman representing the Upper West Side, credits Mr. Gorton with building a constituency for the changes. "Janette did it, but she couldn't have done it without the support of Mark and TA."

Mr. Gorton had produced results, earning him the grudging respect of more veteran activists, according to Mr. Steely White of Transportation Alternatives. "He won over people who initially saw him as a pushy billionaire type."

Inside the DOT, Streetsblog is considered part of the mainstream media, according to Mr. Orcutt. They have been effective at "giving voice to the constituency for these projects when these things are being debated." But even Mr. Gorton finds life difficult without a car-he confessed, sheepishly, to owning a Chevy Suburban, citing his four children. "I recognize it's a sin every time I get into it, but until the world is better planned and there are better transportation options, there's a certain amount of necessity for it."

Still, Mr. Gorton is no limousine liberal, according to Ms. Brewer, who says she often spots him riding around the Upper West Side with his daughters. "He has a bike that fits them all."

editorial@observer.com

[Merry]

Closing the Crossroads

New York to keep Broadway plazas, plan major redesign

http://www.archpaper.com/uploads/image/TimesSquarePlaza.jpg
The city will soon rework its Broadway plazas, which were installed in August.
Courtesy NYC DOT

With a half-foot of snow all but cleared away and the sun shining down on Times Square, the “Crossroads of the World” had returned to normal this morning. Taxis whizzed by on 7th Avenue as tourists gawked, salarymen brushed by, and pedestrians milled about the new plazas (http://www.archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=3301) created on Broadway, where cars ruled until the city’s Department of Transportation shut them to traffic in May.

http://www.archpaper.com/uploads/TimesSquarMap.jpg (http://www.archpaper.com/uploads/TimesSquarMap.jpg)
A map of western midtown showing the changes to traffic speeds after the closure of portions of Broadway. (Click to enlarge)
Courtesy NYC DOT

Today, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced that the plazas would become permanent, and said the city would soon be putting out bids for short- and long-term improvements to them. “It’s going to be innovative and sustainable and celebrate the most famous streets in the world,” the mayor said at a Times Square press conference. “The project gives a green light to pedestrians, to mobility, and to safety. The new Broadway is here to stay.” In an interview after the announcement, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan explained that her department hoped to have two RFPs ready by March. One would be targeted at sprucing up the plazas with new paint, planters, and chairs, which would be completed by this summer. This would address one of the few non-motorist complaints about the plazas: A Times Square Alliance survey found that nearly 70 percent of New Yorkers, suburbanites, local employees, and retail managers thought the plazas could use a better design.

“It can be very simple,” Sadik-Khan said. “I’ve seen amazing things done in the Netherlands with nothing but polka dots. And we did a lot already with nothing more than epoxy gravel.”

http://www.archpaper.com/uploads/HeraldSquareBefore.png

http://www.archpaper.com/uploads/HeraldSquareAfter.png
Herald Square, before (top) and after the plazas arrived.
Courtesy NYC DOT

The other, larger RFP is to create a more permanent program for the plazas that not only includes public amenities but also entertainment infrastructure for the various events and performances that take place in Times Square and Herald Square throughout the year. The department is still developing a timeline for this phase of the project.

Among the other issues being worked out, Sadik-Khan would not say how intensively designed the new plazas will be: “That’s why we’re working with the best and brightest in the architecture and design fields, to see what they come up with.” That said, this RFP will only be open to the eight “large firms” in the city’s Design & Construction Excellence program. While this could limit the range of opinions involved in the project, it will greatly speed the process up, as the eight firms are all prequalified for city work.

In addition to announcing the new plaza plans, Bloomberg and Sadik-Khan heralded a department study (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/broadway.shtml) on the effects of shutting down parts of Broadway. The study had become a hot topic after the Times reported on February 1 that the results would be below expectations. This turned out to be true, as travel speeds in western Midtown improved by 7 percent, as opposed to the projected 17 percent when the plaza plan was announced last February.

Sadik-Khan said during the press conference that this had to do with changes made to the plan between modeling and implementation, such as a request by the Broadway League, which represents local theaters, that traffic patterns be altered on 45th Street to accommodate theaters there. Plus, Sadik-Khan added, it was impossible to predict how drivers would react to the plan. “The real world is not the model world, as we all know,” she said.

Still, the mayor insisted that the plan worked, as not only did traffic flow improve, but so, too, did safety and satisfaction in the area. Injuries to motorists declined 63 percent since Broadway was closed, while pedestrian injuries were down 35 percent, and 80 percent fewer pedestrians complained of having to walk in the streets. The Times Square Alliance survey (http://www.timessquarenyc.org/GreenLightforMidtown.html) found that 74 percent of the thousands of people it surveyed favored keeping the plazas.

Times Square Alliance President Tim Tompkins expressed frustration at reporters’ continued questioning about the traffic results, including one or two who harped on a 2 percent decline in southbound travel times. “There’s been a lot of questions about traffic, but most people in Times Square aren’t driving. It’s important to understand it’s more than just a minute or two of traffic improvement. It’s about altering the entire Times Square experience.”

The mayor said he looked forward to extending this new approach to city streets to other areas—something the Department of Transportation *has pursued on a smaller scale for some years now, carving public plazas out of underused sites from DUMBO to the Bronx. Asked what might be next, though, Sadik-Khan demurred.

“We’re doing traffic and safety improvements all over the city,” she said, and nothing more.

Matt Chaban

http://www.archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=4236

[Merry]

New York Traffic Experiment Gets Permanent Run

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

New York’s ambitious experiment that closed parts of Broadway to vehicles last spring will become permanent, city officials said on Thursday, even though it fell short of achieving its chief objective: improving traffic flow.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that a reduction in injuries to pedestrians and motorists, along with a warm response from merchants and tourists, had persuaded him to retain the eight-month-old pedestrian plazas in Times Square and Herald Square, a marquee initiative for his administration that re-engineered the Midtown street grid.

But traffic speeds slowed on many crosstown streets, as well as on Eighth and Ninth Avenues, according to data from more than 5,700 test runs conducted by the Department of Transportation.

There were some improvements, but they mostly missed the city’s targets. Traffic along Seventh Avenue, for example, moved 4 percent faster, but the city had hoped for a gain of up to 17 percent.

Mr. Bloomberg, however, declared the project a success, emphasizing the improvements to pedestrian safety and foot traffic, along with the aesthetic enhancement to an area once associated with exhaust and gridlock.

“It’s fair to say that this is one of those things that has succeeded,” the mayor said. “Not in every way we thought, but in some ways we hadn’t thought about. Not as much in certain areas, but more than we expected in others.”

