Friday, May 6, 2011

Streets of Iraq better than Ozone Park?


From the NY Post:

A city lawmaker faced off with Mayor Bloomberg's transportation officials over the city's expansion of pedestrian plazas yesterday, claiming they haven't done enough research on the impact of the plazas on surrounding neighborhoods.

"I truly think that they're not studying 'what do we do' when pedestrian plazas are constructed and traffic is diverted to other streets," City Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), Transportation Committee chairman, said during a hearing.

"What traffic-mitigation plans do we have? How do we make sure that we're not just shifting and diverting traffic and that the problem that we had in one spot moves to another?" he said.

"My worry is that when we have instituted pedestrian plazas, we have only moved traffic to other surrounding streets."

While most council members praised the plazas, Vacca pressed Department of Transportation officials to more thoroughly study traffic, air quality and business impacts on areas around the pedestrian plazas.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is what happens when yuppies control the DOT.

Anonymous said...

If they were so worried about green areas and better air quality provided by these stupid street blocking plazas why don't they build more parks around the city. Everyone except the developers are for that idea, and there will not be any resistance and fighting from the community there.

The only reason these plazas are being built is to jam traffic and force people onto bike lanes so the city can justify their existence.

Anonymous said...

Yes the Mayor is a lunatic, but you folks elected him; what were you thinking!

Anonymous said...

There needs to be a small park somehwere on northern boulevard in Flushing. These kids have NOWHERE to play or go in the daytime/summer time.

Anonymous said...

"What traffic-mitigation plans do we have? How do we make sure that we're not just shifting and diverting traffic and that the problem that we had in one spot moves to another?" he said.

You measure it before the plaza is put in, and again afterwards.

"Pedestrian injuries fell by 35 percent in the entire study area for the Green Light for Midtown project, which included not just Broadway but also Seventh near Times Square and Sixth near Herald Square. And while air pollution plummeted in Times Square after the creation of the plazas, according to recent environmental data, it didn’t rise in the rest of Midtown."

http://www.streetsblog.org/2011/05/05/mugging-for-tv-james-vacca-turns-transpo-committee-into-kangaroo-court/

Queens Crapper said...

Right, and DOT's own data showed that there was more traffic on the surrounding streets, which would mean more pollution, not the same. But yeah, let's accept govt BS as fact.

Anonymous said...

These pedestrian plazas and bike lanes are the solution to ALL our traffic problems.....until you need your car to drive somewhere.

Anonymous said...

These pedestrian plazas and bike lanes are the solution to ALL our traffic problems.....until you need your car to drive somewhere.

Anonymous said...

"These kids have NOWHERE to play or go in the daytime/summer time."

They can play in the large backyards behind all those new houses...oh wait, I forgot. Nevermind.

Anonymous said...

DOT's own data showed that there was more traffic on the surrounding streets, which would mean more pollution, not the same. Not always, b/c those surrounding streets were already filled with cars to begin with.

A given length of road, filled with cars, will produce a the same amount of pollution per hour, whether those cars are moving very slowly or quickly. (B/c if you took a snapshot of the road, it'll always be filled w/the same # of cars putting out the same amount of pollution)

This was borne out in the results: Pollution went down in this localized area where cars were removed, but overall midtown pollution was supposedly unchanged... This makes sense b/c midtown streets are pretty much already at capacity for cars.

If I remember the data correctly, some streets got faster and others got slower. Even if you believe that idling cars contribute more smog than moving ones, this result would also provide a localized benefit while overall pollution being unchanged.

In the end, you might as well have more cars moving through one of the most pedestrian dense areas on the planet in a safer design. Accidents down, Traffic unchanged, Overall pollution unchanged, Localized pollution reduction. Seems like a good move to me.

Anonymous said...

as i stated previously ,i still drive in mid town manhattan, but never south on seventh avenue or bway.

only a out of towner would do a stupid thing like that.

Sadie should move back to Copenhagen.

fix the potholes ,bloomberg, then go to Detroit and do not come back.

Queens Crapper said...

The agency’s data on this issue, as well as bike lanes, have proven questionable at best — undermined even by its own numbers, to say nothing of independent studies.

One example: the DOT pushes the fact that fatalities are down in areas where plazas are installed — while downplaying the inconvenient fact that total accidents are up.

As for Vacca’s question, DOT officials could only say that it was “extremely hard” to assess the “spillover” effect — e.g., how much businesses on 43rd, 44th and 45th streets and Ninth Avenue may be suffering because of thicker traffic thanks to the Times Square plaza.

No doubt. For there’s scant evidence to suggest that the DOT has ever seriously tried to collect such information.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/plaza_peril_aGG2MbPxehK7b1ROsthb6M#ixzz1LlDLjx8V