Weekend cyclists in Central Park. Photo: Ed Yourdon/Flickr

At a meeting Wednesday night with representatives of groups that use the park’s loop road, the Central Park Precinct’s Community Affairs Officer Richard Tombari strongly implied that the precinct’s enforcement approach has shifted from its previous and punitive zero-tolerance stance.

While stressing that “the law is the law” and that cyclists will never get an official announcement of relaxed enforcement, Tombari told meeting attendees that officers have “discretion” and that their focus is now on reckless cycling. He offered several examples of what might be considered reckless riding, including racing through a red light when pedestrians are in the crosswalk. None of his examples involved a cyclist riding through a red light when no one is attempting to cross. It was unclear whether officers’ use of discretion is limited to car-free hours or whether it extends to places and times when cars are in the park.

Tombari’s comments came during a meeting of the Central Park Conservancy’s Recreation Roundtable, a loosely structured advisory group that works with the Conservancy on recreation issues in the park. Supporting the suggestion of a more relaxed enforcement regime is the fact that none of the representatives of the cycling organizations in the room knew of a red-light summons having been issued to a cyclist in the park in the past several weeks. In addition, on April 6, citing a reliable source, the New York Cycle Club announced to its members that a pilot program is underway in which the police will not enforce red lights in Central Park between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. on weekdays, barring reckless or dangerous riding. At the same time, the lights on the loop road were permanently synchronized to 25 miles per hour, presumably as an accommodation to fast cyclists.

While it appears that cyclists will never get explicit confirmation from the NYPD, after Wednesday’s meeting it seems fair to conclude that the NYPD is now pursuing a more rational policy of focusing enforcement on reckless cycling and is unlikely to ticket cyclists riding through red lights at deserted intersections, at least when that section of the loop is car-free. A meeting attendee asked about trends in the enforcement of rules against counterflow riding on the drives and equipment violations, and Tombari said he would provide a response.

But as long as the NYPD is unwilling to explicitly pledge that it will not ticket cyclists simply because they go through a red light — or as long as the city insists that traffic laws apply to cyclists in parks during car-free hours — riding a bike in Central Park remains, legally speaking, a dicey proposition. (Dicey, that is, unless you can maintain an average speed of 25 mph, which seems like a crazy thing for anyone to be encouraging at this point.) Changing the lights to flashing yellow during car-free times, as legislation introduced by City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez calls for, appears to be the only current route for legitimizing recreational cycling in the park once more. Rodriguez’s bill now has 11 co-sponsors, although the Department of Transportation reportedly opposes it on the grounds that it would confuse pedestrians.

Will the “Central Park Shuffle” – a ticket-avoidance strategy employed by some in which the rider dismounts and runs through the red light cyclocross-style – become a vaguely remembered relic of a fleeting period of civic madness? Perhaps, but you might not want to clip in too tightly just yet.

Steve Vaccaro assisted with reporting and writing.

Photo: Ken Coughlin

A crowd of 300 people, outraged at a police ticket blitz that threatens to effectively eliminate Central Park as a place of recreation for cyclists, ran into an unyielding blue wall at last night’s meeting of the Central Park Precinct’s community council. The precinct commander, Captain Philip Wishnia, offered no hope that his precinct’s enforcement of red-light laws at each of the loop road’s 47 traffic lights will abate, nor any assurances that his officers will exercise meaningful discretion.

Both Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Upper West Side City Council Member Gale Brewer made brief statements at the meeting, urging exploration of a proposal to change the traffic lights to blinking yellow when cars are not in the park. Brewer, however, grasped the essence of the problem. Noting that she has had a bill before the council since 2006 calling for a trial closing of the park to cars, Brewer said, “Let’s get cars out of the park and change the current policy.”

Central Park Precinct Commander Philip Wishnia. Photo: NYPD

Wishnia initially tried to claim that the precinct’s sudden crackdown is in response to a “dramatic increase in incidents over the years,” an assertion that he failed to substantiate. When speaker after speaker challenged the claim, Wishnia would eventually fall back on the explanation that he is simply being instructed by higher-ups to enforce the law and has no flexibility. He suggested audience members talk to their legislators if they want a change.

