ADVERTISEMENT

NYC wants to take 25% of its street space away from cars in favor of a walkable/bikeable city

Morrison71

HR Legend
Nov 10, 2006
15,728
12,983
113
Stories-from-Before-the-Creation-of-Central-Park.jpg

Back when COVID-19 ravaged New York City and turned the city's transportation needs upside down, significant portions of the road space were repurposed for non-car use. From bike lanes to public seating and urban parks, roads that previously saw gridlocked traffic were nearly instantly transformed into public spaces that benefitted a wider group of residents.

After being forced to realize the benefits of such repurposing of streets, the city is now asking, "Why shouldn't it just stay that way?" It's all part of a new plan known as NYC 25×25, which is backed by NYC mayor Eric Adams. The proposal calls for 25% of NYC's street space to be converted into walkable pedestrian plazas, bike lanes, green space, and bus lanes by 2025.
Click to shrink...

The logic goes that the vast majority of NYC's streets being dominated by cars doesn't benefit most city residents, and it doesn't really benefit cars either. With traffic-clogged streets moving at an average of 5 mph (8 km/h) in Midtown Manhattan, private automobile transportation in NYC is responsible for a significant portion of the city's carbon emissions, air pollution, and urban grime.

Meanwhile, pedestrians and cyclists are forced to navigate the crowded fringes of roads, often weaving around parked vehicles and heaps of trash awaiting pickup. And that's all before even considering the staggering number of pedestrian and cycling deaths caused by cars in the city.

Repurposing street space would help to both clean the city and better serve its residents.
Click to shrink...

The executive director of Transportation Alternatives Danny Harris, of the group behind the 25×25 proposal, explained to the Guardian that "space minus cars equals quality of life."

As Harris continued:
If you live in a place where buying a car and spending $10,000 a year on car-related payments is your only way to get around, then your leaders have failed you and your children. Using streets to simply move and store cars is not optimizing that space. We just got blinded by the car industry and this belief that we should put an SUV in every garage.

Right now, we give most of New York to cars – but imagine if sidewalks were bigger, if you could bike or quickly take the bus anywhere you wanted, if you didn't have huge mounds of garbage on every single street. As New Yorkers, we think of ourselves as being tough. But that doesn't mean we have to live in filth, or that we should fear death or injury every time we cross the street.
 
I can't imagine living in that human anthill.
Manhattan is one of the coolest places on the planet and several of the strong points are public transport and sidewalks.
Within a block or two is every kind of restaurant you would ever want to patronize, good produce, vegetables, and meat from markets, inexpensive bodegas for takeout food and convenience items…
It is all so available without fooling with a car.
 
Manhattan is one of the coolest places on the planet and several of the strong points are public transport and sidewalks.
Within a block or two is every kind of restaurant you would ever want to patronize, good produce, vegetables, and meat from markets, inexpensive bodegas for takeout food and convenience items…
It is all so available without fooling with a car.
Everyone should live in NYC fr at least a year, especially in the ages of 26-40. It was an amazing time in my life.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ft254
Manhattan is one of the coolest places on the planet and several of the strong points are public transport and sidewalks.
Within a block or two is every kind of restaurant you would ever want to patronize, good produce, vegetables, and meat from markets, inexpensive bodegas for takeout food and convenience items…
It is all so available without fooling with a car.
I’d argue Brooklyn is cooler, but to each their own and that’s what’s so great about that city. You can make the city what you like.
 
Gotta love those who denigrate places like NYC from a distance. Or Joisey, or Chicago or LA…
Most people have visited all of those places at some point in their life. Hardly throwing shit at the wall to say you’re not interested in living there.
 
I don't like big cities.

It's horrible.

Give me wide open spaces without any people around me.
You live in a development with neighbors, right?
Or, are you out in the county with a well, septic tank, and road upkeep responsibilities?
 
If there is a place this could work it’s nyc. But it can’t work anywhere else.
 
Been to NYC, Chicago and LA. You couldn’t pay me to live in any of them.
It's all perspective and what you want in your life. All those cities are amazing (maybe not LA proper for me), but I personally wouldn't want to live in any of them either. I would much rather live in any of them over living in Iowa again though...
 
  • Like
Reactions: billanole
Gotta love those who denigrate places like NYC from a distance. Or Joisey, or Chicago or LA…
The ones who have actually been to NYC and say it’s a shithole, generally never left a 10 block radius from Time Square. If that was my only experience in NY, I’d hate it too. Hint to visitors, locals avoid that area like the plague because it’s filled with tourists and people trying to grift tourists.
 
The ones who have actually been to NYC and say it’s a shithole, generally never left a 10 block radius from Time Square. If that was my only experience in NY, I’d hate it too. Hint to visitors, locals avoid that area like the plague because it’s filled with tourists and people trying to grift tourists.
Oh there’s some cool shit in that area though. Go see the flatiron and 30rock so you can see all of that fun for a minute but then get out. So much to do and see in NYC
 
  • Like
Reactions: billanole
The ones who have actually been to NYC and say it’s a shithole, generally never left a 10 block radius from Time Square. If that was my only experience in NY, I’d hate it too. Hint to visitors, locals avoid that area like the plague because it’s filled with tourists and people trying to grift tourists.

Eh the garbage can get out of control for some apartment buildings that weren't built with space in mind for garbage for a building that would be subdivided into closet junior 1 bedrooms.

As far as closing streets to car traffic, I'm not against it. It can work but I hope it looks a lot different than the homeless/rat shacks that people ate in or for bars to take over streets as late as they did. Western civilization has a long history of what it took to get drinking into 4 walls to make it a good environment for the people within those 4 walls and for the people that live around it. What we saw was basically a frat party take over streets every afternoon and evening. It was obnoxious.
 
ADVERTISEMENT