I’d love to have the shopping avenues in my outer borough neighborhood turned into car-free streets on weekends or at various times during the year and, in fact, I’ve been tangentially involved in trying to make it happen. Unfortunately, unlike Prince Street, I don’t think we have the ideal conditions for a 24-7 car-free zone in my hood but I’ll tell you what: I’d way rather live on a street filled with pedestrians than a street filled with motor vehicle traffic. Benefits for the residents include:

- No more honking, car alarms, or car sounds period.

- No more asthma- and cancer-causing pollutants spewing all over the place and piling up on your window sill.

- No more worrying that your kid or anyone else will run into the street and be mowed down by a truck. Your street, essentially, becomes a front yard. This is especially great if you have kids (I’m betting you don’t).

- It can be aesthetically really nice: More trees, benches, pieces of public art. How about a fountain in the middle of the street?

Prince, it doesn’t sound like we’re going to convert you. All I can say is you’ve got to try to go visit Copenhagen and check out the Stroget or visit Istanbul and check out the Istaklal Cadesi or visit Freiburg, Germany or, heck, there are a bunch of good pedestrianized streets out there. It’s hard not to come away from most of these ped streets with the sense that they are way more healthy, pleasant and livable than what we’ve got here in New York. If I lived on Prince I’d at least be open to giving it a shot during a weekend or a holiday shopping week.

More people are going to come to Soho anyway. do you want them bringing 2 tons of spewing, trolling metal with them, or just their overcoat?

-M

If more residents come into our already crowded neighborhood, how does that help SoHo residents? More crowds, more garbage, more lines in stores, more pedllers, more noise, more wear on the infrastructure.
Why would you encourage crowds in our neighborhood?

Why would you want to mall our neighborhood?
Try your own first.

Good for business, yes.
Good for residents, hardly.

This discussion started with the announcement of a very scientific and somewhat unprecedented study indicating that pedestrianizing Prince Street would likely reap a number of significant benefits to residents, visitors and business owners.

http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/reclaiming/soho_curbing_cars.pdf

If Prince is closed, to assume the autos will just disapper is akin to believing in alchemy. Please be realistic.

ONE MORE TIME: the peddlers are illegal. They break the law. That is why the police had a crackdown this weekend. Why is that so hard for some to understand? What don’t you understand that they are not permitted to be there? Get rid of the peddlers and Prince street congestion will be decreased by half.

Incidentally, we Prince Sreet denizens actually requested ‘no parking’ signage for Prince on weekends for a year. Because the rest of SoHo ( and most of lower Manhattan) have weekend parking, motorists did not notice the restrictive signs. So, people inadvertatnly parked, got tickets and the steets remained the same. Seeing the inequity, the community board returned to the old signage.

But knowing facts and history is something that is alien to some people with an agenda.

Everyone on this blog wants to put their two-cents in on trendy Prince Street, where I live.

Don’t be imperialists. Look after your own backyard, or your own front yard in this case.

Prohibit parking in front of your own homes, before you attempt it in front of others who do not share your agenda. Don’t be hypocritical.

It is easy to type away on a blog. Do someting concrete to relieve the traffic in YOUR own neighborhood.

Perhaps the next step is to propose doing an experiment with one street in Soho, remove parking there, perhaps add a temporary curb with a some amenities (somewhat like Willoughby), we could then track business on that block and survey pedestrian reactions.

We always say that “when parking is a sticking point, it is an indicator that a community has no broader vision for itself.” Certainly, the best places and districts in the world are not defined by parking but by public space for people. People still shop in midtown and at Rockefeller Center, but parking there is almost nonexistent!

For more on the parking versus place revolution: http://www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/issuepapers/place_for_parking

Aaron summed it up well. Soho is mall-like as it is, no doubt, but relocating a few cars hardly turns the space into any more of a mall. Planners are talking about a little elbow room for pedestrians, and everyone else is talking about preserving the privileges of the minority of Soho that drives, plain and simple.

I actually used to live on Thompson between Spring and Broome so I know exactly how hectic and mall-like Soho can get at times. But I want to respond to two points you made:

Shall we prohibit residential parking to the residents of Hell’s Kitchen, Brooklyn Hgts, the Junction in Brooklyn, LIC?

Not necessarily prohibit parking in these places but limit, better manage, and properly value curbside street space — yes, definitely. We talk about that a lot on the blog.

If you close Prince, traffic will just spill over to Spring or Houston or Bleecker.