The change, which banned vehicles on Broadway from 47th to 42nd Streets and from 35th to 33rd Streets, was pitched last February as an innovative way to fight congestion. It quickly became a fascination for tourists and New Yorkers alike, drawn to the curious sight of a pedestrian mall, complete with picnic tables and folding chairs, under the neon lights.

The mayor’s office promised “reduced travel times throughout Midtown,” including an improvement of up to 37 percent along Avenue of the Americas. Travel times along that avenue improved by 15 percent, according to the city’s data.

But Mr. Bloomberg played down the Transportation Department’s test runs and said he was more trusting of separate data collected from GPS devices in yellow cabs. Those numbers encompassed 1.1 million Midtown taxi trips taken between Fifth and Ninth Avenues in Midtown. Of those trips, northbound travel times improved by 17 percent, and southbound trips slowed by 2 percent, but a street-by-street breakdown could not be calculated.

Some transportation experts said the city might have been unrealistic in its goals.

“This is the hub of the incredible demand to be in Midtown New York; the demand for volume to be there is always going to be high,” said Robert E. Paaswell, a traffic consultant and the interim president of City College.
The project, Mr. Paaswell said, “serves the public good, but it doesn’t necessarily reduce congestion.”

Asked about the traffic results, Janette Sadik-Khan, the transportation commissioner, noted that the city’s original projections did not account for tweaks to the plan, like the addition of a right-turn lane on 45th Street that was requested by a group of Broadway theater owners.

Advocates for the project said it had vastly improved safety in the area, pointing to a 35 percent decline in pedestrian injuries and a 63 percent reduction in injuries to drivers and passengers, according to city data. Foot traffic grew by 11 percent in Times Square and by 6 percent in Herald Square, and a survey of local businesses found that more than two-thirds of the area’s retailers wanted the project to become permanent.

Jeffrey M. Zupan, the senior fellow for transportation at the Regional Plan Association, an advocacy group, said that critics could always find fault, but he believed “there was much more gained than there was lost.”

The Times Square Alliance, a business group, surveyed residents and office workers and found that about 75 percent were “satisfied with their experience” in the area, up from less than half in 2007. Although some property owners objected to the design of the plazas, asking that the furniture and pavement be replaced, the majority of businesses said the plazas should be continued.

“It’s shifted the paradigm for what a street and sidewalk experience is supposed to be like in New York City,” said Tim Tompkins, the president of the alliance.

The Bloomberg administration had vigorously guarded its data, even from many of the city’s highest-ranking politicians, and those outside of City Hall scrambled on Thursday to get their first glimpse at the results of one of New York’s most radical experiments in a generation.

“I find it disturbing that nobody outside of the mayor’s office got to take a look at the data or the report before the decision was made,” said State Senator Liz Krueger, who represents the Times Square area. “It leaves one with the suspicion that they didn’t want the public to have time to take a serious look.”

Several city officials — including the comptroller, the public advocate and the chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee — all said on Thursday they would review the city’s findings.

“Too often we have seen this administration decide for the people, instead of engaging them in the process of making our city better,” Bill de Blasio, the public advocate, wrote in an e-mail message. “I believe that while this project has some benefits, we cannot make such a fundamental change to Times Square without first giving the community a greater say in the process.”

Mr. Bloomberg, whose administration has been criticized as too imperious in its social engineering, said the mixed results from the Broadway project would not discourage him from future experiments. “If something doesn’t work, that doesn’t mean you’re not going to try new things,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/nyregion/12broadway.html?ref=nyregion

[Derek2k3]

Even if car traffic got worst this would still be an improvement, maybe some drivers will stay home.

Is it a surprise why everything takes so long and costs so much when every politician and community group wants to put their 2 cents in. There is no way I'd vote for Bill de Blasio.

[Nexis4Jersey]

I'm surprised it worked , I hope they put more around the city. & I hope Jersey City buildings a few.

[Alonzo-ny]

It is a great urban move, I'm very happy this will be permanent. However, it is a little sad that Broadway is no longer continuous. Can it still be called the longest street in NYC now?

[lofter1]

Where Broadway is now was the the longest thoroughfare across Manhattan well before the the invention of the automobile.

[stache]

We can go back to calling it a footpath?

[lofter1]

Or Wickquasgeck Way (http://anthroinpractice.blogspot.com/2009/11/back-in-time-walking-wickquasgeck-trail.html) :)

[Merry]

City not sitting pretty

By ANDREA PEYSER

Hold your breath, New Yorkers.

Imagine a city choc kablock with pedestrian plazas fit for smokers and tourists. A place where driving is a memory, shopping is agony, and fresh air nonexistent.

That's what the Bloomberg administration has in mind, as it travels, full-steam ahead, with plans to turn outer-borough streets into tobacco-friendly parking lots. There is no escape.

Last May, the city inflicted the no-car treatment on its iconic Times and Herald squares, throwing a bunch of tables and chairs into plazas that became an overnight hit with wide-bodied tourists, Gauloise-sucking posers and men who carry their worldly possessions in plastic bags. But these zones are almost unvisited by real New Yorkers.

By any objective measure, the bonehead experiment to turn Midtown into a cow town was a failure. Rather than turning this city into a laid-back, European-style capital, the walkways have, by some measures, turned the city into hell on wheels.

Mayor Bloomberg predicted uptown traffic flow nearby would improve by as much as 37 percent. But his numbers-crunchers at the Department of Transportation said cars sped up just 17 percent uptown. Southbound, they moved slower, by 2 percent. But going crosstown was positively painful -- with traffic slowing some 13 percent. And that was as good as it got.

Some things did improve. Car accidents went down. But how can you explain the additional bike-riding accidents over a year before? And -- holy unintended consequences! -- the tables and chairs now have formed the city's last great outdoor smoking lounge, where Marlboros are welcome, but not kids' lungs.

So did Bloomberg rip down the barriers by hand? Not so fast.

He trashed his own bean counters and went with slightly better statistics gathered by taxi GPS systems. These devices determined that east-west traffic actually improved, but not by the big numbers Bloomberg had hoped. This prompted one city critic to tell me he "is just picking and choosing and making stuff up."

So what's a mayor to do? The only rational thing -- expand the plazas!

Pedestrian plazas are set to grow into the outer boroughs, where leaving your car home -- the mayor's unstated goal -- is often not an option. Bloomberg, who has not yet said what areas he's targeting, wants desperately to put his stamp on his legacy, turning this city into a suburban shopping mall.

