Site of James Langergaard's fatal August 14 crash

Tomorrow, TA will be holding a special Queens Boulevard Bike Pool ride in honor of James. The ride will pause at the site of James' crash to dedicate his ghost bike. The ride meets at the Queens foot of the Queensboro Bridge bike-pedestrian path (Queens Plaza North at Crescent Street in Long Island City), and ends in Forest Hills. Riders depart at 6:30 p.m.

I recently helped install James' ghost bike and saw for myself the intersection where my friend perished. Queens Boulevard is notoriously dangerous to cross, but this is a particularly forbidding stretch for anyone not encased in steel and glass.

James was riding south on 69th Street and had begun the perilous traverse of a 10-lane highway. After crossing three lanes of the "access" road, he came to the four-lane "express" portion of the Boulevard. Vehicles traveling down this corridor are given copious visual cues that they are on the urban equivalent of a limited-access freeway. They hurtle along a concrete, fenced-in channel that could be transplanted to any suburban no-man's land without alteration. The only things out of place would be a crosswalk and a 30-mph speed limit sign, which may be the highway department's idea of a joke given the inducements to exceed it.

As he approached the express lanes, James' view of traffic coming towards him from the left would have been partially obscured by a fence and signs placed in the median. He wouldn't have gotten a clear view of approaching traffic until he was only a few yards from the intersection. All he had to remind him that he was about to enter a zone of mortal danger was a distant "Don't Walk" signal at the other end of the intersection. That and a thoughtful sign placed on the median to his left warning any pedestrian foolish enough to venture across this deadly expanse to "Be Alert: Proceed With Caution."

According to witnesses, James was crossing against the light. But capital punishment should not be the likely penalty for an error in judgment. James was arguably as much the victim of an infrastructure designed exclusively for the convenience of motorists. All others who stray into the area are an afterthought, at best.

By coming on the ride or attending the dedication, you can help send a strong message to the community and the city that these casualties of the Boulevard will not be forgotten, and that such inhuman landscapes in the middle of a congested city must not be tolerated and must change.

WHERE: Ride meets at the Queens foot of the Queensboro Bridge  bike-pedestrian path (Queens Plaza North at Crescent Street in Long Island City); Ride ends in Forest Hills

WHEN: Friday, October 2; Riders depart at 6:30 p.m.

Monthly bike commuter pools on Queens Boulevard are led by TA's Queens Committee to provide cyclists with a safe ride home, and build support for protected space for cyclists on the borough's most iconic roadway.

The Central Park loop drive was never meant for traffic. Photo: Frodrig/Flickr

Brian Dooda was riding his bike in the park when he got into an altercation with the driver of an SUV. It seems Dooda was not riding in the "recreational lane" that the city has thoughtfully provided for those who have the quaint notion that Central Park is a place to escape the urban din. Instead, Dooda was out in one of the traffic lanes, "keeping a steady pace of 25 mph" as he later reported on the New York Cycle Club's message board.

Going the legal speed limit in Central Park apparently wasn't good enough for the SUV driver, who shared his displeasure with Dooda by cutting across his path, reportedly missing Dooda's front wheel by inches. Dooda caught up to the driver at a light. What allegedly unfolded is vividly described on Dooda's NYCC post, but in abbreviated form Dooda says the driver intentionally drove into him twice, with Dooda ending up on the car's hood and being driven some 200 feet while pleading for his life. Dooda says he finally fell off, essentially unharmed, and the driver sped away. There were witnesses, the license plate number was taken down, and Dooda has filed a report with the police.

Accounts of the incident on Gothamist and Gawker have elicited the usual quotient of "all cyclists deserve to die because a messenger hit me once" comments. Others piled on with their own "I told you so's" following the revelation that the SUV driver was a Fox News writer named Don Broderick (who apparently is using the "he hit me first" defense).

