And yes, that is what the bus station is for – except that the bus station is over capacity, which is why there are so many bus services operating along side streets instead. What we need are policies (and the funding flexibility) to provide better service by bus and rail, and to improve station space accordingly. A more attractive and user-friendly station wouldn’t hurt, either.

I think readers of this blog are ready to acknowledge that motor vehicle traffic is not a fixed quantity. If we reduce the motor vehicle traffic flow in one place, some of it reroutes itself, and much of it converts to pedestrian and transit traffic.

a. littered with scaffolding and illegal street merchants (32nd). Scaffold seems to support no work and needs to come down. I understand street merchants make a living selling knock off merchandise, but they need to find another place to do it.

b. overwhelmed by tourist bus sales, advertising street teams and free newspaper distribution (Penn Plaza); While, city parks and BID’s charge tens of thousands of dollars for “event space” – its clear to me that none of the stake holders, Amtrak, the 34th street partnership or Vornado is able to regulate this zone – its is open to anyone with the balls to risk a ticket (which don’t seem forthcoming). The free newspaper distribution is a menace that slows down the (all ready dangerous number of) people pouring out of Penn Station stairs/escalators.

c. new bus services directly competitive with Amtrak regional service (enabled by the city DOT to load/off load and park in the immediate vicinity); There are lines of passengers waiting to board buses on the sidewalk (33rd/7th Ave). We have a BUS STATION for this purpose!

d. sidewalks are filthy. One area in particular stands out. The QSRs operating on the East Side of 7th Avenue between 32nd and 34th are not property bagging their food waste. They are not washing their sidewalks down each day. The sidewalks are covered with organic material. Frankly this is true of the entire 34th Street Area. The zone is overwhelmed with lack of maintenance.

http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/04/17/a-transit-miracle-on-34th-street/

Obviously, there always room for improvement in the plan but BRT on 34th Street is definitely a good start. It would be more efficient that the current bus lane layout. As for inserting planters and paint and just dropping it on 7th Avenue, as Gorton suggests, well the DOT put more thought into that (referring to Broadway as the example). The reason Herald Square was opened up to pedestrians was because of Times Square. With the new configuration at Times Square, this created a major traffic flow shift of all southbound Broadway traffic to 7th Avenue. Therefore, any changes made to 7th Avenue at 34th Street has to be consistent throughout 7th Avenue up to at least Times Square. I’m hesitant to say installing the bike lane setup on 7th Avenue (as done on Broadway and 9th Avenue), because hitting the Penn Station area will be tricky. On top of which, the Penn Hotel and Penn Station access to designated taxi areas has to be factored in. So for now, I would say increase sidewalk space on 7 between 42 and 34 by surrendering traffic lanes.

More trains mean more pedestrians!

I think you guys did a great job of pointing out a continuing problem and I do think the video can reach those outside the of the “converted.”

And I must add, what will those sidewalks look like once “THE Tunnel” is complete in several years and then maybe Moynihan Station? What if gas hits $5 a gallon before then? Both! $10 bucks!!!

THINK ABOUT IT!

I also think that there is a lot of potential for the block of 32nd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. That block is very heavily trafficked by pedestrians, but not too many cars seem to use it. It would be very successful as a car-free block. The only caveat is that there are many loading docks on the block; perhaps it could be open to cars/trucks at night only.

Sorry my apologies. Was not intentional, I was having some computer issues and had to do the write up in a document and cut and paste it over once I was able to solve my log in issues. So somewhere I lost the NJ Transit reference in my haste. Believe me, 80% of the time I am in the Penn Station area it is to go on NJ Transit trains to visit my family, so it was the first one I listed when drafting the write up. I wouldn’t have left it out on purpose.

I’ll fix that now.

But why does the post below it not mention NJ Transit rail riders? They FAR outnumber Amtrak riders. I am tired of NJT riders being treated as invisible, even by transportation advocates. NJ Transit runs the third largest commuter railroad in the country, and yet you’d never know it.