Bike-riding advocates, hand-in-glove with the administration in support of walkways, tell me we are likely to have plazas erected permanently in areas where, last summer, temporary zones were put in place on Sundays: Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 78th Street in Jackson Heights, Queens; and Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights are the three most frequently mentioned.

Bike-riding groups are positively giddy.

"It gives you room to breathe," said Wiley Norvell, spokesman for Transportation Alternatives. "We're a walking city. Not all streets have to be all cars, all the time."

But how can you breathe with all that smoke?

Don't mention the plazas to Joseph Aceto, owner of Montague Street Bagels. Last summer's walkways made his business -- already struggling with nausea-provoking anti-smoking posters he's forced to put up -- fall 20 percent.

"People drive by for a bagel and a cup. When they can't do that, they move on," he said.

The merchants take talk of walkways personally. Joyce, a manager at Key Food, said old folks who drop by via Access-a-Ride van would not get their groceries. "It would be terrible."

Said Aceto of the mayor, "He's got his billions already. What does he care?"
Some ideas in motion are proven so dumb, it takes a big man to admit he was wrong.

Let's hope the Bloomberg administration sees the error of its ways.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/city_not_sitting_pretty_VhXprEE5tco5qYDbRTmkAP

[Ninjahedge]

A place where driving is a memory, shopping is agony, and fresh air nonexistent.

Where the hell is he talking about?

1. Driving through midtown has ALWAYS sucked.
2. Shopping? Oh woe is me, I can no longer get anything from the Gap in Times Square, where oh where can I go to find another all the way out her in Rural NJ!!!!?!?!?!
3. Fresh Air? Is he serious? The only time air is fresh here is when it is blowing in from somewhere else (Newark excluded). Although I hate sharing smoke, I never found that to be such a problem walking through TS on the way to and from work....


Anyway, when someone starts off their opinion piece with that kind of weak diatribe, it is hard to get motivated enough to read the rest of the slanted piece of vitriol.....


I think I used that word correctly... I will have to check! ;)

[Derek2k3]

Looks like Cuozza found an intern.
I knew it was from the Post after the first 2 sentences.

[Merry]

It's too silly to be vitriolic. I only posted it 'cause it was so silly that it was mildly amusing ;).

[Merry]

Times Square Paint Job

Matt Chaban

Green Light for Midtown video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEFRL_NxOJg&feature=player_embedded)

Some people have complained (us included) that while Transporation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has done a wonderful job carving pedestrian space out of the streets and parking lots of the city, they could stand to be better designed, more aesthetically pleasing spaces. Nowhere was this more true than in Times Square, where, when the Crossroads of the World were shut down last summer, traffic cones and beach chairs proliferated. Three weeks ago, when Sadik-Khan and the mayor announced they were making the Broadway closures permanent, better designs were promised. Sort of. As Sadik-Khan put it back then:
It can be very simple. I’ve seen amazing things done in the Netherlands with nothing but polka dots. And we did a lot already with nothing more than epoxy gravel.
And so it goes today, with the release of reNEWable Times Square, the short-term, artistic RFP that will do little more than put down a new coat of paint until the eight large-scale firms in the city’s Design Excellence program come up with a permanent alternative.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2554/4174435018_c26500e830.jpg
Herald Square after the fact—check out them polka dots.

ReNEWable is open to artists, designers, and pretty much anyone else living in New York, with submissions due by April 16. That may not sound like much time, but keep in mind we’re talking about adding some colored epoxy in “no more than four colors” creating a “legible and unified scheme.” Not that this is a bad thing. Indeed, as a handful of school kids in Brooklyn showed, it can be quite a good thing. It’s just that we thought we were getting more. In fact, we were under the impression Times Square denizens were demanding more, unhappy with the meager offerings that showed up last year. Perhaps, there wasn’t money for more, though that does cause some concern about how much the designers working on the permanent scheme will be given, not only in terms of cash but also creative license.

After all, this project is already politically charged.

Making it more so, we’ve heard that firms beyond the eight included in the city’s Design Excellence program were asking to be let in. This is probably for the best, though, as Sadik-Khan said previously that Design Excellence allows for a streamlined process—the firms are already pre-qualified for city work—and none of the eight architects—Asymptote, BKSK, Enrique Norten, Grimshaw, RogersMarvel, Selldorf, Snøhetta, and Thomas Pfifer—are slouches. Still, ground breaking won’t be at least until 2012, so let’s hope the reNEWable entrants come up with something lasting, as it’ll be all we have for quite some time.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/4405160204_b3825eb818_o.jpg
Can you create a compelling design for the areas in red? Can anyone?

http://blog.archpaper.com/wordpress/archives/6661#more-6661

[BPC]

The Post column is the dumbest thing I have ever read in my life. There is NOBODY who wants to return Times Square to the way it was. The only issue is how to improve the design now that the pedestrians areas will be permanent.

[londonlawyer]

The Post is such a moronic rag.

[Fabrizio]

These pedestrian areas will only be good if they are given an expensive, dignified formal design of top quality materials.

Any photos that I've seen of this development, in it's temporary guise, is a disaster.

David Letterman had it right: they've turned TimesSquare into a petting zoo. It's San Diego... without the aquarium.

My fix? Well, if you really want to get European: raise the street to the level of the sidewalks creating true piazze. Pave in good stone bricks related to NYC's past. NO asphalt.... no colored flooring.... you want stone. NO chairs, tables and umbrellas in the middle of the street. They should only be reserved for cafes and restaurants with a limit to how far they can extend outward. Absolutely no folding chairs. NO planters. NO benches in the middle of the street... only at the edge at the old sidewalk border.

[Ninjahedge]

That would require a few things that NYC DOT et all are poorly lacking Fab.

Time
Intelligence
Artistic Talent
Money

[Fabrizio]

Also: if this were Europe on a major street closed to traffic in a major city, you'd have hundreds of bicycles riding by. It should be bikes and pedestrians... not picnic tables and folding chairs for God's sake.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Broadway isn't closed; only a small portion (1/4 mile), and it's bisected by a major street that isn't closed.

This is still an area of intense traffic and pedestrian volume (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=294556&postcount=53). No place for bicycles.

[Stroika]

My fix? Well, if you really want to get European: raise the street to the level of the sidewalks creating true piazze. Pave in good stone bricks related to NYC's past. NO asphalt.... no colored flooring.... you want stone. NO chairs, tables and umbrellas in the middle of the street. They should only be reserved for cafes and restaurants with a limit to how far they can extend outward. Absolutely no folding chairs. NO planters. NO benches in the middle of the street... only at the edge at the old sidewalk border.