But all this finger-pointing and name-calling misses a larger issue. As most of us know, recreational users of Central Park have been unhappily sharing the park's loop road with car traffic for decades. This was the road that the park's designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, intended to be an integral part of the park experience and to never serve as a traffic thoroughfare. They won the competition to design Central Park precisely because they devised an ingenious way of allowing traffic to cross the park unnoticed via the four transverses.

Over the years, Central Park's recreational users have clawed back much car-free time, literally hour by hour. But as someone who has spent thousands of hours out on the loop road, I can report that clashes between drivers and park-goers -- ranging from horn honking to curses to threats -- occur with unsurprising frequency. The Dooda-Broderick incident made it beyond the park's boundaries only because of the egregiousness of Broderick's alleged actions. It stands as the latest stark reminder that Central Park's loop road cannot be both a refuge and a commuting corridor.

The city administration is boldly closing roads ranging from Park Avenue to Broadway to fulfill Mayor Bloomberg's vision of a "greener, greater New York City," but it still clings to the myth that cars must invade Manhattan's original green road, one that was never meant for traffic in the first place.

Sources within City Hall say that potential spillover traffic in Harlem is the only thing standing between New Yorkers and a car-free park. In fact, Harlem is the neighborhood that has the most to gain from a car-free park. A 2007 Transportation Alternatives study found that 57 percent of private car traffic using the park's northern entrances originates outside of Harlem. Closing the park to traffic would remove hundreds of cars from Harlem's streets and reduce tailpipe emissions in the neighborhood by about 3,240 pounds each day.

Until officials summon the small measure of political will needed to return the loop road to its rightful users, it will continue to be a contested street to which both drivers and park users believe they have a righteous claim. And the next Brian Dooda may not be so lucky.

Swanston Street has been partially pedestrianized, with trams, taxis and tour buses the only vehicles currently permitted during the day. According to news reports, the city was aware of the danger posed by buses on the street and planned to ban them sometime next year. Ironically, the street also has Melbourne's first Copenhagen-style protected bike lane, but the lane extends only one kilometer and ends well north of where the woman was killed.

Melbourne's reaction to the death of a cyclist on one of its streets may be instructive for New York City residents. The death was major news in The Age, one of the city's two main daily papers. The 1,200-word article quotes a city council member, a former mayor, the head of the bus line, and a representative of the transportation department. About 200 Melbourne cyclists rallied near the corner where the crash occurred. Even more remarkable, the next day The Age reported that "stung by criticism he failed to protect cyclists from the thousands of tour buses that choke one of the city's main thoroughfares, an emotional Lord Mayor John So last night banned buses from Swanston Street."

Contrast this with the remarks of our own mayor after two cyclists were struck and killed by vehicles in separate incidents on the Hudson River bike path, a car-free space. As reported by Streetsblog, Bloomberg expressed his sympathy, but said bikers also have to watch out for themselves in interactions with cars. "Even if they're in the right, they are the lightweights," the mayor said of cyclists. "Every year, too many people are hit by cars - and bikes have to pay attention."

Photo of crash scene on Swanston Street: The Age

In August, I had the pleasure of spending a little more than two weeks in Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne is the country's second-largest city, with 3.8 million residents in the metropolitan area. Despite its size, from a walking and transportation standpoint (to say nothing of a coffee-drinking perspective), Melbourne almost defines the term "livable city."

Trams

Melbourne boasts the world's most extensive tram network, with 152 miles of track, 28 routes and more than 1,800 tram stops. A total of 156.4 million passenger trips were recorded on Melbourne’s trams in 2007.  Melbournians love their tram system, which was begun in 1885, and they fiercely fought efforts to cut the system about 30 years ago. Since then, service has been upgraded and lines added or extended. Trams are so much the norm that drivers making rights at major intersections are required to execute the Melbourne "hook turn" so as not to block oncoming trams.