Here are some further highlights, if you can call them that (many thanks to audience members Steve Vaccaro and Lisa Sladkus for their notes):

• Wishnia said that 230 summonses have been issued to cyclists so far this year, compared to 160 speeding summonses issued to drivers all of last year and 62 the prior year. Wishnia maintained the summonses given to cyclists are “not a lot” and that it “doesn’t amount to zero tolerance enforcement.”
• “We cyclists don’t understand how routine speeding by motorists in the park is condoned and even encouraged in this way, but you can’t allow a cyclist to ride through a red light in a deserted intersection in the park,” said Vaccaro. “How can an officer have the discretion to ignore one, but not the other?”
• Wishnia responded: “My officers have discretion. Not everyone who went through a light got a summons.” But when a cyclist asked under what circumstances he could go through a red light without getting a ticket, Wishnia replied, “I won’t tell you what your window of opportunity is.”
• One audience member presented his calculation that a park visitor has an infinitesimal chance of being struck by a cyclist (35 million park visitors in 2010 vs. 43 incidents involving cyclists and pedestrians, an unknown number of which were not the cyclist’s fault). When Wishnia was pressed by this and other questioners on his evidence for a problem warranting the current crackdown, he declared, “Even one injury is too many.”
• Stephen Bauman of the Five Borough Bicycle Club made a detailed legal argument that cyclists are not subject to Vehicle and Traffic Laws during non-car hours. “I think you’re making up the law,” Bauman said. “VTL does not apply directly to bicycles, and only to roadways ‘ordinarily used for vehicular travel.’”
• Wishnia claimed that the crashes involving bikes typically happen when the cars aren’t in the park. “I can guarantee you that if you ban cars in the park, there will be more crashes.”
• More from Wishnia: “When you’re leaned over your racing handlebars, you’re not looking out for pedestrians.”
• Wishnia refused to address a question about why officers don’t try to keep joggers out of the bike lane. “Right now we’re talking about cyclists, not runners. There are lots of other things we could talk of.”
• An 8-year-old girl asked Wishia: “If cyclists are being killed all the time, why are they being punished?”
• “I believe in this little yellow light idea that would give cyclists the right to use the park,” said Stringer. “I sent a letter to DOT. If we (i.e. cyclists) respect the yellow light, we shouldn’t be hitting cyclists with $270 tickets.”
• Wishnia estimated the crowd at 300 but claimed that the room could be filled with just as many who favor the current enforcement regime. “Where are they?” the crowd roared back.

Where do we go from here? Your comments appreciated.

Under a proposal by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, traffic lights would tell cyclists to yield rather than stop during off-peak hours. Photo: Ed Yourdon via Flickr.

Whatever you think of the NYPD’s citywide “Operation Safe Cycle,” of which all this is a part, the culture in Central Park for decades has been to allow cyclists to treat the traffic signals as “Yield” signs. Suddenly issuing $270 tickets to anyone who happens to go through a red on a bike while enjoying this most famous of urban oases is a “sick, disgusting, and even somewhat sadistic policy,” to quote a friend of mine not generally given to hyperbole.

If you care about preserving Central Park as a place where cyclists can get some exercise and escape the city, tonight you will want to attend the Central Park Precinct’s Community Council meeting, the precinct’s monthly forum for community input, at 7 pm at 160 Central Park West (the Universalist Church at 76th Street).

Admittedly, when I was in the park spearheading the drive to gather 100,000 signatures for a car-free Central Park, I would sometimes hear complaints about lycra-clad riders treating the park as if it were their personal velodrome. But at tonight’s meeting I and others will argue that if there is a safety issue, the precinct’s extreme solution will do little or nothing to address it. Moreover, requiring cyclists to stop at every red light for the full duration of the cycle no matter the circumstances – and there is, on average, a light every 674 feet on the six-mile loop — arguably removes the park as a viable recreational space for many riders, not just the Lance Armstrong wannabes. (I know several non-racing cyclists who have stopped using the loop.)

The February meeting of the Parks and Environment committee of Manhattan’s Community Board 7, on which I sit, provided some insight into the rationale for the ticket blitz. Precinct Commander Captain Philip Wishnia answered questions and essentially offered two competing explanations: First, he said word had come down from One Police Plaza to zealously enforce all traffic rules against cyclists, and the precinct had no say in the matter. Second, he maintained that the crackdown is an effort to address a purported rise in incidents involving cyclists and other users on the loop drive. Wishnia returned several times to a mishap between a cyclist and a 9-year-old boy, who he said was seriously injured. The logic of Wishnia’s proposed remedy goes like this: Forcing cyclists to stop at all red lights will make it harder for fast cyclists to achieve speeds that could do serious harm to someone on foot.

It became clear, however, that Wishnia has no idea of the scope of the problem he is seeking to address. He said that of 120 reportable incidents involving cyclists in 2010, only 43 involved a cyclist colliding with a pedestrian. And he could not say in how many of these incidents the cyclist was at fault or how many occurred at a crosswalk. A group of recreational cyclists sent a letter to Wishnia last week following up on these questions [PDF], and we hope to get a more thorough response from the precinct at tonight’s meeting.

