Friday, March 4, 2011

Sanity prevails for once at DOT

From the NY Times:

In an abrupt concession to community complaints, the Bloomberg administration said Wednesday that it would scrap a plan for a pedestrian plaza on 34th Street in Manhattan that would have banned automobile traffic on the block between Herald Square and the Empire State Building.

The plaza had been the centerpiece of an ambitious reimagining of the Midtown thoroughfare, a plan that included dedicated bus lanes separated by a concrete barrier from other traffic. Cars on either side of the plaza would have traveled in a single direction, outbound toward the edges of the island.

But the project, proposed in 2008, received sharp criticism from some of the area’s residents and business owners, who complained that the bus lanes would block access to their buildings and that cars seeking a route across town could clog up surrounding side streets. Some residents said they had considered the project a fait accompli.

Not so, said Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s transportation commissioner. “The design has evolved as we continue to work with the community,” she said Wednesday. “We want the public process to play itself out.”

The decision to abandon the plaza plan is a stark contrast to the fate of previous unorthodox ideas put forward by Ms. Sadik-Khan, who has banned cars from parts of Times, Herald and Union Squares. The 34th Street plan came under sustained attack this week in The New York Post, where one columnist deemed the project a “budding Titanic.”

A revised plan will be unveiled at a public forum on March 14. Ms. Sadik-Khan declined to say whether other elements of the project, like the separated bus lanes, had also been changed. But she said the new plan would expand curbside access for parking, deliveries and drop-offs.

Some supporters of the plan said they appreciated how the city’s Transportation Department responded to the concerns of the public.


The Daily News reports today that the problem Janette was aiming to fix has already been resolved.

8 comments:

georgetheatheist said...

Ding-dong, the Witch is dead. The Wicked Witch. The Witch is dead.

Ding-dong the Wicked Witch is dead.

Anonymous said...

Anyone who took an express bus from Queens would have benefited from this transit-way.

Anonymous said...

Too bad. This would have been a real plus for the tens of thousands of pedestrians and bus riders that use that area. Instead, the project will be compromised by a few elitist jerks.

Anonymous said...

KAKAKAKAKA

KKKKKKKKKKAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNN


HAS BEEN WIPED, BUT IM SURE THERE ARE SOME SKIDMARKS STILL LEFT.

Anonymous said...

Anyone who took an express bus from Queens would have benefited from this transit-way.
--------------------

agreed, but thats not the worst part of my express bus trip.

I take the QM24 from Glendale, and it is SO FUSTRATING to be sitting on a bus that TURNS AND HEADS WEST when i am trying to go east.

What kind of retarded route planning do you call that???

Yeah, the Manhattan bound express bus spends the majority of its route (excluding the highway) heading WEST. How insane is that???

Anonymous said...

Anon#5 Manhattan is to the West of Long Island. Do you mean the bus heads further west deeper into Queens before it heads into Manhattan? That is weird.

Anonymous said...

SADIE KAHN is a WHACKO.

Anonymous said...

Looks like anon # 5 means east, as the qm24 travels east on eliot ave from fresh pond rd to woodhaven blvd before heading west into the city. I can see how that would be annoying