Cycling

The City of Melbourne is serious about improving cycling conditions and has been working hard to add bike lanes and other infrastructure, including a new "Copenhagen-style" protected bike lane on a one-kilometer stretch in the CBD (not pictured here). "The city aims to be one of the best cycling cities in the world," according to its impressive annual report on cycling conditions [download it].

The city's efforts have been paying off in increased bike commuting. Cyclists accounted for almost eight percent of all morning peak vehicles on the road in 2007, up from four percent in 2006. Today, there are about 12,000 cycle trips into and out of Melbourne's CBD each weekday, according to the advocacy group Bicycle Victoria.

Bicycle Victoria has 40,000 members, covering the entire state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital. Cycling crash insurance is included in the Aus$95 (US$77) cost of membership.

I was impressed by how well equipped the local cyclists are. This is in part because helmets and lights are mandatory. But a large percentage of cyclists were also outfitted with accessories like day-glo rain jackets and panniers. Both cyclists and pedestrians generally obey traffic signals, although tram tracks are an ever-present hazard for riders. I saw one woman snare her front wheel in a track and fall, and I witnessed other cyclists blithely crossing tracks at angles I considered perilous.

Still, cycling is eminently safe compared to New York City. Melbourne reports that in 2006 there were just 146 crashes resulting in injury. Nevertheless, Melbourne considers this figure too high and is trying to whittle the numbers down further. Among the city's upcoming projects is a Web site for cyclists to report issues and hazards.

Lovely off-road bike paths wind through sections of the city.  I followed one along the Yarra River for many miles, and it was often hard to believe I was still in Melbourne.  On trips out of town, I was amazed to see that outside of urban areas bicyclists are permitted to ride on the shoulders of freeways, with signage advising them how to safely traverse on-ramps.

Laneways and other pedestrian amenities

Melbourne is filled with hidden "laneways" that cut between major streets downtown. The city has been steadily reclaiming these hidden treasures from traffic and disuse, and the laneways have become renowned for their charm, with al fresco eateries, boutique shops and bars. A number of inviting pedestrian arcades, reminiscent of those in Paris, can be found as well.

Sidewalk build-outs for traffic calming are plentiful around town and are put to varied uses, including café seating and bike parking.  

As he has been doing in New York City, Danish architect Jan Gehl has been working with the City of Melbourne to improve the quality of its public realm.

All in all, Melbourne is a wonderful place to explore on foot, by tram or by bike -- after you spend half an eternity getting there!

Photos: Ken Coughlin

Congestion pricing would have quickly resulted in a palpable drop in traffic, but it is hardly the only strategy for removing substantial numbers of cars from city streets. The administration simply has to switch city models, moving from the London one of making it costlier to drive to the Paris and Copenhagen ones of making it more difficult to move around by car and pricier to park, while creating infrastructure that encourages alternatives like biking and mass transit. The approach is more incremental -- close a road here, build a dedicated bus or bike lane there -- but eventually you get to the same place: less traffic, cleaner air, and a more livable and functional city.

If you were a traffic engineer at the Department of Transportation, you would now be looking for opportunities to close roads that are not essential arteries, particularly those that, by their mere existence, serve as enticements to drive. Can anyone think of such roads? Wait a minute! Isn't there one in some famous park just north of Midtown, and another one in a gorgeous park in Brooklyn?

In short, the stage seems to be set for at least a trial closing of both parks' bucolic loop roads to car traffic this summer. In fact, the logic of this seems so self-evident that if it fails to happen, it will be a clear sign that powerful and sinister forces are blocking it.

Here's the new, post-congestion pricing case for car-free parks:

The amount of traffic affected by closing the bucolic loop roads of Central and Prospect Parks would be small thanks to previous cutbacks in the hours that cars are allowed to invade them. But closures would nevertheless play a modest role in reducing traffic. With the loops no longer available, a significant percentage of the drivers who use them would switch to other transportation or significantly modify their driving patterns so that they would effectively disappear from the grid -- a well-documented phenomenon called "shrinkage."

