From the NY Post:GPS data from 1.1 million yellow-cab rides in the area bounded by Fifth and Ninth avenues and 59th and 23rd streets showed that travel times decreased overall by 7 percent, Bloomberg said.
Uptown driving sped up most, gaining an additional average 1.1 miles per hour and decreasing travel times by 17 percent.
But motorists heading downtown faced travel-time increases averaging 2 percent.
Eastbound trips sped up by 5 percent and westbound trips by 9 percent, the results show.
But data compiled from 5,700 rides taken by DOT analysts showed far worse crosstown results, with 13 percent slowdowns in both directions.
Bloomberg acknowledged that some travel times -- the main thrust of his argument to create the pedestrian plazas -- fell short of his prediction last year that downtown travel times would improve by 17 percent and uptown rides by 37 percent.
But traffic safety improved, the mayor said. Accidents were down 39 percent.
From CBS 2:
"I am disturbed that the expectations, the goals, have not been met and I think before you rush to make something permanent you really have to step back and do an assessment and say is this really in the public interest," Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said.
Stringer was one of a number of public officials who told CBS 2 HD they're upset Bloomberg banned traffic from the crossroads of the world without sufficient public input, especially since many areas became more congested.
Stringer said there should be public hearings before anything is set in stone.
"I want to see a real analysis. I want to see the data. I think you don't announce something is permanent before you share all this information with various communities, civic and political leaders," Stringer said.
From Lost City:
The City announced that Bloomberg's idiot experiment to turn Times Square into a hideous trailer-park back lawn will now become permanent. Because everyone likes it so much? No. Because Bloomberg does what he likes with the City and never admits he wrong about anything and a certainly never listens to any voice other than his own nasal, annoying one.
23 comments:
What's wrong with a pedestrianized Times Square? I like the new Times Square...
Reread the post and you won't have to ask that question.
I think it looks like a trailer park and what happens when someone has to get a delivery or needs to grab a cab? Should they have to go 2 to 3 blocks away? That little troll does what he is told is working, takes some sort of credit for it, and then screws the working class people. Why don't he set up that trailer trash uptown where he lives. And traffic may not be at the cross roads but it is sure backed up to 97th st.....
Aww, poor drivers can't get stuck in traffic anymore in Times Square.
If they care so much about pedestrians how about REALLY improving safety on roads such as Queens Blvd? And how about a ticket blitz for property owners who don't shovel their sidewalks even days after the snowstorm?
That's sanitation, and that's in effect.
After all, the City is broke.
I'd love to have a look at the raw data that supports the conclusion that traffic flow improved.
FOIL, baby, FOIL!
HATE IT!!!!!
love it! cities were meant for people
Anonymous: What's wrong with a pedestrianized Times Square? I like the new Times Square...
Queens Crapper: Reread the post and you won't have to ask that question.
"GPS data from 1.1 million yellow-cab rides in the area bounded by Fifth and Ninth avenues and 59th and 23rd streets showed that travel times decreased overall by 7 percent, Bloomberg said."
"...[T]raffic safety improved, the mayor said. Accidents were down 39 percent."
So, according to the best available reported data (and the cabbie data is probably better since it represents a sample size almost 200 times larger than the 5700 analysis rides taken by DOT drivers, and represents the actions of "real" drivers trying to navigate the area) the traffic situation has, overall, improved in Midtown west slightly. Maybe not as much as was promised but improved nonetheless.
At the same time the area is much safer. So even if the flow of traffic had been slowed down much more than it seems to have been, that might have been a reasonable tradeoff.
The City's report is HERE. If you don't believe its numbers, well, what are the REAL numbers, then?
Also, not mentioned in the post - the majority of people coming to Times Square have never been drivers and there's no question this is a big improvement for them. Also not mentioned, surveys have shown this change has been quite popular. Also not mentioned, the change has been embraced by local businesses and the president of the Times Square Alliance was at the Mayor's press conference and praised the action. Also not mentioned, now that this is going to be permanent they're going to take out the folding chairs and etc. and do some major overhaul of the area to make it more pedestrian friendly.
So, yes, I have to ask along with the first poster - what, exactly, is the problem?
Anonymous: love it! cities were meant for people
Right on!
And people have cars. In fact, people created cars. Deal with it.
"Also, not mentioned in the post - the majority of people coming to Times Square have never been drivers and there's no question this is a big improvement for them."
Yeah, and the entire project was aimed at improving driving time so what other people think about it really doesn't matter.
"Also not mentioned, surveys have shown this change has been quite popular. Also not mentioned, the change has been embraced by local businesses and the president of the Times Square Alliance was at the Mayor's press conference and praised the action."
Also not mentioned is where the Times Square Alliance gets their funding from. This is like saying Partnership for Parks supports the Coney Island Amphitheater, so it must be a good thing.
" Queens Crapper said...
