Comments on: End Central Park Road Rage: Keep Cars Out

By: brad russell

brad russell — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:36:37 +0000

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By: MB

MB — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:29:05 +0000

What people in cars and SUVs dont seem to care to understand is that one 'tap' of a bicylce or motorcycle or, worse, a pedestrian, can murder someone. There is no justification for using or threatening to use a car/SUV as a weapon, yet that is what these drivers do. Perhaps what is needed is a law that treats these vehicles as weapons when used to manifest road rage, which would rank that action along with other forms of attempted murder.

By: Doug

Doug — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:43:56 +0000

One lane with bollards. From a car's perspective, one lane is much much less than 2. Boy would I love to see that.

It always irks me to see people on the drive on the weekend. Most seem to think that if they put their blinkers on they're not bothering anyone. However, I often adjust my plans to avoid Central Park during the hours when the drive is open.

Isn't it obvious that when you have reduced hours on the drive to a pathetic 3 or 4 hours a day that it's not helping anyone to keep it open at all?

By: ddartley

ddartley — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:25:34 +0000

Tila, it's going to take more of the same organizing and petitioning EVEN IF a driver kills someone there.

By: Tila Duhaime

Tila Duhaime — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:33:42 +0000

Do we have to wait for a cyclist / pedestrian / jogger to be killed by traffic on the loop road before Central Park is made car-free? Apparently 100,000 signatures on the car-free petition weren't enough to sway our politicians. So what's it going to take?

By: Stacy

Stacy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:29:25 +0000

Reducing the number of traffic lanes would seem like a good idea but.. how many times have we seen cars 'step out over the line' in the southern end of the park whenever they become impatient with hansom cabs? To make matters worse, these cars rarely yield to runners or cyclists as they swerve into the recreational lanes. Cutting down on the number of lanes available to cars will probably only prompt them to use the same lanes, illegally.

I've also noticed a fair number of yellow cabs picking up and dropping off fares in Central Park. Cruising for fares within the park certainly should be illegal - if it isn't already.

By: oscarfrye

oscarfrye — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:13:14 +0000

BTW this should also serve as a lesson to never cite Gothamist or Gawker as a legitimate news source again. To me they're no netter than the National Enquirer

By: BicyclesOnly

BicyclesOnly — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:27:25 +0000

Next step in the painfully incremental path to a car-free Central Park should be a lane reduction for the cars down to one.

By: Cephas

Cephas — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:59:07 +0000

It's time for cyclists to take back the roads in the park a la Rosa Parks. Why can't cyclists - and pedestrians for that matter - simply take to using all the lanes in the park. If the cars don't like it, let them fume. I have the feeling that not many will risk murder sentences to gain ten minutes. Then again, I could all too easily be wrong...

By: Stacy

Stacy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:32:59 +0000

Gawker really invited the kind of anti-biking response with the horrible photo illustration of a cyclist on the Central Park transverse. Pro cycling readers on Bike Forum's Safety and Advocacy forum didn't even believe it was a real news story, until mainstream media picked up on the story, because of the way in which Gawker and Gothamist reported it.

That said, Central Park has become far too popular among runners, cyclists, skaters, pedestrians, parents with strollers, dog walkers, and meandering tourists to expect these users to confine their activities to one or two recreational lanes. This situation is only compounded by the lack of pedestrian paths along the drive in the northern section of the park. How many times have we had to avoid children walking or playing in the roadway near Lasker Rink because of the lack of pedestrian space?

If we can have a car-free Broadway, one leg in the so-called "Crossroads of the World" then why cant the City's premiere parks, Central Park and Prospect Park, be car-free as well?

By: Rhywun

Rhywun — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:03:35 +0000

I remember my first walk through Central Park when I moved here around a decade ago. I entered at 57th Street and walked north, and I remember being rather surprised at having to dodge heavy traffic at that first "drive". Needless to say, the park-like atmosphere is quite ruined when you can't walk a few hundred feet without coming across one of these "drives".

By: Boris

Boris — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:43:53 +0000

The designers of the huge new park on top of the old Fresh Kills dump in Staten Island (to be completed in 30 years) have thoughtfully provided for a few such "recreational drives" for that .0001% of us who will still be driving for fun in 2039. Huge fields of parking are also in the works. Bad old ideas die hard.

By: Bill from Brooklyn

Bill from Brooklyn — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:21:15 +0000

There are two distinct issues involved in this horrible event. First, even if you take Brian Dooda's actions in the worst challenging potential context, how can someone in an SUV not only move deliberately towards a bicyclist, but actually hit him twice, and on the second time drag him on the hood of his vehicle. Hopefully, Mr. Dooda will retain a good civil attorney to not only go after him for the automotive "accident", but for the deliberate assault. This is one of the rare instances, where based upon the facts as presented, I believe punitive damages are totally appropriate.

Second, and more importantly from a public policy basis, it is just further proof of why cars don't belong on the loops in Central Park or Prospect Park at anytime for any purpose.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:15:17 +0000

New Yorkers also stand to benefit from car-free parks in another way: they'd have an exhaust-free backyard for their kids to play in without fear of them getting hit by a car. With parks in short supply and with the wealthy able to send their children to New England summer camps, it seems unjust that the two places with wide open spaces in NYC -- Central and Prospect Parks -- have to be expressways for so many hours of the day.

As for the Gothamist commenters, they are unbelievably predictable. If you want a post to have 50 or more comments within hours, simply write something about bicycles or Park Slope strollers and -- voila! -- the trolls will come out from under their bridges.

By: doo

doo — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:07:19 +0000

Don't forget about Prospect Park. It's the same story. Cars drive violently, while the restricted space causes squeezed-in pedestrians and cyclists to fight over inches. Overall, the atmosphere becomes hostile and unpleasant for everyone during those hours.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:00:48 +0000

The writer of this post read my mind after I heard about this incident. In fact, I would gladly trade some of the new plaza area in Times Square to have Central Park be a park, not an expressway. It's pretty unbelievable that the one large park space in central Manhattan has been engineered to provide maximum terror to recreational users during prime periods of the day for recreation.

By: Gwin

Gwin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:50:13 +0000

This story - and the ensuing ignorant comments on Gothamist - sickens me. I don't care about the Fox News angle, but it always stuns me how horrible people in cars can be, and how the average person decides to side with them simply because they had a run-in with one inconsiderate cyclist.

Listen up, people: pedestrians and cyclists should be on the same side! There are so many driving in this city who shouldn't be -- because they have road rage issues -- or who needn't be, thanks to the vast public transportation resources we have...