What percentage would do this? Estimates vary. The Regional Plan Association has said that closing Central Park's loop would induce 20 percent to 60 percent to get out of their cars or drive when they won't be contributing to congestion. In testimony before the City Council in 2006, transportation consultant Bruce Schaller (now with the DOT) predicted that this figure could be as high as 100 percent. This is not as outlandish as it seems. After the collapse of the West Side Highway in 1973, almost none of the traffic that had used it turned up on surrounding streets. Drivers evidently found other ways to get around a city that has a notably flexible and diverse transportation system.

We also know that the availability of the Central Park loop is drawing hundreds of cars a day into Harlem that otherwise would stay on peripheral roads like the Henry Hudson Parkway or would opt for alternative transportation modes. A recent study by Transportation Alternatives of private car drivers entering Central Park from the north found that 57 percent began their trips outside of Manhattan. TA estimates that closing the park to traffic would remove at least 3,107 private vehicles a week from Harlem streets during the morning commute.

For an administration searching for politically painless ways to cut traffic congestion, the Central and Prospect Park loop roads are ripe for the picking. In fact, making our two crown jewel parks the car-free spaces they were meant to be could be the signature initiative of the mayor's shift to "Plan B." Some political pundits have said that the demise of congestion pricing may have cost Mayor Bloomberg a significant piece of his anticipated legacy. While small in its contribution to reducing traffic, permanently eliminating cars from both parks would be huge in symbolic value and help secure the mayor's historical standing as a gutsy environmental innovator.

Ken Coughlin is Chair of the Car-Free Central Park Campaign.

This holiday season, users of Central and Prospect Parks got an unexpected and welcome gift after years of finding coal (and exhaust) in their stockings. Interestingly, the sources of that exhaust didn't seem to complain (or perhaps even notice) that things had changed.

For years, cars have been barred from most of the Parks' Loop Drives during weekday non-rush hours. But year after year, an exception has been made for the period between Thanksgiving and New Years when the city has temporarily lifted the weekday traffic ban. They called it "Holiday Hours." The reason, to quote a 2005 Department of Transportation press release, was "to provide additional capacity to help process the expected increase in vehicular trips during the holiday season" and, as former DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall said in 2006, "to help make room for the many people that want to enjoy our City's attractions." In other words: Accommodating more motor vehicle traffic was the mitigation for too much motor vehicle traffic.

Whether there is any evidence that "additional capacity" is needed or does anything more than fuel traffic congestion was the subject of a post on this site in November 2006 (see "Sacrificing Central Park to Appease the Traffic Gods"). But there is no doubt that the sudden appearance of car traffic during times of day that have been car-free for the previous ten months has been an annual jolt to the park's thousands of recreational users.

This year, however, at the urging of Transportation Alternatives, DOT for the first time quietly failed to open the Parks' gates to the anticipated crush of Santas hurtling to Midtown to fill their SUVs with gifts. The suspension of car-free hours was itself suspended. What ensued is instructive: nothing.

DOT officials say that they didn't receive any calls or complaints through 311 and the Mayor's Community Assistance Unit heard nothing from motorists furious that they hadn't received their customary holiday handout. Traffic congestion around the Parks did not appear to be any worse than usual.

But while drivers may not have noticed or cared much, the Parks' recreational users certainly did. According to a DOT official, the agency received considerable feedback through e-mail and other means from people who noticed that weekday car-free hours in Central and Prospect Parks remained intact during the holidays and were pleased. T.A., too, heard from many delighted park users, some of whom could not believe their eyes (or their lungs).

"We're going to keep reviewing how it went, but certainly we'd look to do it again next holiday season," the DOT official said. "At this point we see no reason to make a change."