Many observers, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, have proposed an alternative: simply shift the park’s traffic signals to blinking yellow during car-free hours, and perhaps add a push-button that would turn the light red for pedestrians who wish to cross during high-use times. Unfortunately, according to the Central Park Conservancy the park’s signals would have to be retooled for this to happen, presumably at considerable expense.

On the legislative front, City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez is about to introduce a bill that would require all the lights to blink yellow during non-car hours. To generate momentum, Rodriguez needs people to encourage their council members to sign onto his bill and to express support to Speaker Christine Quinn.

Another common sense alternative would be for the precinct to treat the lights as if they are already blinking yellow for recreational users like cyclists. The idea would be for officers to exercise discretion and to ticket failures to proceed with caution (VTL 1113) or to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks (VTL 1134). At the CB7 meeting, Wishnia dismissed this idea out of hand, claiming it would amount to “selective enforcement.”

Leaving aside that he is misusing this legal concept, the reality is that Central Park precinct officers routinely exercise discretion and treat different users differently. As was recently reported on Streetsblog, motorists regularly drive through the park at 10 to 15 miles per hour above the 25 mph speed limit, right alongside cops. In addition, a precinct officer recently informed a cyclist that officers are using their judgment about whether to ticket red light-running cyclists at the park’s less crowded northern section, whereas a strict zero-tolerance policy is in force further south. This officer’s assurances notwithstanding, cyclists are reportedly still being ticketed in the park’s northern section.

I don’t harbor illusions that anything will be resolved at Monday night’s meeting, but if the crowd of those pleading for reason is large enough, it will send a clear message up the chain of command that the Central Park loop is not the same as Ninth Avenue.

Of course, we would not be having this discussion if cars were not allowed in the park in the first place. Traffic lights were first installed there in 1932, not to regulate recreational users but to keep the cars that had invaded the park some three decades earlier from killing people. Today, cyclists — the sort of recreational user for whom the park was designed — are being forced to adhere to rules created for cars, which is making it difficult for them to use Central Park as a place of recreation. In other words, even when cars are not in the park, their iniquitous influence endures.

The best solution would be to simply ban cars altogether, which would immediately open up a host of opportunities to better regulate and separate loop users. At the least, the recent ticket blitz has sharpened the contradictions inherent in allowing car traffic in this most famous of urban refuges.

Photo: Ken Coughlin

As many commuting cyclists know all too well, lighting is nonexistent on the path between 63rd Street and 72nd Street and on the Cherry Walk some 35 blocks to the north. Herrold is aware of the problem in both areas. Between 63rd and 72nd, he's working with the DOT to install lighting similar to what's currently on the path between 59th and 63rd. He expects this new lighting to illuminate the way by the time the days grow shorter in the fall. Cherry Walk is more of a challenge, because the installation of electric lights there would be quite costly due to the lack of electrical hookups. Herrold is investigating solar-powered lighting, and in the meantime he's considering putting reflectors on some of the trees.

Meanwhile, the potential for greater conflict between cyclists and pedestrians may be developing on the path near the Pier I Café at 70th Street. The café uses a service facility on the east side of the bike path to store food and supplies, and a permanent restroom facility is being constructed on that side of the path as well. In addition, a Bike & Roll bicycle rental station will soon be opening a few steps to the north. All of which means that foot traffic crossing the path will likely increase at what is already a sometimes crowded bike-ped intersection. Herrold is aware of the potential hazards when fast-moving cyclists mix with pedestrians who walk into the path without looking, and he's considering speed humps to slow the faster cyclists down, as well as additional signage for crossing pedestrians.

Photo: bicyclesonly/Flickr

If this were true, it would invite the question why it's such a big deal to finish the job, but in fact Sadik-Khan's statistic is simply false. Worse, she's clearly been using this inaccurate figure for quite some time, because she also cited it in a conversation I had with her back in October 2008.

Here are the facts: Because different sections of the loop are open to traffic for different lengths of time, the actual percentage depends on where you are on the loop and also on what you define as "the time" (for example, is it every hour of every day or only the hours when people are actually in the park?). Given this, the actual percentage of time that cars are banned ranges from a low of 25 percent to a high of 94 percent, depending where you are on the loop.

Let's assume that "the time" means every hour of every day. With the West Drive now open to traffic for only two hours on weekday mornings, it's closed to traffic 94 percent of "the time," which is the likely source of Sadik-Khan's "98 percent." But as any recreational user of Central Park knows, the six-mile loop has an East Drive as well, which is open to traffic far longer. The East Drive north of 72nd Street is open from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., and the half-mile segment between the Sixth Avenue entrance and the E. 72nd Street exit permits vehicular access from morning until night, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. This means the section north of 72nd is closed to traffic 88 percent of "the time" and the southern section is closed only 64 percent of "the time."