And people have cars. In fact, people created cars. Deal with it."
Q-C This is one of the issues that sometime highlight the different perspectives between Manhattan dwellers and the outer boroughs.
Most Manhattanites don't really appreciate private autos but there is nothing they can do about it.
Cars clog the streets for mass transit (which most of us use), pollute the air and pose a physical danger.
Our group has a location in that area, while I can't say for sure that the new pattern has helped business, the area is a LOT less confusing for everybody especially tourists.
What next needs to be done is to extend the sidewalk over the former roadway -it looks ridiculous right now with chairs among the traffic lines and arrows.
It will cost to extend the manholes and grates but when completed you'll have an attractive wide boulevard which is exactly what works for this area.
There is a similar though smaller area on Fifth ave @24th street and it has simplified traffic patterns and made a much safer intersection.
I was there and I did not like it. It was weird. NYC is hustle and bustle. It is the way it is! Bring back the traffic!
Anonymous: Also not mentioned is where the Times Square Alliance gets their funding from.
Well, the City lists it as a Business Improvement District. It’s supposed to get its funding from assessments charged on its members. If it’s receiving other funding that might be interesting if it could be shown that that outside funding was causing it to sell out the interests of its members.
Anonymous: …the entire project was aimed at improving driving time so what other people think about it really doesn't matter.
To quote from page 1 of the final report:
“The New York City Department of Transportation undertook the Green Light for Midtown project to simultaneously improve mobility and safety in the Midtown core, and ultimately to make the area a better place to live, work and visit.” (Emphasis added.)
So, no, the ENTIRE project was NOT aimed at improving driving times. Maybe that’s how it was sold - I’ll concede that. I doubt that you’d have much trouble calling the Mayor or Janette Sadik-Khan liars, so have at it. Liars, liars, liars. I’m convinced that their central idea was always to create a better, safer, more livable public space - one that would, incidentally, improve traffic flow. But the political reality of this city is such that they had to promote their plan as one for improving traffic flow and, incidentally, making Times Square a better, safer, more livable public space. To me, that’s more an indictment of the political reality of the city than it is of ethics of the Mayor or the Commissioner.
Anyway, according to the hard numbers that have been presented THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC THROUGH THE AREA HAS IMPROVED OVERALL. Maybe not as much as was hyped but still somewhat. And accidents are down, and people actually want to spend time in Times Square, which has been a boon to businesses. Maybe you believe that all the numbers were completely made up - but if you do you should probably come up with better ones, or at least formulate a better methodology for gathering and analyzing them. Until you or someone does that I'd have to question the sanity of anyone who would want to go back to the way things were before.
Anonymous: NYC is hustle and bustle. It is the way it is! Bring back the traffic!
Traffic isn’t hustle and bustle, it’s just….a bunch of cars. The real life of the street is lived on foot. That’s where the hustle and bustle and - oooh, bad word coming up - VIBRANCY of the city comes from, people interacting with each other face to face and shoulder to shoulder. Sealed autos whizzing by contribute very little to that, aside from danger and noxious exhaust.
Queens Crapper: …people have cars. In fact, people created cars. Deal with it.
People also created broadswords and hand grenades; doesn’t mean their numbers shouldn’t be limited in the heart of Manhattan. Some places it’s just crazy to bring a car, Times Square being one of them. Maybe you can’t deal with that but, luckily, the City has.
Actually, the City hasn't released the hard numbers; they have them hidden and they probably will never release them because anyone who drives through there can tell you that the speeds have decreased, not increased. This is just a larger version of the dopey triangle they installed on Grand Avenue which made the traffic worse instead of better.
Queens Crapper: Actually, the City hasn't released the hard numbers....
Well, if you mean they haven't dropped a library's worth of three ring binders with the GPS details of every single taxi trip through the area (all 1 million plus), or all the 5700 research car trips the DOT staged, no, you're right, they didn't do that. But if you look at the report I linked to a while back you'll see that most of it is taken up with various metrics and their interpertations. Honestly, it seems, traffic flow was only marginally sped up - by a few tenths of a mile on average.
Queens Crapper:...anyone who drives through there can tell you that the speeds have decreased, not increased.
Well, THAT sounds like a scientifically valid observation. Let's have the hard numbers on that.
Going in a straight line is always faster than zigzagging.
If the city had released the hard data, someone would have analyzed it. In fact, newspapers were chomping at the bit to get their hands on it. Then again, the city does what it wants regardless of what their stats say.
Queens Crapper: Going in a straight line is always faster than zigzagging.
That's not hard numbers. And it's not even always true in all traffic conditions.
Also, it's an argument to ban traffic on Broadway, which meanders through the grid, intersecting it at odd angles, causing bottlenecks. Which, of course, is exactly what they've done in Midtown.
So instituting "no turns" would have made more sense. It's what they do in most of the rest of the city when bottlenecks due to turning occur.
Post a Comment