That's very true. You should send a letter to Janet Sadik-Khan (no sarcasm intended).

[MidtownGuy]

Well I see so many problems with that, I don't know where to start.
So let's just go down the line.


These pedestrian areas will only be good if they are given an expensive, dignified formal design of top quality materials.

Ok so far.


Any photos that I've seen of this development, in it's temporary guise, is a disaster.

Temporary being the operative word here. Haven't we covered that?


David Letterman had it right: they've turned TimesSquare into a petting zoo. It's San Diego... without the aquarium.

Comedy is great, but I see no kernel of truth in that joke. You do understand it was just a funny one liner, right? Petting zoo? Aquarium? Not an ounce of substance. Just funny words strung together to get a laugh.


My fix? Well, if you really want to get European: raise the street to the level of the sidewalks creating true piazze.

Raising street level is great, but you're missing the point if you think this is just about "getting European". More importantly it's about serving specific needs HERE, such as seating. We don't want a barren expanse. We want and need the amenities.


Pave in good stone bricks related to NYC's past.

Sounds good for a place downtown but not in Times Square. It's all about the future. Not old looking bricks. Should be thoroughly modern in aesthetics. Even embedded lights if I had my choice and the city had the money. In any case, I would like the paving to be rather smooth to accommodate the full range of users, such as rollerbladers like myself.


NO chairs, tables and umbrellas in the middle of the street.

One of the main positives of the initiative is having somewhere for area workers, tourists, etc to sit down with their friends or food (brought over from whatever deli or fast food joint...there aren't a whole lot of "cafés" lining Times Square like in St. Mark's Plaza or some other Italian piazze.) It would be nice, but that isn't the reality. We're stuck with things like American Eagle and the M&M store lining the sidewalk. So, in the middle they go. And people love it. As for Broadway Blvd, they aren't in the middle, they are along the side in a dedicated area.


They should only be reserved for cafes and restaurants

Absolutely not. Exclusively cafés and restaurants mean you have to buy something to have the right to sit there. NO. I hate that idea. We don't want that. I see lots of people sitting out there surfing the web, just talking with friends, resting their feet from shopping...my neighbor and I go there now just to sit down and hang out. No purchase necessary, thank you.


Absolutely no folding chairs. NO planters. NO benches in the middle of the street... only at the edge at the old sidewalk border.

You miss the point. We need chairs and seats, free for use, and a certain number of movable ones to compliment whatever more permanent ones are devised. There should be some combination. I see parties of people rearranging chairs and tables to suit their needs, just like they do in Bryant Square, and it works well. Very handy.


And what's the problem with planters? You may have plenty of green around you in your Tuscan arcadia, but we like to see a few flowers and plants contrasting with our beloved concrete jungle. All of the new greenery in Herald Square is a delight and people LOVE it. It's packed. They aren't complaining, or asking anyone to take all the flowers away.

If I wanted to apply inappropriate foreign standards to Italy, I might say a piazza could use some greenery like the plateia of Greece or the squares in Andalucia....some bougainvillea, ficus, a big old plane tree. But I wouldn't do that because of different needs, different aesthetics, different realities. So Piazza San Marco has no trees, and it IS gorgeous, but Times Square is not to be an Italian piazza of beautiful but barren old stone expanses. They are two different things, with different goals and needs.
Color and chaos is a defining part of the Times Square identity.


not picnic tables and folding chairs for God's sake.

I didn't see any picnic tables. Did you? Were they next to the Adirondack chairs?:cool:

[Fabrizio]

That's very true. You should send a letter to Janet Sadik-Khan (no sarcasm intended).


Stroika: if I may ask... what is it about the if-it-were-up-to-me proposals I posted that you agree with, and why?

[ZippyTheChimp]

The suggested design would be more appropriate at Meatpaking (not the area north of 14th St, but south). Auto traffic is more local. One of the ideas for a permanent design is to raise the street to sidewalk level with cobble stones and granite.

[ablarc]

These pedestrian areas will only be good if they are given an expensive, dignified formal design of top quality materials.

Any photos that I've seen of this development, in it's temporary guise, is a disaster.
Right now, I catch whiffs of one of those temporary beaches on the Seine. Or Water Taxi Park.


David Letterman had it right: they've turned TimesSquare into a petting zoo.
He might be putting his finger on the fact that --like most of the country-- this is neither classy nor urbane. When New Yorkers tire of its novelty, its use will approach 100% tourists. Those folks won't tire of it; they'll mistake it for New York sophistication.


My fix? ... raise the street to the level of the sidewalks creating true piazze. Pave in good stone bricks related to NYC's past. NO asphalt.... no colored flooring.... you want stone. NO chairs, tables and umbrellas in the middle of the street. They should only be reserved for cafes and restaurants with a limit to how far they can extend outward. Absolutely no folding chairs. NO planters. NO benches in the middle of the street... only at the edge at the old sidewalk border.
A pretty good fix, imo, but to address Midtown Guy's concerns, I'd maybe add some unassigned and free areas of Bryant-Park-like chairs and tables around the perimeter. Or would that promote chaos (overturned chairs) and theft?

Used to be, in the Luxembourg Gardens, where these chairs originated, sitting down meant an attendant would approach and ask you for the equivalent of about a half dollar, which gave you a ticket you could use for all available chairs. The attendant also kept things just so.

Forget the half dollar, but keep the attendant. He can maybe put the chairs away after 3 a.m.

[Fabrizio]

ablarc: personally IMHO, I'd leave the "unassigned and free areas of Bryant-Park-like chairs" to Bryant Park, vest pocket parks, building plazas etc, but not for a main and important street...let's deliniate activity and purpose. But if there must be, then yes, at the perimmeter.

re: Letterman: yes, I agree that is what he was saying: as it stands now it is neither classy nor urbane.

[MidtownGuy]

When New Yorkers tire of its novelty, its use will approach 100% tourists.

I completely disagree. Neighborhood workers and midtown residents like myself etc. love this and consider it an improvement in our lives and in our options.

This is the interesting thing I'm noting, ablarc: the naysayers seem not to actually live here or not to have actually visited it themselves. Have you seen it's use, watched the reactions on people's faces as they approach? as they socialize, eat, drink, etc.? the real human factor? Is this all an abstraction for you people who don't live here and actually experience it? Armchair experts using some photos and a letterman joke to from an opinion. Priceless.

[MidtownGuy]

as it stands now

Which is not the final plan. And thank goodness yours isn't either.

