Times Square

Recession or depression? Estate taxes or death taxes? How events or policies are named, or “framed,” has become crucial to their viability. Indeed, the ascendancy of the right wing in the U.S. in recent decades is attributed in part to the Right’s mastery of political phraseology to demonize leftist and even centrist policies.

Eight months after New York City changed traffic patterns in midtown Manhattan, transforming Broadway and reclaiming acres of urban space for pedestrian plazas at Times Square and Herald Square, Mayor Bloomberg announced this morning that the trial has proven successful and the changes will be permanent. Streetsblog will post a full report, including data collected from the trial period, later today. Stay tuned.

Mayor Bloomberg is expected to announce his verdict on Times Square's new pedestrian spaces very soon. Will the changes be permanent? This morning Bloomberg told radio host John Gambling that we'll find out sometime next week. In the meantime, it seems like the media has decided to fixate on rumors that Midtown traffic speeds may not have increased across the board, without paying much attention to the tremendous difference this project has made for hundreds of thousands of pedestrians every day.

Mayor Bloomberg has seen some of the data from the city's trial of car-free, pedestrian-priority spaces in Midtown, and it looks like the changes in traffic speeds are not as impressive as hoped for. This, I daresay, is good news.

Seven years ago, when Tim Tompkins took over as president of the Times Square Alliance, one of New York's largest BIDs, security and cleanliness were the top concerns. Despite incessant traffic and "pedlock," few decision-makers were focused, at first, on the vision of Times Square as a world-class public space where people take precedence over motor vehicles.

In a stinging rebuke to New York City's street safety methods, the latest issue of Car and Travel, a.k.a. AAA New York magazine, serves up a razor-sharp critique of Broadway's new pedestrian plazas:

When New York City opened up new pedestrian zones in the heart of Midtown this summer, naysayers predicted a traffic nightmare. Nearly two months later, we're still waiting for the much-feared Carmaggedon.

We've been meaning to post this vid from culture mag ANIMAL New York (h/t Gothamist), which neatly undercuts the argument that the newly pedestrianized Broadway is "only for tourists." Sure, the tourists are grateful not to be jostling for space right next to traffic anymore, but so are lots of people from the five boroughs. It is, after all, where 158,000 people go to work every day. Take that, Andrea Peyser.

Lately, you may have found yourself doing double takes at the words coming out of Council Member John Liu's mouth. The transportation committee chair, running for comptroller in a crowded field that includes two other candidates from Queens, has turned into a go-to source for quotes that disparage safety improvements for pedestrians and cyclists. (Liu prefers to make his point indirectly, couching his criticism in attacks on "process".)