All this bodes well for the three-month trial closing of both parks to traffic this summer, a long-overdue measure being pushed by TA and numerous elected officials, including Upper West Side Council Member Gale A. Brewer, who introduced the car-free summer legislation two years ago. To be sure, drivers are more likely to notice when a privilege is taken away rather than simply not reinstated. But nearly every incremental restriction of car traffic in both parks has been preceded by dire predictions of traffic cataclysm. Time and time again, these fears have proved groundless.

The holiday hours story should embolden officials to take an extended holiday from traffic and make Central and Prospect Parks the refuges they were meant to be.

Photo: Swruler9284 / Flickr

Every November, year after year, the city sends two contradictory messages to motorists. On the one hand, it urges all those coming to the city during the holiday season to use mass transit. On the other, its Department of Transportation announces that to accommodate those who will be driving, the Central Park loop road will be open to traffic all day on weekdays from late November until early January, eliminating daytime car-free hours for the park's recreational users. In effect, the city is saying, "We encourage you to use mass transit, but if you want to drive, we have this lovely park you can motor through that we hope will speed your way to Midtown!"

This double message aside, DOT's own traffic data fails to demonstrate a need to throw open Central Park to traffic during the holiday season.

In 2004, the DOT studied the effects of entrance closings that had taken effect in November 2004 The report, published April 2005, can be found here: 2004 Holiday Traffic Plan: Central Park Drive Improvements (PDF file). As part of the study, the agency recorded traffic volumes at various entrances and exits on the loop drive and on several adjacent avenues both at the height of the 2004 holiday season (December 6-10 and 13-17) and after holiday hours had ended (January 10-14, 2005).

Unfortunately, DOT did not record traffic volumes during the five mid-day hours (10 am to 3 pm) that cars use the Park during the holiday period, but it did count cars during the morning and evening rush hours (7-10 am and 3-7 pm). One would expect that to justify opening Central Park to traffic all day, holiday traffic volumes would be substantially greater than during non-holiday periods. This is simply not the case. In fact, the data suggests there is less traffic.

Central Park has two major exits for traffic traveling southbound. Traffic heading into Midtown is most likely to leave the park via the exit at 7th Avenue and Central Park South. The second-most popular exit for southbound cars leaving the park is the one at West 72nd Street.

At the 7th Avenue exit during the rush-hour periods, fewer cars left the park during the holiday weeks than after the holidays: an average of 5,608 cars versus 6,732 cars a day, or 1,124 fewer cars. The West 72nd Street exit saw a small increase in traffic leaving the park during the holiday weeks: an average of 3,570 cars versus 2,960 cars, or 610 more cars a day leaving the park during the holiday period.

Adding it up, there were 514 fewer cars a day, on average, leaving the park at its two major southbound exits during the holiday weeks than afterwards.

Nor were the surrounding avenues unusually packed with cars. There was no significant uptick in traffic on the avenues adjacent to the Park during the holiday weeks compared with the post-holiday week. For example, the holiday versus post-holiday counts during the morning rush at Fifth Avenue between 62^nd and 63^rd were 4,296 versus 4,379; at Central Park West between 62nd and 63^rd they were 1,002 versus 906; and at Columbus Avenue between 62^nd and 63^rd, they were 4,063 versus 3,954. That adds up to an average 82 additional cars a day during the holiday weeks on these avenues at a time when the city is supposed to be so gridlocked that the Central Park drive simply must be opened to traffic all day.

What could be the reason for the DOT's continued insistence that the world's most famous urban refuge must be made available to any motorist who wants to speed through it in the middle of the day? I'm starting to believe that superstition is at work here, the same kind that prompted our ancestors to sacrifice virgins or sheep to appease the gods -- only now, the DOT believes that if it doesn't sacrifice a great urban park each year, the traffic gods will grow angry and something terrible will happen. But something terrible is already happening: For six weeks, recreational users of the Central Park Drives will have no escape from the danger, pollution and aggravation of traffic. The gods must surely be angry.

Ken Coughlin is Chair of the Car-Free Central Park Campaign which has collected over 100,000 signatures in support of a car-free park.