Oh, and ablarc--they put the chairs away even earlier than 3am. Usually around 1am to my dislike. You see, I actually use the place.

[MidtownGuy]

but not for a main and important street
It's not a street anymore. That's the point.

[MidtownGuy]

They should only be reserved for cafes and restaurants

Who else here, besides fab and ablarc evidently, thinks most of the chairs should be used for people who have to buy or pay for something? I think this is freaking nuts. Why? Why?

[Derek2k3]

I wouldn't mind if they placed some well designed kiosks and shops in the open space and turned it into some kind of market.

Perhaps the shops could be in some sort of enclosed pavilion, where the shops open both towards the interior and the sidewalk. The roof of this market could become an illuminated elevated walkway.


http://images.nymag.com/news/articles/reasonstoloveny/2009/loveny091221_33_560.jpg
Bjarke Ingels of BIG.

Something like this, but the walkway would be continuously elevated and there'd be shops underneath. I don't enjoy how the E-W streets and then 7th Avenue break up the flow of the current configuration.

This low enclosed structure would also allow the plaza areas to be active even during winter months and bad weather.
I'm not sure of the limitations of building anything onto Broadway though; since the subways do run right below.

[Merry]

Just found this older thread while searching for something else:

Times Square : Street Reclamation - Expanded Pedestrian Areas (http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11025&highlight=Times+Square)

[BrooklynRider]

I've merge that thread and this thread. The new thread name reflects that merge.

[stache]

One of the big problems with Manhattan is the scarcity of places to sit without having to buy something. Many times during the course of my days walking through various areas, I look for, long for just a little place to sit for a minute, get a pebble out of my shoe etc. And Midtown you are absolutely correct, people that don't live here would be far better off minding their own business and working on improving their own living areas, even if it means getting out of their cars every once in a while.

[ablarc]

^ Are you perhaps suggesting that Wired New York members who aren't residents of New York should refrain from commenting on New York?

Maybe there should be a residency requirement?

Wouldn't that muzzle or eliminate maybe the majority of our membership?

What good would come of that?

[Stroika]

I'm offended by the suggestion that non-NYers "mind their own business" and keep out. I think many of the non-NY-based forum regulars are as, if not more, passionate and knowledgeable about New York as anyone here -- never mind the other 7.5 million residents who don't give a rat's ass enough to seek out a NY architecture web forum in the first place.

With that said, I think Fabrizio's suggestion is quite an improvement over what is currently in Times Square.

Like any *real New Yorker* :rolleyes:, I don't spend much time in Times Square. Still, I work nearby and occasionally tromp through. The maybe 20 or so times I've been to the pedestrianized Times Square, I've found it to be much as Times Square typically is -- dirty, trash-strewn, crowded, frustrating, and generally not very, er, pretty.

I'm not saying I'm against a pedestrianized Times Square, or that it was better before. But certainly the nonsensical paint job, the adhesive gravel sprinkled about, the cheap street furniture -- it's trashy. But then again, we all know that those accountrements are temporary, so the question is what sort of permanent touches to add.

I think that's a valid question, and whether or not, for example, tables should be part of that semi-permanent solution is a valid question. I am sympathetic to both sides there, and I hardly think that Fabrizio and Ablarc should be chased off the forum for suggesting that the pedestrianized square would be better without tables.

Fabrizio's idea had a rigor, a gestalt to it that the current rinky-dink fixes lack. I don't think it's the only solution, but it's an intellectually honest one (it's not a pastiche, and there are certainly worse places than Italy to rip off -- isn't the vast majority of American architecture and landscape design on some level a rip-off of somewhere else, anyway?).

I still fail to see how the presence of tables became such a touchy subject, but I'd certainly say the European squares that have tables reserved for cafes do a better job than the I-don't-know-what-I'm-supposed-to-be Times Square of today. But then again, a few additional chairs a la Greeley Square wouldn't be a bad idea at all near Fr. Duffy. To my mind, the argument is sort of a wash. I just hope that Janet Sadik-Khan has the intellectual honesty of Fabrizio and Ablarc to do something thoughtful and which doesn't try painfully to be everything to everyone -- especially if done on the cheap.

[Fabrizio]

A couple of things:

First of all, I'm the first to acknowlege that any opinions I give here are based on photos and I can never be as authoritative as one who has actually visited the place. I've mentioned this in other posts. And if you've all noticed, I stated my case but go no further.... I have no reason to convince anyone and don't try too.

Next: I only said "If you you want to get European" because Europe is brought up as an example in the article that Merry posted. And I simply expound on that. But go back and read the thread and note how it is entirely blown out of proportion.

Furthermore: rather than my opinion on the "boulevard" being soooo off-the-wall, as some here would like you to believe , it was met with a positive reaction from: Ninja, from Stroika, from Ablarc. And believe me, I don't post here to garner ageement... I post my humble opinion.

But go back and read the thread. Note the positively bizarre reaction my post ( and ablarc's) got and come to your own conclusion as to what that's all about.

--

[Fabrizio]

(it's not a pastiche, and there are certainly worse places than Italy to rip off -- isn't the vast majority of American architecture and landscape design on some level a rip-off of somewhere else, anyway?).


^ Interesting point that you bring up here. For what it's worth: pre-war Times Square was of course a reproduction of architectural styles imported from Europe.

The centerpiece, the old NYTimes building was, in fact, a replica of the Duomo bell-tower in Florence. Names like the Rialto, the Rivoli (in fact B'way was often refered to as "the Rialto") come from Venice and Turin. Architecture in Times Square during it's golden period was classical, very european (look at the theatres) ... it was not adventuorous.

I am only mentioning this because I believe there is a faction here that is intellectually curious and turned-on by history.

[ablarc]

All of us are used to judging things from photographs; it's not rocket science. I know, for example, that Scarlett Johansson and Leonardo di Caprio are great-looking people --though I've never seen either in person.

Most of us can even venture an opinion from a rendering --an illustration of something that doesn't even exist; surely the playing field is level there for all of us, regardless of where we live.

Stroika, a New Yorker, used the word "rinky-dink" to describe the current state of Times Square; it's exactly the word I earlier chose and then suppressed precisely in order to forestall the response that has emerged.

I know Times Square will be better once a permanent design is made and implemented, but in the meantime, it remains my opinion that the present treatment is --indeed-- rinky-dink.

And I'm fairly sure seeing it in person won't cause a change of mind --though I suppose it's possible.

Maybe if I saw Scarlett without make-up, I'd change my mind about her too (but don't count on it).

.

