Quote:

http://www.nysun.com/new-york/city-wi ... miles-of-manhattan-road/#

City Will Close Five Miles of Manhattan Road to Car Traffic
A Path for Joggers, Cyclists, and Yoga Enthusiasts

By HOPE HODGE, Special to the Sun
June 16, 2008

Mayor Bloomberg's next big idea: Shut down Park Avenue.

A five-mile stretch of road running from Lower Manhattan to Central Park will be closed to automobiles for three days in August, as part of a city Department of Transportation program that, if successful, could lead to regular street closings.

A pair of rickshaws make their way down 5th Avenue in December, 2005 at New York City.

The proposal, expected to be announced by Mr. Bloomberg at an event today, is intended to provide New Yorkers and visitors with a safe place to jog, stroll, and ride without the congestion normally associated with the city's streets. The car-free zone will run from the start of Centre Street in Lower Manhattan to 72nd Street on the Upper East Side by way of Lafayette Street, Fourth Avenue, and Park Avenue, and it will be closed between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. on three consecutive Saturdays: August 9, August 16, and August 23.

But while the plan is intended to accommodate residents, some fear that, even on a weekend, the toll on businesses will be higher than the value gained.

The owner of Elan, an antique furniture store on Lafayette Street, Jeff Greenberg, 55, called the street closing "a horrible nightmare."

"There's no doubt that it will affect my business negatively," Mr. Greenberg said in an interview yesterday.

In addition to his concern that customers would not come without cars, he said the only way to load furniture into his store was through the front entrance on Lafayette Street, which would be impossible during a road closing.

"They've got to be kidding," the manager and owner of the League of Mutual Taxi Owners, Vincent Capone, said. "It's getting harder and harder for a cab driver to be out there making a living with all these traffic rules."

Instead of closing off Manhattan streets, Mr. Capone suggested organizing an event in nearby Central Park or in Brooklyn. "This is New York, this is Manhattan," he said. "We're not in the middle of a forest somewhere."

A source familiar with the project said the concept is loosely based on a common practice in some European cities, where main thoroughfares are closed periodically for pedestrian and bicycle access. Already, the city closes park drives in Central Park and Prospect Park to traffic on weekends. The state of Massachusetts closes Memorial Drive in Cambridge from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays from April to November.

Certain interactive activities, including yoga, could be permitted in the public space in New York, the source said, but planners want to avoid a "funnel cake" carnival atmosphere that is common in many of the city's street fairs. Vendors must be licensed and would be restricted to selling on the sidewalks along the route.

The chairman of the City Council's committee on transportation, John Liu, said a project like this has been discussed for several years, and would reinforce a trend, rather than posing an inconvenience.

"This is not likely to create a huge ripple in the fabric of Manhattan," he said. "It may even begin to wean people off dependence on personal automobiles."

Mr. Liu said street closings are frequent in the city during the summer, but in shorter parade routes, or shorter street fairs. He said any complaints about the road closings were likely to come from businesses along the route, although he said most of the roads to be closed were surrounded by public and residential buildings.

Orthodox Jews do not drive on Saturdays, so they would be unaffected. And many Manhattanites with country homes leave on Friday afternoons and do not return until Sunday night or Monday morning, so they may not even notice the Saturday street closures.

The manager of Chinatown Brasserie, a restaurant on Great Jones and Lafayette streets, Iveline Lau, said the closing would be "a headache for guests." A salesman at the Eye Candy jewelry store on Lafayette and Bleecker, Paul Ingratta, said he thought his business would not suffer. "The car is obsolete in this town anyways," he said.

None of the businesses The New York Sun spoke with yesterday said they were consulted by the city about the road closings.

While at first there was some concern that the police department would not approve the event, Commissioner Raymond Kelly is said to approve of the proposal, according to a source familiar with the plan. Closing the 5-mile stretch of roads requires a lot of manpower to cordon off hundreds of side streets and direct traffic on crosstown thoroughfares.

The cost of police presence along the thoroughfare could total $900,000 for all three Saturdays, according to a Department of Transportation official, Dani Simons, quoted in a recent story in Downtown Express. The police department did not offer comment yesterday.

This plan comes in the final year of the Department of Transportation's three-year bike path project, the goal of which is to create 200 miles of on-street bike paths throughout the city in order to calm traffic and provide cyclists with a protected place to pedal. The department has completed 90 miles of paths to date.

"No comment," a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, Scott Gastel, said.

Found this online:

http://walkscore.com

Put in your address and it rates your
nabe for walkability. What I liked is
the feature on the left that has drop-
down menus where you can see how
far in miles (or tenths of a mile) you live from each restaurant, park, school, etc.

SIMPLIFY,

check out this link

http://www.newurbanism.org/pedestrian.html

Plenty of positive examples have been noted here. However, to see how badly these sorts of things can go, one only needs to head to Trenton where State street is cut in half by a pedestrian segment; no improvement there.

I think Newark Avenue would be better served by one way traffic with metered parking on both sides of the street, at least for the next few years. There really isn't much need at this point to create a pedestrian way, and eliminating the little metered parking there is would only hurt the businesses on Newark Ave. Newark Avenue sidewalks are not so crowded ever that pedestrians are being herded into the street, nor are there businesses that really need sidewalk space. Perhaps it would be different if there were a dozen restaurants with sidewalk cafes, or hoping to create sidewalk cafes, but at the moment there aren't.

Not to burst your bubble but this topic was discussed in detail in a old thread a year ago. I'm too lazy to dig it up now.

Doesn't take away from the idea, just saying it has been brought up here many times.


edit: Here is one of them, I think there is another

http://jclist.com/modules/newbb/viewt ... =ASC&type=&mode=0&start=0

How enlightened of you, GW!

