At 2:18 on Clarence’s very nice video, she tells us that “cycling is also the backbone of our City’s transportation network.” But she is also quoted in the post below as saying that the City is “considering a car-free Central Park summertime trial.”

These statements are hard to reconcile. We have already held sufficient trials of the impact of restricting cars in CP, beginning last summer (putting aside the “holiday mitigation”). It was a success. T.A. has data showing that eliminating auto access on a counter-rush hour basis does not create significant spillover effect on the adjacent grid:

(http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/cpark/index.html).

Car-free hours are the clear preference of cyclists and pedestrians who are the majority users of the CP loop road. Here’s more videos from Clarence and others on point:

http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/category/issues/car-free-parks/http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=car+free+central+park )

By my reckoning there is dramatic growth this spring over last in the use of the “recreation” (inner) lane of the CP loop road by pedestrians, joggers, and sports-stroller-pushers. These folks increasingly take up 100% of the recreation lane, pushing cyclists into traffic. Notwithstanding the “recreational” designation, the west side of the CP loop carries large amounts of soutbound commuter cycling traffic every morning, far more than East Side Greenway. As a result, cyclists like my son and I are forced out into traffic on a (week)daily basis–traffic that has been shown by T.A. studies to be marked routine, dangerous speeding:

http://www.transalt.org/press/releases/051021speedstudy_release.html

Why the need for a “trial” when the proof is already in? How can the Commissioner be on the fence over whether to continue ceding to cars 2/3 of the CP loop road, which is a crucial segment of the City’s cycling “backbone”?

Summer officially starts in two weeks, so we should be hearing from DoT on this soon. Yes, the Bloomberg administration has a much broader agenda that the cycling community and others need to support, warts and all. We are all supporting it. But that’s beside the point. Why this waffling from the Commissioner on a decision with such great practical and symbolic significance to her alternative vision of NYC streets, which lies completely within the City’s power to make?