[Ninjahedge]

The main problem seems to be he Natives apparent resentment over so many cooks throwing things into a pot that some cannot even see for all the chef's hats.

I do not think people are absolutely against some of the ideas, but believe me, many people have on many sites gone at length about what they feel should be perfect for the square.

The thing that is difficult is that TS is not NY as NYers know it. It is how the rest of the world knows it. It is a tourist mecca (much better than the Hooker mecca it once was).

that being said, what might be best for the Square, might not be best for NY

I think they have the right idea with blocking off traffic, and raising some of the platforms would be a pretty good idea as well. Although I also agree with others in including a bit of genuine "public" space in there to go with any patio space allowed to the restaurants and other businesses bordering the parks.

I think the main problem is that we can't do the same as they do in a lot of areas, Venice coming to mind most strongly. There just seemed to be less of a feeling of absolute belonging there. If you needed to sit, you could, but at the same time people did not seem to take advantage of that hospitality as they most certainly would here....

I think that some benches and modest accoutrement's are definitely warranted, but the care and maintenance of anything more would be too prohibitive given our current economical state. That being said, additional encouragement to include and attract absolute service/consumerist industries (such as restaurants) should be explored.

Although I have NO desire to go to the ESPN Zone, TGIF or Red Lobster, maybe making it more pedestrian friendly would encourage a few others to enter the fray. Although I doubt we would get much more than chains, or opulent alternatives being that they would be the only ones that could afford the space!

[ZippyTheChimp]

Regarding classy and urbane:

From almost a century ago, it's been


naughty, bawdy, gaudy, sporty.

[londonlawyer]

I'm offended by the suggestion that non-NYers "mind their own business" and keep out. I think many of the non-NY-based forum regulars are as, if not more, passionate and knowledgeable about New York as anyone here -- never mind the other 7.5 million residents who don't give a rat's ass enoug....

I agree with you. NY and London are among the few cities that are open to the world. Anyone new can come in and be a part of it -- not an outsider. Therefore, we should be open to everyone's views.

[MidtownGuy]

Regarding classy and urbane:

From almost a century ago, it's been


naughty, bawdy, gaudy, sporty.



Thank You. Suddenly it's supposed to be Place Stanislas (http://en.loadtr.com/place_stanislas-405683.htm).

The opposition to free seating (and plenty of it) is moronic and misplaced. Urbanity comes in many forms, so lets give the "urbane" BS a rest and talk about real needs and solutions for THIS place. Times Square.
A barren expanse suitable for Il Palio di Siena is not gong to work here, people.;)

[Fabrizio]

If only TSquare were "naughty, bawdy, gaudy, sporty" in the way those words meant in the 1930's when Dubin wrote them.

Urbane it certainly was.

And classy? Apart from the lights and signs, the TimesSquare area had the among most elegant architecture in Manhattan. Arguably the most elegant.

It was low-brow and low-life meets the cultured and genteel.

It was not suburbia.

[MidtownGuy]

The elegant architecture is now covered in giant tacky signs for things like Bubba Gump Shrimp and Puffy's new cologne. I think it's safe to say that the classy urbane ship has sailed.

[ZippyTheChimp]

No one cared about its architecture. It was a place apart from the rest of Manhattan. In its ups and downs over the decades, that was the one constant.

[ZippyTheChimp]

The elegant architecture is now covered in giant tacky signs for things like Bubba Gump Shrimp and Puffy's new cologne.Back in the day, it was giant smoke rings from a Camel ad.

[Fabrizio]

Well anyway... maybe we can work in some sand boxes and swings, miniature golf... a bocce court would be cool. And maybe an area reserved for shiatsu.

If I were staying in one of those hotels there I'd definately come down in pajamas and robe. In the summer can one wear a bathing suit and get a tan?

[MidtownGuy]

You forgot the picnic tables and Adirondack chairs. It's cute to be all glib and spout one liners, to think of funny words to work into a weak argument...and then there is a time to actually think something through. Having chairs and tables does not equate to sandboxes, no matter how comical you're feeling today.

[Ninjahedge]

Fab, you are describing, in part, Bryant park, about a block away (sans swings).

I do think it needs a bit, akin to that nordic park by the UN (Haamerstein?). They had a nice bricked over area with trees and benches....


Hmm, I wonder how much is running under TS. I know there is a lot, but how much load can it hold? A few trees would make it feel a wrld apart, but I guess they woud have to be along the center so it would not block anybody's view of the "splendor".

[ablarc]

No one cared about its architecture.
I cared.

I did cry salty tears. The Astor Hotel and the original New York Times Building (still there as a skeleton): I mourned them on their deathbeds.

At the wake, very few were architects; they knew this stuff was junk, because that's what their teachers had told them.

You have to be modern, novel, up-to-date. How long has this been going on?

[ablarc]

Back in the day, it was giant smoke rings from a Camel ad.And porn; don't forget the porn.

What mechanism did they use to get rid of the peep shows and the video parlors?

Oh ... I know the internet replaced much of that, but Times Square had, in the words of the immortal sign ... LIVE girls!

Can't get that on the internet.

[ZippyTheChimp]

You have to be modern, novel, up-to-date. How long has this been going on?I'm talking about the roots of Times Square.

Raised cobble stone streets; sidewalk cafes; leisurely bicycling? That seems novel.

[Fabrizio]

This is Columbus Circle with stone brick.... something like this might be nice:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/bricks.jpg

Well if we really want to go back to TimeSquare's roots it once looked like Trafalgar Square meets the Duomo of Florence:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/longacre.jpg

---

Ablarc: some of that very elegant architecture still exists on the side streets.

[MidtownGuy]

"Well if we really want to go back to TimeSquare's roots it once looked like Trafalgar Square meets the Duomo of Florence:"

Who is we? Who said anybody wants to go back to Times Square's "roots"? It now exists firmly in the 21st century and so should new design proposals.

As for the bricks in the picture...lovely for the meatpacking district or something, as we have already discussed. In 21st century Times Square? No thanks. Something more creative and modern would be great here.

[Stroika]

Who is we? Who said anybody wants to go back to Times Square's "roots"? It now exists firmly in the 21st century and so should new design proposals.

I thought the debate was all about what the *real* Times Square is (the consensus answer apparently being gaudy), and how that can't be altered...

I don't know what 21st-century gaudy would be -- probably big M&M's digital billboards :rolleyes:


As for the bricks in the picture...lovely for the meatpacking district or something, as we have already discussed. In 21st century Times Square? No thanks. Something more creative and modern would be great here.