Not likely. This is a common misconception (and scare tactic used by traffic engineers). If you closed Prince to cars, not every car currently using Prince would move over to Houston and Spring. In fact, the result would very likely be less motor vehicle traffic on all of the streets around Prince. Click this link to see a great British study on "disappearing traffic:"

http://www.contextsensitivesolutions.org/content/reading/disappearing-traffic/

And here is the study abstract:

Disappearing Traffic? The Story So Far

Reallocating roadspace from general traffic, to improve conditions for pedestrians or cyclists or buses or on-street light rail or other high-occupancy vehicles, is often predicted to cause major traffic problems on neighbouring streets. This paper reports on two phases of research, resulting in the examination of over 70 case studies of roadspace reallocation from eleven countries, and the collation of opinions from over 200 transport professionals worldwide. The findings suggest that predictions of traffic problems are often unnecessarily alarmist, and that, given appropriate local circumstances, significant reductions in overall traffic levels can occur, with people making a far wider range of behavioural responses than has traditionally been assumed. Follow-up work has also highlighted the importance of managing how schemes are perceived by the public and reported in the media, with various lessons for avoiding problems. Finally, the findings highlight that well-designed schemes to reallocate roadspace can often contribute to a multiplicity of different policy aims and objectives.

Closing Prince to traffic doesn’t have to mean street fair atmosphere. It doesn’t mean street fair on Nassau Street or Mulberry Street.

West Broadway should be one lane one way south. Northbound traffic should take 6th ave. Give the remainder of West Broadway to pedestrians and vendors.

Is it a terrible idea for the city to rent some kind of kiosks to vendors? Close the street to traffic, put the kiosks in the middle of the street, city collects rent of some kind on the kiosks, community approves the vendors that use the kiosks, people get more room. No vending allowed that isn’t done from a kiosk. Kiosk vending is easier to track for tax purposes. Might even leave less mess when they close at night. Or would that be too street fair? (I’m not being a smart ass, I’m wondering if this idea has already been shot down.)

Former Prince, hyperbole is rhetoric that is often used to show the outlandishness of another argument.
Consider the duplicity of your arguments in support of evicting street vendors and against closing the street to automobiles. An ill-reasoned response to your argument regarding closing the street to cars would posit that the vehicles would just end up clogging some other neighborhood street. However, we know this logic is false because the opening or closure of a road does not exist in a vaccuum. When roads open or close, people recognize the change in their surroundings and adjust their habits accordingly by considering the costs and benefits of the new road conditions (this is why roads built to “relieve congestion” rarely acheive their stated objective). However, if we carry your logic from the closing of roads (vis a vis clogging the nearby neioghborhood roads) to the strict (and sustained) enforcement of street-vending rules, will the vendors clog the sidewalks of nearby neighborhoods? No, as you (and I) assume, the vendors will change their behavior such that they are not breaking the law.
So, it seems reasonable to allot car drivers the same behavior that we assume for street vendors. This seems reasonable.
Personally, I think enforcement of street-vending regulations and closure of the street would optimize quality of life for residents and the economic viability of businesses (tax-paying and otherwise).

now THERE’S an idea. Spread it around!

Since proximity to mass transit is true of many neighborhoods, shall we prohibit residential parking to the residents of Hell’s Kitchen, Brooklyn Hgts, the Junction in Brooklyn, LIC?

If you close Prince, traffic will just spill over to Spring or Houston or Bleecker. Tourists won’t refrain from coming to SoHo just because Prince is closed.

This blog seems to believe that by making congestion worse people who drive will avoid the neighborhood. Well, we all agree that congestion is horrific on Prince and that doesn’t cause people who walk from avoiding it. It justs gets worse. People’s psychology – whether they own a car or not – is the same. Some people actually lke congestion. Go figure.

I think we all agree that
1) tolling the East River Bridges
2) congestive pricing
3) and – hope I’m not being too presumptive – having parking permits specific for each borough, or even all of NYC, would be most equitable.

However, politicians outside of NYC will never go for this without a fight, but let’s try it. Why should Manhattan – from the Battery to Washington Hgts – be invaded by tourists who refuse to take mass transit.

First, every time I’ve ever heard Soho residents talk on these topics — particularly the fellow who runs the Soho Alliance — the issue of residential parking comes up front and center. Yesterday there was a fellow ranting at the press conference about how T.A. was just trying to take away Soho resident’s parking. Unfortunately, the Soho Alliance seems to be run by folks who are still trying to defend the early-80′s version of the neighborhood. They are very regressive on these livable streets issues.

Second, while some neighborhoods in the outer boroughs have good proximity to mass transit and should have serious parking restrictions too, for the most part, there is no comparison between Soho and outer borugh residential neighborhoods. Soho is smack in the middle of the NY Metro region’s Central Business District. It’s in walking distance to all kinds of mass transit and within biking distance of the best that NYC has to offer.

I’d urge you to check out what Copenhagen has done to its old urban core neighborhoods. Partial and complete pedestranization of these older streets have only created major quality of life benefits. There is no reason the Soho Alliance shouldn’t support, at least, a one day or weekend long car-free trial on Prince. Give it a shot. See how people like it.