I have had the same exact thought.

And really, how much cross traffic does that part of Newark Ave get? Doesn't seem like so much that eliminating that route would really put people out or cause undue congestion on what would be the alternate routes.

What a wonderful idea. This post made my morning! Now I'll be daydreaming all day long of cobblestones and cafes along Newark. :)

More thoughts on Newark Avenue as a town center anchored by a vibrant, bricked-over pedestrian street...

Years ago, I lived in Charlottesville, Virginia and their Downtown Mall is a similar concept on a larger scale with 120 shops, 30 eateries and much more.

It's a bustling place with a modern trolley system flanked by parking garages (with parking validation from Downtown merchants!) that encourage people to get out of their cars and walk.

These days it even features an amphitheater as well as an annual Blues Festival and a semi-annual Arts and Crafts Festival.

Maybe Downtown Jersey City could learn a lesson or two from good ol' Charlottesville?

Here's a blurb I dug up on Charlottesville's renewal and flourishing growth with the development of its Downtown Mall. I've also dug up some photos below. Check 'em out!

"Back in the late 1970s, city leaders looked around and realized that Charlottesville's downtown area was suffering, as strip malls and shopping centers sprang up around town and stole business from downtown merchants.

The leaders responded with an intrepid stab at urban renewal ? a bricked, European-style commercial area open only to pedestrian traffic.

The move was a stunning success and made Charlottesville a model for other communities.

Plus, the town attracted a major hotel, an ice skating rink, and scores of high-end shops, chic restaurants, and unique nightspots to the area.

The Mall now hosts a variety of annual community events, including the Holiday Market and the summer-long Friday After 5 block party."

Here are some Downtown Mall photos (just to illustrate the concept):

Creating a paseo, or a bricked-over street for pedestrians, from the intersection of Newark and Grove to the intersection of Newark and Erie sounds like an idea worth seriously considering.

I can see it now too -- a Newark Avenue Promenade could be a community gathering place and WiFi hotspot featuring a multitude of cafes and restaurants with outdoor dining, shade trees and tables with umbrellas, all kinds of shops and boutiques, oversized planters resplendent with cascading flowering vines, food vendors and period street lamps, an outdoor music series and farmers' market, a vibrant mix of galleries and lofts and markets and apartments -- and maybe even a fountain or two!

I'm sure parents with children, pet owners and the elderly would enjoy the concept too, with more room to spread out while not having to worry about cars and buses zooming by every few seconds.

A space like you describe would really help in developing "a sense of place" and a more welcoming town center in Downtown Jersey City, with the Grove PATH plaza as a sort of terminus.

I think the Powerhouse Arts district (WALDO) and Liberty Harbor North may also be looking to achieve something similar in those developments, but I don't see why Newark Avenue couldn't also be an attractive gathering spot and focal point for the city with the epicenter being a pedestrian mall or paseo like you describe.

If I were you, I would pass along all of your ideas to Jersey City Ward "E" Councilman Steven Fulop.

I believe Mr. Fulop is still looking for community feedback on Newark Avenue redevelopment and, according to his website, his e-mail address is info@stevenfulop.com.

Also, information about the current plans for Newark Avenue's "Restaurant Row" and refurbishment can be found at http://www.stevenfulop.com/streetplan.htm.

Final thought: If making Newark Avenue pedestrian-only 24/7/365 is viewed as too severe of an idea, it may be worth considering doing it from Friday afternoons through Monday mornings. Or doing it seasonally, like from late Spring through early Fall.

P.S.: Thanks for turning me on to the CoolTownStudios.com website. As someone who's always been interested in urban planning issues, this site is a real find!

Also, artists could rent out upstairs apartments and create studios and co-op artist spaces with Newark Street access in the pedestrian zone.

At this point, downtown Jersey City doesn't really have an epicenter. I think this one block of Newark Avenue has the potential to do just that.

It would encourage shoppers to come to enjoy the 3% sales tax, bring in new business and create a downtown community to a very spread out area.

I see...summer concerts, fresh produce, Lots of outdoor seating with umbrealla's, coffee shops, a mini bar crawl area, ahhh to dream.

I realized I went a bit off topic with my post replying to the 2 new Starbucks, so let's start a new thread.


Here is a thought -

Has anyone else imagined a "pedestrian only" zone - closed to all traffic from the corner of Grove/Newark to Newark/Eire?

Just one little block of car free zone, right near the path station. Basically an extension off the Grove PATH plaza.

I think of other cities, Burlington, VT...Cape May, NJ...that found a way to make this work.

Buses could just cut over Barrow and change their pickups to Columbus. Deliveries have access to most buildings from behind.

Imagine flowers, Park benches, and ripping up the asphalt to the original cobblestones that I'm sure must be underneath.

In the summer, the farmers markets could be moved here. Places like LITM, Skinners Loft and the Thai place would be allowed to add on significant outdoor seating.

JC could approve permits for temporary vendors, and have carts similar to the ones in the mall, for all types of businesses.

Ahhh...to dream.

In my dream, Grove still runs straight across for traffic...but the west side of the intersection would become a pedestrian only street. I think the vacant buildings would quickly find tenants, and eventually more cafes, bars and clothing stores would open here.

Again...it's a dream, but it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to accomplish this.

Photo & short article on pedestrian only zones -
http://www.cooltownstudios.com/mt/archives/000405.html

Just wondering what everyone thinks about this idea, and how many people would want to really see it happen (and would be willing to help get it started by contacting city councils members, etc)

Thoughts everyone?

Shouldn't we be able to create the city we really want. I think there is enough of us to demand a better downtown area.