I'm with you on wanting to preserve the essence of T.S. and do something interesting and original, MTG... But there's only so many tricks in the city's bag. What do you have in mind? Personally, I think some nice cobblestones, a few tables to the side, some outdoor eating options and otherwise letting the crowds, architecture and billboards define the space is a decent start...

[Fabrizio]

re roots: Although I'm sure others here got the connection.... note Zippy's post above, "I'm talking about the roots of Times Square."

Mine is a metaphorical response: "Well if we really want to go back to TimeSquare's roots"

[Fabrizio]

Doing something original: valid if that original is something good that ages well. Remember the city spent a fortune duplicating original pre-war lamp posts ... sometimes going to the past is not so bad especially if it is background material and furnishings like streetlamps and pavement. I could certainly imagine good stone brick probably much more tightly set than those shown above.

[MidtownGuy]

"Although I'm sure others here got the connection.... note Zippy's post above, "I'm talking about the roots of Times Square."

Oh, I got your connection...I just don't think it was valid.

[Alonzo-ny]

The hostility and closed mindedness in this thread is staggering.

There can be a balance between quality and modernity in Times Square. I think the tkts booth shows that and is a great move. I agree with some of Fab's points. Mainly about raising the pedestrianised area up to sidewalk level and using quality stone materials. I also like the idea of having lighting embedded within it. Very Times Sq.

Ultimately I don't think anyone can say what Times Square truly should be. It is clearly its own animal, separate from the city and it evolves in its own way.

[Fabrizio]

Embedded lighting: my towns medievel square has imbedded lighting and it is wonderful.

This is Santa Maria Novella in Fir..... a proposal... another was chosen also modern but historical:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/smn.jpg

Uh... before uh....someone says... but Times Square is not Florence...who wants Times Square to be Florence?... or er... whatever of that ilk.... I posted the above as a part of the larger conversation.

---

[MidtownGuy]

I thought the debate was all about what the *real* Times Square is (the consensus answer apparently being gaudy), and how that can't be altered...

Not about what the "real" TS is, but about how we shouldn't try to make it what it isn't. And never will be. Some kind of rarefied piazza that does not serve the needs we are trying to fill. One of them being free, abundant, available seating for the people hanging out- whether they be tourists or locals.


I could certainly imagine good stone brick probably much more tightly set than those shown above.

Tightly set...Yes. Different material....yes. Those rickety old bricks in the picture you presented are not the move. Then I would have no objection.
I'm not going to debate what type of pavers to use, the options are endless...my opposition is towards getting all "fake historical" in this particular part of the city.



I'm with you on wanting to preserve the essence of T.S. and do something interesting and original, MTG... But there's only so many tricks in the city's bag. What do you have in mind?

Stroika, I don't necessarily mean fancy tricks or reinventing the wheel... just the playing with pattern, placement, color, texture...the things we do during the design process. For example, I like some of the pavers used in places at HRP, where some color was worked into them. Let's have options, and let's not be adverse to experimenting with something more intriguing than plain cobblestones here. It's Times Square. Think flair, think excitement.


a few tables to the side, some outdoor eating options

This is where we disagree. I am not in support of a "few tables on the side". I am for abundant seating.
I love going to Times Square and seeing all the different people hanging around and...gasp...socializing. Seating has a strange way of fostering that. Seating that is flexible encouages it even more. I'm noticing lots of random interaction between strangers that didn't happen much before this...you really just had to "move along". There was no there there. You saw some lights, you kept walking. Now people are actually having a good time relating with one another...and here is the key: it is all ages, all nationalities, not just people who can afford (or have the desire) to sit behind the white line at an (inevitably expensive) café. It's accessible to everyone.

[MidtownGuy]

Embedded lighting: my towns medievel square has imbedded lighting and it is wonderful.

This is Santa Maria Novella in Fir..... a proposal... another was chosen also modern but historical:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/smn.jpg

Uh... before uh....someone says... but Times Square is not Florence...who wants Times Square to be Florence?... or er... whatever of that ilk.... I posted the above as a part of the larger conversation.

---

Yes, you see! That IS beautiful, and more imaginative than plain cobblestones. When you have a good suggestion, I will acknowledge it. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[MidtownGuy]

[QUOTEThe hostility and closed mindedness in this thread is staggering.
[/QUOTE]
Oh please.:rolleyes:

[stache]

For some reason there was embedded lighting inside the TKTS plaza area but when I was there about three weeks ago, only one of the lighting units was left, the rest had been replaced with stone.

[Fabrizio]

LOL.... uh Midtown you truly read what you expect to hear. No where in my posts do I say "plain cobblestone"... in fact I never even suggested cobblestones anwhere in my posts.

I did ask for: "an expensive, dignified formal design of top quality materials". And I asked for "good stone bricks related to NYC's past."

That piazza BTW up above, is exactly that. It is in another city with a different past but the design critera is the same.

The photo of Columbus Circle's pavement would be reinterpreted but something like that brick style would be great...good stone bricks related to NYC's past... more closely spaced... a denser stone? Granite?.

Note the pavement (not the foutains) in Florence picture: it too is an update on the past. But design-wise it is securely grounded in the city's culture and history.

--

[MidtownGuy]

They actually never completed the illuminated pavers beyond the two which are at the base of the steps. The others have always been just lighter colored stone from the time the square first reopened. Originally they were supposed to pepper the whole plaza.

[MidtownGuy]

LOL.... uh Midtown you truly read what you expect to hear. No where in my posts do I say "plain cobblestone"No Lol necessary. You said pave in bricks related to the past. Forgive me if I didn't take that to include modern pavers with embedded lighting. Funny how that doesn't automatically come to mind when someone posts pictures of Columbus Circle's roughly spaced old bricks from ages ago. Perhaps you should have just been more clear.

[Fabrizio]

^ Knowing that there are folks here who are used to discussing design, I am secure that they understand that I am not asking for old bricks from Columbus Circle (complete with chewing gum). However, that photo would be on my inspiration board.

(oh never mind)

[ZippyTheChimp]

All of us are used to judging things from photographs; it's not rocket science.It's not so much live view vs photograph; it's film clip vs still frame.


Stroika, a New Yorker, used the word "rinky-dink" to describe the current state of Times Square; it's exactly the word I earlier chose and then suppressed precisely in order to forestall the response that has emerged.Case in point.

[Fabrizio]

"It's not so much live view vs photograph; it's film clip vs still frame."

^ I agree here: there is a big difference. And see my post on the issue.

However, I'm also often skeptical about "the public loves it". The "public" would also love all sorts of thing there.

Good urban design decides usage. How do we really want to use this space.

