Jay Z-Backed Times Square Casino Shrinks Sidewalks and Bus Lanes to Serve More Cars
They want gambling, not gamboling.
The bid to bring a casino to Times Square will bring more cars to the most pedestrian- and transit-heavy section of Midtown — and the developer wants to shrink the sidewalk and remove a bus lane to accommodate the four-wheeling high rollers.
Developer SL Green’s transportation plan for the proposed Caesars Palace Times Square casino on Seventh Avenue between 44th and 45th streets calls for removing a bus lane and the “super sidewalks” that the city installed in 2022 after years of advocacy from residents of Hells Kitchen.
SL Green shared its transportation plan with Streetsblog on Wednesday, on the eve of the final public hearing before the project gets a vote from its state-designated Community Advisory Committee. Its casino bid, which has the backing of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, is one of eight speed-running through environmental review before the state selects three downstate licensees in December.
But a draft environmental impact statement for the project released last month raised alarm bells among advocates and community leaders: the DEIS forecasts negative pedestrian-level impacts at two sidewalks and four crosswalks without proposing any additional pedestrian space, and anticipated significant use of private cars, for-hire vehicles and even tour buses to get people to the casino.
SL Green expects 75 percent of casino “visitors” to arrive on some form of public transportation (including private tour buses) and 25 percent to come by private car or for-hire vehicle. To keep traffic flowing on Eighth Avenue alongside those FHV pick-ups and drop-offs, the company’s plan proposes to scrap a bus lane and the 19-foot painted sidewalk extension installed three years ago on the west curb — dropping the total number of sidewalk space from 49 to 40 feet.
Confusingly, however, SL Green’s presentation, which it has shared with some in the community, undercounts the painted “super sidewalk” by nine feet.
Christine Berthet, Transportation Chair of Manhattan Community Board 4 and leader of the neighborhood pedestrian advocacy group CHEKPEDS, spent a decade years working to get the super sidewalks installed. For years Eighth Avenue had as many as six lanes for motor vehicles, even as nearly 90 percent of people on the corridor traveled by foot. Pedestrians routinely spilled into the street — into the path of bikes and cars — before the 2022 redesign.
Mayor Adams flirted with removing the super sidewalks last year at the urging of Broadway theater owners, but the sidewalks remain. The casino plan revives that car-first vision by increasing “traffic capacity” by 40 percent, according to SL Green’s presentation. The plan even puts the protected bike lane back alongside the sidewalk, the site of many bike-pedestrians crashes pre-2022.
The sidewalk extension “is needed,” Berthet said.
“When you go and see how it’s used, people are walking in it at 5 o’clock in the afternoon,” Berthet said of the sidewalk extension. “If you read the DEIS, they don’t have any mitigation. … The punchline is there is huge pedestrian congestion and they are not providing any relief.”
FHV pick-ups and drop-offs restricted by geo-fencing technology “to reduce non-VIP” taxi trips, according to the DEIS. SL Green predicts 1 percent of visitors will come by tour bus, according to the presentation shared with Streetsblog. That estimate was not in the official environmental review.
“I don’t think you can believe anything they can say, at least on transportation. They are not serious,” Berthet said. “A casino’s business model is based on people coming with their cars. It’s not designed to be in the middle of something as pedestrian and intense as Times Square.”
Manhattan Community Board 5, representing the next district over, will vote on Thursday night to reject the casino bid. A draft of the resolution, which already passed CB5’s Land Use Committee, specifically cited the lack of transportation mitigations in the DEIS among board members.
CB5’s “ability to perform due diligence on the application was severely restricted by the accelerated CAC review period over this summer; much of the application material available online was redacted and not useful,” the draft resolution reads. “The massive scope and scale of the community impacts of the Proposed Action may not be adequately mitigated.”
In a statement, SL Green insisted its plan “increases the amount of effective, raised sidewalk that pedestrians actually use in real life and will therefore decrease sidewalk congestion,” since the 19-foot “super sidewalk” narrows at corners and go “under-utilized” as a result.
The company noted that its plan will widen the east sidewalk, which it claimed “is more heavily congested than the west sidewalk.”
“Our plan is a extremely pedestrian forward plan that mitigates as much vehicular traffic increase in favor of pedestrianization as is possible,” SL Green official Robert Schiffer told Streetsblog. “We are recommending a complete reimagine of Eighth Avenue.”
(Update: After publication, SL Green committed through a spokesman to retain the Eighth Avenue bus lane. This article has also been updated to include more of the firm’s defense of its sidewalk modification proposal.)
Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.
