Car-Free Parks

Last month, Streetsblog reported that the Central Park loop would be getting a new lane configuration to clarify where pedestrians and cyclists belong, similar to changes recently implemented in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Less than 30 days after the announcement, walkers, joggers, and bike riders are all getting some extra room in the park, while the space for cars has been narrowed to one lane, calming vehicular traffic. Reader Rod Huntress sent in these photos from a ride this morning.

When New York City played host to the 1939 World's Fair, the most influential attraction in Flushing Meadows was General Motors' Futurama, a miniature vision of a future with highways crisscrossing through cities and mass ownership of the personal automobile. A science fiction vision at the time, it wasn't far off from what ultimately happened.

The two-way, buffered bike lane across Central Park on 72nd Street is rounding into form, with most but not all of the markings in place, readers tell us. The path is rideable in both directions, adding a critical piece of east-west connectivity to the bike network.

In the midst of a 2004 petition drive and campaign, Transportation Alternatives hired me to produce a mini-film called "The Case for a Car-Free Central Park." It featured interviews with many prominent New Yorkers, like Columbia professor Ken Jackson and author Roberta Brandes Gratz, along with dozens of everyday park-goers testifying about how they felt about cars in the park.

As first documented by @noahbudnick, the section of the Prospect Park loop south of the lake has had new markings (and a smooth, fresh surface) for a few weeks. On this section you can experience the more spacious 24/7 accommodations for walkers, joggers, and cyclists that will soon expand to the rest of the loop. I was over there about two weeks ago and it was kind of remarkable to see everyone using the lane designated specifically for them.

This summer, cyclists will have a second path to safely cross Central Park.

Brooklynites like the idea of reducing the number of motor vehicle lanes cutting through Prospect Park from two to one. They'd like zero even better.

At a public meeting tonight, the Prospect Park Road Sharing Task Force will present a plan to double the amount of space for pedestrians on the Prospect Park loop and reduce confusion between pedestrians and cyclists during the vast majority of time that the park is car-free.

Transportation Alternatives and the New York Chapter of the American Association of Family Physicians today released a letter to Mayor Bloomberg, signed by 140 medical professionals from a broad spectrum of specialties, praising the city's bike and pedestrian infrastructure as essential to the health of New Yorkers. It's a solid counterweight to the hysteria surrounding the recent Hunter College bike-ped crash study: