City To Extend Through-Street Program In Midtown

[BigMac]

NY1
October 22, 2004

City To Extend Through-Street Program In Midtown

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The Department of Transportation says an initiative designed to improve the flow of traffic through Midtown Manhattan is working so well that after two years it will be made permanent.

The program designated nine Midtown streets, which stretch sporadically from Sixth Avenue to Third Avenue between 36th and 60th streets, as "through streets."

With the exception of Park Avenue, drivers are not allowed to make turns off those streets from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The idea is to speed up cross-town traffic, and DOT studies show it has worked, speeding the cross-town commute time by 25 percent.

The city is also trying to keep pedestrians safer by increasing the number of intersections where they have exclusive traffic time. "Split signal" crosswalks give pedestrians time to cross without worrying about turning cars.

Pedestrians had mixed feelings about the changes.

"[I feel more] threatened…because I work on 39th Street, so when we're trying cross, even when the light is red, the cars are still coming," said one pedestrian.

"I like the middle-of-the-road crossings that they have. I think they're a fantastic idea, but except for that, no difference," said another pedestrian.

"We are in Manhattan, so it's a fast-paced environment, but as far as the cars, they have like no respect for the pedestrian," said another.

For more information on the through-streets program you can log onto www.nyc.gov/.

Copyright © 2004 NY1 News

[billyblancoNYC]

While it took some getting used to, I think it's better in the long run, both for motorists and peds. It may not seem as evident to most people that aren't driving around, but it has to make for some improvement. I like the idea, for the most part.

[BrooklynRider]

All of Times Square from 57th to 42nd street, between 6th Ave and 8th Ave, should be a "no turn zone"

[Kris]

November 30, 2004

New Midtown Express Lanes Are Slowed by Learning Curve

By SEWELL CHAN

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Officer Shawna Polite directing traffic through a new express lane on the Avenue of the Americas. The lane is part of an effort to reduce congestion during the holiday season, when tourists and shoppers swarm the blocks around Rockefeller Center. Exiting along the express lane is prohibited.

Like a parent encouraging a hesitant toddler to walk, Officer Shawna Polite stood in the middle of the Avenue of the Americas yesterday, motioning for a long queue of taxicabs, automobiles and commercial vehicles to keep moving.

"C'mon, keep it going," she said, her encouragement focused on a single lane of traffic.

Drivers in Manhattan are not generally known to be apprehensive, but yesterday they paused just a bit as the Police Department unveiled two express lanes on Fifth Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas, part of an effort to reduce congestion during the holiday season, when tourists and shoppers swarm the blocks around Rockefeller Center.

Starting at 6 a.m., police placed traffic cones and markers on either side of one lane on Fifth Avenue between 57th and 47th Streets and also on the Avenue of the Americas between 48th and 53rd Streets. Exiting along the express lane is prohibited. Officers stood at each intersection yesterday, monitoring compliance and guiding drivers.

By making weaving between lanes more difficult, the express lanes, in effect until Jan. 2, tend to force all traffic along both avenues to proceed more or less in a straight line. That is a key goal of the city's Department of Transportation, which worked with the police to develop the express lanes.

"Our goal for Fifth and Sixth Avenues is really not so much to discourage motorists but to create an option for people who are driving to get to their destination a little more quickly, with a little less hassle," the commissioner of the department, Iris Weinshall, said in an interview.

City officials decided to focus their efforts on the area around Rockefeller Center, particularly Fifth Avenue, where pedestrians throng the boutique stores.

"The belly of the beast is really from 57th Street all the way to 42nd Street," Ms. Weinshall said. "During the holiday season, it even extends further, but we weren't really ready to deal with that."

She added: "The whole idea really is to stop the swerving of cars. More than anything else, that's what slows up traffic on Fifth Avenue."

The express lanes were introduced to lubricate the heavy traffic around the annual lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, scheduled for 7 p.m. tonight. "The real magnet, the real attraction there is the tree," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said. "That's what we're trying to address with that center lane."

Transportation officials also announced a temporary high-occupancy-vehicle requirement on the West Drive of Central Park, from the Lenox Avenue entrance in Harlem to the Seventh Avenue exit in Midtown. From 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., drivers using the drive must carry at least one other passenger.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who uses the subway for his daily commuting, called the express lanes an innovative approach to an age-old problem. "We're always trying to solve the problem of too many cars on the streets, and too many pedestrians and too many bicycles and too many horse-drawn carriages and too many of anything for the size streets we have," he said.

A reporter and a photographer who tested out the express lanes at the peak of midday traffic found mixed results.

The five-block trip north on the Avenue of the Americas took one minute 35 seconds, while using the lanes on either side of the express lane took 3 minutes and 4 minutes 21 seconds, respectively.

The bumper-to-bumper traffic on Fifth Avenue, however, appeared unavoidable. On two trips, it took at least 3 minutes 45 seconds to travel the 10 blocks south in the express lane. Traveling the same distance in the lane immediately to the left, by comparison, took 10 seconds less to complete.

As with any new traffic pattern, there were some problems involving confused drivers. Officer Polite ordered a limousine driver who left the express lane to get back into the lane. "A lot of people didn't hear about it," she said.

Standing outside Radio City Music Hall, the police commander of the Manhattan Traffic Task Force, Capt. Michael W. Pilecki, said he believed "it's going to take a little bit of time" for drivers to become accustomed to the changes and for the express lanes to have the desired effect. He predicted that the lanes would eventually speed traffic along both avenues because turning onto side streets - and into crowds of pedestrians - would become harder.

An outside expert agreed that a time lag was to be expected. "Generally, when you're dealing with traffic, the public does take some time to adjust," said the expert, Elliot G. Sander, the director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University.

When Mr. Sander, known as Lee, was the city's transportation commissioner, from 1994 to 1996, he reintroduced gridlock-alert days, on which drivers are urged to stay off the roads during periods of heavy traffic. The city has announced nine such days this holiday season, including one today.

Such alerts might seem like common sense, but in the war against traffic, every little bit helps.

"Do incremental, tactical improvements make sense from a transportation-policy perspective?" Mr. Sander asked. "Absolutely."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company