I see where you are coming from regarding non-neighborhood people getting involved in a very local example of a city-wide, even nation-wide, issue. But how can you rail against an effort to take back the streetscape from the automobile? And who’s arguing against proper enforcement of vendor laws?

1) LPD may resist it, but I’m sure one can find a way to preserve the historic slabs of sidewalk while expanding a safe pedestrian zone.

2) Where will all the traffic go if you close Prince Street to cars on the weekend? If you go through some of the archives here, you’ll see plenty of evidence for an overall reduction in traffic, even in adjacent neighborhoods which leave their streets open to cars. Some of the traffic will disappear. When they close off some of the streets near the World Trade center site, such as St. John, it’s not all cheap leather jackets and funnel cake. It’s an oasis that feels more historic than streets choked with cars and trucks.

Anony-

I don’t begrudge you the anti-elitist sentiment, but you sound an Alaskan oilman telling East Coast liberals to keep their noses out of the ANWR issue. How about you start posting here and educating us about the concerns in your neighborhood?

The livable streets movement cuts across race and class lines, whether you like it or not. True, congestion pricing will probably only improve certain neighborhoods, but done correctly, it could generate a huge amount of revenue to improve public transit in all boroughs.

And since when is Manhattan the provenance of only rich white people? That may happen someday, but it hasn’t yet. In my neighborhood in Harlem, childhood asthma is a huge problem, and while I concede that keeping cars out of Central Park isn’t on the same level as ending genocide or child labor, it’s a big quality of life issue in New York. I believe it could help stem the asthma crisis in Harlem. And it will make the park a lot safer for the many lower income and middle class people of color who use the northern section of the park.

I say less screeching and more action.

First of all, there is no free-parking for residents in SoHo. It is commercial for five days, and packed by tourists all weekend.

As a matter of fact, it is one of the few neighborhoods in NYC where thousands of people live that has no residential parking. If you want to eliminate residential ASP parking, fine, do it all over the city.

Go ahead, go to Queens, Bklyn, or SI and tell them you want to remove curb-side parking from in front of their homes. I also have a windmill for you to attack.

Time to move on, my friend. Soho isn’t returning to its 1970′s post-industrial, artist loft, boho roots. God bless the folks who colonized, defended and revived the place. But it can’t be all about preserving old time residents’ free parking spaces.

Alex, I respectfully disagree with this assertion. It is absolutely incorrect.
I refer you to Charles Simpson’s wonderful book “SOHO, The Artist In the City” published a a dozen years after the defeat of the LME. This LME was stopped due to a coalition of the Italians in Little Italy headed by polticians like Louie diSalvo and ‘Duke’ Viggiano, the pioneer artists of SoHo, by cast-iron preservationists like Margot Gayle, and by Greenwich Village activists on the community board #2, enthused by Jane Jacobs.
It was not killed by lack of money. It was killed by community opposition

Regarding your other point: No one is against reducing pollution or vehicular congestion. Please don’t put words in my mouth.

I merely argued against TransAlt’s two means:
1) widening the sidewalks (Landmarks would not let this happen since the 200-year old sidewalks are protected as much as the cast-iron buildings)
2) making Prince St car-free on weekends. (Where would the cars go? To TriBeCa or the Village or lower SoHo or NoHo? Those people would loudly object to the increase in vehicles now on their streets and would work to defeat freeing Prince Street from cars

My suggestion that since illegal peddlers take up half the sidewalk, removing them would increase pedestrian space by a factor of two without months of disruption and a cost of millions of dollars in construction.

I used to live in the Bronx (though barely, 262d St), I have been following developments regarding the Yankee Stadium redevelopment in the mainstream press. Streetsblog featured a few in-depth posts last summer but has not had any lately. If you have information or analysis about the Bronx, you should share it in a comment or as a contribution to Streetsblog. It should be obvious to you that doing so is more likely to develop support for your Bronx issues on this site, than is telling commenters from SoHo that you hope they achieve no progress on the issues that matter most to them until they put your Bronx issues at the forefront of their agenda.

I am not sure why reducing pollution and noise while increasing individual safety and tax revenues, all of which would be a result of eliminating vehicles from Prince, is a bad thing. Please explain why you oppose increased saftey, decreased pollution, and more money for the city.

Also, as much as we like to romanticize the valiant efforts of yore, the failure of Moses to complete the LME had more to do with money and poor execution than the voices of the community. Economically, it is not viable to replace taxable properties with a tax-subsidized infrastructure. Additionally the “data” in support of construction of the expressway (estimates of usage, pollution projections) were pretty shabby/shady. Without sound evidence of support for the project and the prospect of lost tax revenue, the plan was scrapped. The voice of the community undoubtedly helped bring attention to the issue, but they were not the primary reason for the plan’s defeat.