[ZippyTheChimp]

I agree here: there is a big difference. And see my post on the issue.Don't see how you could, and yet say:
It should be bikes and pedestrians... not picnic tables and folding chairs for God's sake.A photo view. Where do these bikes come from, just appear at 47th St, and disappear at 42nd? And what happens to 7th Ave?


NO chairs, tables and umbrellas in the middle of the street. They should only be reserved for cafes and restaurants with a limit to how far they can extend outward. Absolutely no folding chairs. NO planters. NO benches in the middle of the street... only at the edge at the old sidewalk border. A photo view.

Natives have avoided Times Square because there is no place to sit down. That matters less to tourists, who are pressed for time. The folding chairs were put there to claim the space and build a consensus of support.

I think many people on this forum assume that initiatives in Manhattan that limit traffic get automatic overwhelming support, and they only fail because of lack of political will.

Not true. Besides car drivers, the taxi industry, and retailers who think their businesses will suffer, you just tell everyone else that it will create a mess elsewhere, and you have solid opposition. If the DOT just temporarily blocked traffic and left the space open without providing what people want, support would not have been strong t make this permanent.


Good urban design decides usage. How do we really want to use this space. A contradiction.

[ablarc]

^ Can't really tell what's been said in the last three posts. Too abstruse for my poor brain.

[Fabrizio]

^ Of those 3, one is mine... if there anything that I can explain further to be more clear, I'd be happy to.... and I'd enjoy to hear your viewpoint. As for the other 2: I'm sort of with you there, too abstruse for my poor brain as well. We can start with: "Natives have avoided Times Square because there is no place to sit down".

[BrooklynRider]

I think that the pedestrian area needs to be improved and I agree with the idea that it should be raised to side walk level.

I wouldn't want to cobblestones as it is more apropos for an historic district. I would wasnt something durable and a design comprised of something that is a proven success. The lit pavers by the TKTS stairs are gone mighty quick and they are equally as troublesome over by One Liberty Plaza (Zucchotti Park?).

I also hope they don't go with the granite pavement we see at Hudson River Park, which is in constant need of repair.

Whatever pavement system they come up with, it should be easily cleaned with a power washer every night.

While I like the new pedestrian area of Times Square, I think it looks very haphazrd and slapped together. I guess it is to be expected, since it is only a recent development. None-the-less, it looks like crap.

I think the frenzy of T.S. and the draw of the signage makess cafe style tables and chairs with umbrella or awnings perfectly wrong for the area. The best seating I've seen so far is the baseball mitt seating. It is low to the ground and lends itself to lounging - as opposed to the city park seating as typified by Bryant Park.

I don't particularly care for the baseball mitt design, but the type of seating is appealing.

[Fabrizio]

^"None-the-less, it looks like crap."

Could you be more specific: exactly what is it about the development that in your opinon makes it look like crap?

[scumonkey]

...how about the big painted polka dots on the street (like these at HS)
for one?!
http://aestheticsofjoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/green_herald_square.jpg

[ablarc]

^ How 'bout them orange barrels?

[Fabrizio]

Renderings last year showed a very sober look:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v33/ronaldo/broadway.jpg

^ look at that intersection: if they had left Gimbels alone it be a very historic looking view.

[Alonzo-ny]

If any part of the city needed pedestrianised it was Herald Sq. It always seemed to be busier than I ever saw Times Sq.

[Ninjahedge]

But those barrels are Classic!

they add to the genuine NYC feel. All they need are NJ barriers, construction fences and plywood you cant see through (we all know how hazardous it is to watch construction sites!!!!).

Maybe one of those portable signs with the generator saying "lane closed"?

Magnifique!

[stache]

Part of the problem of raising the curb is emergency vehicles still need to access these areas. I'm sure they will figure something out.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Water runoff.

[Merry]

Pedestrian-mall plan expanding

By MATT WILLIAMS and TOM NAMAKO

Motorists, beware -- there are more pedestrian plazas on the way.

City officials, pleased with the success of the traffic ban in Times and Herald squares, yesterday asked community groups to submit smaller-scale ideas to expand the program around the city.

The Department of Transportation is asking nonprofits to focus on neighborhoods such as Murray Hill and the Upper East Side, as well as Astoria, Queens, and Borough Park, Brooklyn.

The plaza have been criticized for taking space from motorists in an already-gridlocked city and handing it over to pedestrians.

"A plaza is considered to be an area located fully in the right of way -- streets and sidewalks -- which may vary in size and shape," according to the department's guidelines.

But snarling traffic is a big no-no, and department officials said they will "not pursue applications that would produce significant adverse impacts on traffic," the guidelines say.

"Cutting off more streets would be annoying for many drivers, I'm sure. I think New York is already suffering from gridlock bad enough," said Mikayla Gilbert, 32, who was sitting in a pedestrian plaza in the Meatpacking District.

But other pedestrians said drivers have a knack for getting around obstacles.

"There's plenty of other streets around that the cars can get through if they decide to close them off," said Michael Lido, 24.

"It's a cool little area around here," he said about the plaza at Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District, "and I think it will definitely boost its vibe if they make more of them."

It's the third time the agency has called for the suggestions. They approved 22 applications in "round one," in 2008.

Nonprofits have until June 30 to propose plaza designs. If a plaza is approved and built, the community group has to maintain it.

Plazas accepted from this round will likely be under construction by July 2012.

The department will likely get a slew of applications for the Lincoln Center area, where groups are mulling two projects, said Councilwoman Gale Brewer.

One would expand Dante Park, which is right next to the center, and another would improve the open space near Martin Luther King HS at West 66th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

"Anyplace people can sit and talk is a good thing," Brewer said.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/pedestrian_mall_plan_expanding_tJfWski12rF6YIv9jke 9zI#ixzz0kPNiruK7

[londonlawyer]

This is good news.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Astor Pl

[stache]

Double plus good!

[BrooklynRider]

And it is time to pedestrianize Mulberry Street.

[londonlawyer]

Bowery is getting tree-lined medians!

http://www.ny1.com/1-all-boroughs-news-content/top_stories/116775/dot-plan-aims-to-make-bowery-safer-for-pedestrians

[VirtualMuse]

I'm learning how to shoot and edit videos and my first project is this five-minute piece about the pedestrianization of Times Square.
I hope you guys like it! I've been reading a lot of things on this forum but this my first time posting. Here is the link.
http://blip.tv/file/get/WillBradford-StepsToABetterTimesSquare239.mov

[ablarc]

Nice job, Will. Welcome to the forum!