Manhattan CB2 Committee Meeting on Prince Street Pedestrian Zone

by calendar on March 5, 2008

When
March 11, 2008   6:30 pm   
Where
NYU Silver Building
32 Waverly Pl. (at Washington Sq. E.), Room 713
Manhattan
More Info
Manhattan Community Board 2

At the March meeting of Manhattan CB2's Transportation Committee, the NYC DOT will present a proposal for a pilot program to open Prince St. to pedestrians and limit access by motor vehicles.

As proposed, Prince St. would be a pedestrian-only zone on Sundays from 11am to 6pm, from Lafayette St. to W. Broadway.

There is expected to be strong resistance from vocal members of the SoHo community who prefer the status quo of horribly overcrowded sidewalks, while most of the public space is used to park SUV's from New Jersey or the private vehicles of vendors who sell merchandise out of their vans while the street is backed up with limousines and Mercedes. But in Bruce Shaller's report, "Curbing Cars: Shopping, Parking and Pedestrian Space in SoHo," residents and visitors alike expressed they'd favor an environment with less parking and more sidewalk space, which makes sense in a neighborhood where the US Census shows just 5% of residents in the zip code use a private vehicle to get to work.