No cars in manhattan?

godd*mn sweet.

I predict it's a success and it's expanded.

and LOL at asking a parking attendant what he thinks. that's like asking a gun dealer what he thinks of gun bans.

“He’s got to be crazy,” Pablo Urema, 49, a worker at a parking lot on Lafayette Street in SoHo, said of the mayor. “We do a lot of business every Saturday morning. No cars for the parking garage means no people for the businesses.”

Carmen wrote: What exactly is it trying to accomplish?

I think it's an interesting experiment to see whether more space should be opened up to bikers and more importantly pedestrians during peak periods (weekends, lunch). The entire city (and country) has been built to be car-centric. It might be time to rethink that focus here and there. I'm not saying we should tear down the BQE. But in high pedestrian areas it might make more sense to give the space over to them during peak periods, and make cars take alternate routes.

It will clearly inconvenience some, but there might be a bigger common good than that of car transportation, especially since this is only shutting down one avenue (along with the obvious traffic effects it will create).

When I used to work in the financial district people would pour out of the office buildings from 1 - 2pm and they had to close some blocks to traffic because there were simply too many pedestrians for the sidewalks to handle. The population density was too much.

^okay, but that's not what this is about.

Elite? Please. It is the elite that insist upon _driving_ cars in Manhattan. NYC is a world class city, and definitely should be in the business of trying to move people off private vehicles and into alternative modes of transportation.

sweet tea wrote:

i disagree with you, though. i think it's elitist that you can pay (by purchasing a car) to use public property (free street parking) that is unavailable for use by those who don't buy cars.

anyway, they're not "closing off" park avenue; they're closing it to CARS. last time i checked, cars were not themselves citizens.

cars are not themselves ctizens? you're talking semantics now. there's many small businesses that would be adversely affected if/when they choose to push the toll/tax on people once again.

i'm not sure what you mean by it being elitist to use public property such as free parking that is unavailable by those who don't use cars. what else are you going to do in spaces designated for steet parking? yoga?

the biggest problem to the congestion affecting the streets of manhattan in particular is the overwhelming population of unruly taxi and livery drivers moreso than the average citizen using the streets to get around in their automobiles.

daver: if the city would actually provide a better and alternate system of public transportation i might side with your reasoning, but as of now it hasn't and furthermore, the mta has proven to be less than transparent and unwilling to provide decent services to the people who use it. they've got the biggest scam going.

ok, you're a transplant. no offense, but i understand your point of view a bit better now.

as someone who has lived and grown up here all my life, these "quality of life" moves are a trickle down effect enacted into policy by those who have the least to lose from the changes they're bringing to the city. they're usually just cosmetic changes designed to appease a certain group of people more than the average ny'er who's seen this place turn into one big velvet rope.

daver wrote: I don't think I agree with that. It seems to me that things like this have been done before that have actually led to changes. Such as the traffic changes in the Times Square area that have made it way more pedestrian friendly recently by taking back road space and giving it to walkers. Also look to the bike lanes on 9th Avenue. You prove this sort of thing by doing it a bit and looking at what happens. If it works, then you move forward in that direction. If it doesn't, then you try something else. There is a group that has been trying to make 42nd car free for some time now. This is just the sort of experiment that they can use to push that sort of thing forward, given that it works well.

Which isn't to say that I don't want to see more bike lanes and park renovations.

Precisely.

i can't answer every remark that has been posted in regards to what i've written, but im not sure why some are so intent on turning this city into a version of ohio or a quasi-suburbia where activities like power walking and yoga take precedent over being able to live, play AND work in a sustainable manner. seems like these acts are being enabled simply for the folly of a certain group of people who want it their way and their way only.

protected bike lanes, tiny parks and lemonade stands should not be a priority in this city when there's so many other issues that need to be taken care of and especially at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult for many ny'ers to even live a comfortable life within the city limits. now some want to make it even more difficult for others to be able to travel and move throughout manhattan as they please? parking spaces serve one group of people in the very same manner that bike lanes and increased walkways serve their respective groups. let's set up tolls for bikers and pedestrians or prohibit them from venturing into parts of the city too. see how silly and selfish that sounds? this city has always had automobile traffic, just as the city has always had its pedestrians. it's part of the energy which makes it so, but making it available only to only certain groups is classicism.

a decent mta would be using the increasing prices they're charging to keep a clean, safe and more efficient system instead of cutting personnel, subway line frequency and pocketing the surplus from their profits one year then declaring being in the red a couple of years later.

anyway, there's not enough time for me to expand on all my gripes with this issue in general. perhaps a 3 day thing could be "fun," but extending it to a way of life for the city and the people who use it would be unjust for the majority.

oh, and i'm not really advocating the removal of parking, just more careful thought about cars.

anyway, plenty of the city is already closed to pedestrians. those places are called roads. that's why i see a venture like this as increasing free movement -- since anyone can become a pedestrian, without needing to buy anything -- rather than restricting it.

god below wrote: i can't answer every remark that has been posted in regards to what i've written, but im not sure why some are so intent on turning this city into a version of ohio or a quasi-suburbia where activities like power walking and yoga take precedent over being able to live, play AND work in a sustainable manner. seems like these acts are being enabled simply for the folly of a certain group of people who want it their way and their way only.

I don't know about Ohio, but I would agree with sweet tea that suburbia is the antithesis of auto unfriendly. In suburbia everything is spread out, and public transit quickly becomes untenable. Other modes of transit make sense in NYC because it is the opposite of this, the concentration allows, even demands it.

protected bike lanes, tiny parks and lemonade stands should not be a priority in this city when there's so many other issues that need to be taken care of and especially at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult for many ny'ers to even live a comfortable life within the city limits. now some want to make it even more difficult for others to be able to travel and move throughout manhattan as they please? parking spaces serve one group of people in the very same manner that bike lanes and increased walkways serve their respective groups. let's set up tolls for bikers and pedestrians or prohibit them from venturing into parts of the city too. see how silly and selfish that sounds? this city has always had automobile traffic, just as the city has always had its pedestrians. it's part of the energy which makes it so, but making it available only to only certain groups is classicism.

Tolls for bikers and pedestrians don't make sense because this is the sort of transport we _should_ be encouraging in NYC. And we already have tolls for public transit, except they call them fares. Private cars in NYC make very little sense.

a decent mta would be using the increasing prices they're charging to keep a clean, safe and more efficient system instead of cutting personnel, subway line frequency and pocketing the surplus from their profits one year then declaring being in the red a couple of years later.

I would view mismanagement at the MTA as a separate issue, but it of course needs to be addressed.

anyway, there's not enough time for me to expand on all my gripes with this issue in general. perhaps a 3 day thing could be "fun," but extending it to a way of life for the city and the people who use it would be unjust for the majority.

The majority of people in Manhattan drive private cars? I'm pretty sure that is not true.