Consciously or not, the astute visitor had picked up on New York City's traditional policy for the management of open, public space: Control it by making it as hostile and unpleasant as possible. Keep people moving until they have safely settled in a store, theater, office, apartment or some other paid-for private space. Times Square is the ultimate embodiment of this policy. New York City's premier public space, the "crossroads of the world" is a place that most New Yorkers either avoid or plow through as quickly as possible.

Over the last ten years, as Times Square has been cleaned and built up (or Disneyfied, depending on whether you miss the ability to masturbate at the movies), its sidewalks have become increasingly congested. On a Saturday night at the height of tourist season, as many as 20,000 pedestrians funnel past the Virgin Megastore in the space of an hour. At least 15 percent of them are forced to walk in the street, according to Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance. There simply isn't enough room on the sidewalks anymore.

Today, 200 percent more pedestrians use Times Square than in 1980. In the coming decade, pedestrian traffic is expected to grow significantly as tourism continues its rise and the Bank of America, the New York Times, and other big development projects add millions of square feet of new commercial and residential space to Times Square and the blocks immediately west.

The problem is obvious, as is the solution. Pedestrians outnumber motorists by at least five to one, yet some 60 percent of Times Square's public space is dedicated to motor vehicle traffic. "For the people who work in many of the new offices in Times Square, sidewalk conditions and congestion is the number one quality of life issue," Tompkins says.

Clearly, the cars have got to go. The only viable way for New York City to continue to have healthy growth and development is to begin to take away space from automobiles and reallocate it to pedestrians and mass transit. Times Square is the perfect place to start this process.

In various quarters, the idea of turning Times Square into a pedestrian environment is being discussed with increasing seriousness. The most comprehensive plan is George Haikalis and Roxanne Warren's Vision42. They propose opening up 42nd St. to pedestrians from river to river with a modern light rail surface transit system running down the middle.

All over Europe, Haikalis notes, big cities have reaped enormous economic and quality of life benefits by pedestrianizing their urban cores. "Even car-dependent, sprawling suburban American cities like Minneapolis and Denver have thriving, auto-free downtowns."

So, what's it going to take to convince New York City to make Times Square a truly great public space? A truck bomb? Let's hope not. Watch in the next four years as federal homeland security becomes a rationale and funding source for desirable but politically difficult urban planning improvements like congestion pricing and car-free public spaces.

4:35 PM | Link |