This Week: Midtown Plazas, Central Park, 34th Street

Two Manhattan community boards have important meetings tonight, with CB 5 discussing a BID-supported redesign of some Midtown pedestrian plazas and CB 7 making a connection between NYPD’s Central Park bike crackdown and plans to allow bikes to cross the park east-west. Later in the week, DOT will hold two public meetings on the 34th Street Transitway. While the department has watered down the plan and dropped the physically-separated transitway originally envisioned, there are still significant gains for bus riders and pedestrians at stake, and it will be important for pro-transit voices to speak up.

Tonight: Manhattan CB 5’s transportation committee gets an update on the redesign of Pershing Square in front of Grand Central and discusses a request from the Fashion Center BID to reconfigure some Midtown pedestrian plazas so that bike lanes are no longer between the curb and the new public space. It’s not clear whether their suggestion would substantially affect the physical protection that cyclists now benefit from between Times Square and Herald Square. 6:00 p.m.

Also Tonight: Manhattan CB 7 attempts to take a comprehensive look at cycling in Central Park, bringing together its parks and transportation committees to discuss both the recent bike ticketing blitz and the Central Park Conservancy’s proposal to create east-west bike paths through the park. 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday: DOT holds the first of two public meetings on the current design for the 34th Street Transitway, this one for East Siders. 6:00 p.m.

Thursday: The West Side gets its chance to weigh in on the 34th Street Transitway at the second of two public meetings held by DOT. 6:30 p.m.

Also Thursday: The Museum of the City of New York brings together four great scholars to discuss the relevance of Jane Jacobs to the top planning questions in today’s New York City. 6:30 p.m.

Keep an eye on the calendar for updated listings. Got an event we should know about? Drop us a line.

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