The percentage of car-free time drops if we limit "the time" to weekday hours when people are actually likely to be in the park, and exclude weekends (when cars have been banned for 43 years), the overnight curfew (when no one is allowed in the park anyway), and the period from 10 p.m. to the curfews' start at 1 a.m. If "the time" is instead defined as weekdays from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., the West Drive is closed to traffic 87 percent of the time, the northern part of the East Drive is closed 77 percent of the time, and the southern section is closed only one quarter of the time.

Whatever the percentages are, the fact remains that the drives are open to traffic during the precise hours when non-motorized use is highest: before the start of the workday on the West Drive; when kids are getting out of school and adults off from work on the northern section of the East Drive; and virtually all day on the East Drive's southern corner. The commissioner's implicit assertion that the park is almost completely closed to traffic is highly misleading and unhelpful.

On the more hopeful side, Sadik-Khan told Lehrer that closing the park to cars is "something we've been looking at," but she hastened to add that "it's a balancing act in terms of understanding how the traffic flows through this important part of the city."

One wonders how much more data DOT needs before its understanding is complete. Over the past two decades the agency has repeatedly installed traffic counters both in the park and on surrounding streets. After each of its major adjustments to car access it has conducted detailed studies, none of which found any significant traffic problems. Isn't it time DOT heeded the advice that urbanist Jane Jacobs offered me in a letter from 2002?

We had the same sort of fight in Washington Square Park in the late 1950s and in my neighborhood here in Toronto a couple of years ago: same prediction of traffic chaos, same result of no chaos, diminished traffic counts and no counts increased elsewhere in consequence. Isn't it curious that traffic engineers are so loath to learn something new even after repeated demonstrations? Both in Washington Square Park and in my Toronto neighborhood we got our way by pressing for an experimental trial period. A trial, with traffic counts on the Central Park perimeter streets, will be more persuasive than any amount of talk, letter-writing, resolutions, and other endless wheel-spinning.

Photo: Ken Coughlin.

I deliberated long and hard about whether to press my case. The driver was probably just trying to make ends meet and save up a little by working grueling 12-hour shifts. Hell, I used to drive a cab myself. But I also thought of my responsibility to other cyclists. If the driver had swiped me on a four-lane boulevard in broad daylight, couldn't he do the same to someone else, with perhaps a devastating outcome? I decided to file a complaint.

The hearing took place several weeks later. I had a choice to testify by phone or in person in Queens (I live and work in Manhattan). Not wanting to take a half-day away from work, I opted for the surreal experience of being sworn in by a judge while sitting at my own desk. The driver, through his lawyer, did not dispute that he had hit me. His only defense was that he hadn't realized he had done so. To me, it seemed an open-and-shut case: Driver admits hitting cyclist, driver will face some consequences.

The judge's ruling came in the mail a few days later.

"There was no allegation of speeding or reckless driving during the hearing and certainly no proof of same," it read. "Thus a prima facie case for the violations charged has not been established and the Summons and charges are dismissed."

In effect, the judge was saying that it's okay for a cab driver to strike a cyclist as long as there is no evidence of reckless driving. But, I wondered, isn't the mere fact that a cyclist was hit "prima facie" evidence that the driver failed to exercise due care?

I sought out the opinion of my friend and cycling attorney par excellence, Adam White. "While I'm sure it was upsetting getting brushed by this guy," he told me, "a judge is left with determining findings based upon the evidence presented. This guy presented a reasonable case and took it seriously enough to hire an attorney." Adam said the TLC appeared to be applying a recklessness standard and that I had not alleged recklessness. "Aside from that," he added, "the civil justice system is available to people who are injured or suffer property damage." Adam also noted that my case might have been strengthened had I shown up in person.

Perhaps I should have appeared in person, but it was undisputed that the driver hit me through no fault of my own. Without a finding of recklessness or negligence, any such case would not appear on a driver's record. Couldn't a driver repeatedly sideswipe cyclists, throughout his career presumably, and pay no price? What if this particular driver has, say, a vision problem that causes him to repeatedly come close to or brush more vulnerable road users? What if he is simply habitually careless? It appears that there is no mechanism within the existing TLC system to address such possibilities.

My guess is that few cyclists would pursue the matter as I did. For anything to appear on such a driver's record, there would have to be an injury serious enough to suggest to a TLC judge that recklessness might be involved. But by then it could be too late.

These small, flimsy flyers are the only thing tipping off pedestrians and cyclists to the presence of more traffic in Central Park. Photo: Ken Coughlin.

The road in question is the southeast corner of the Central Park loop, a half-mile stretch that allows drivers to go from Sixth Avenue to the Upper East Side by cutting across a corner of the park. Two years ago Streetsblog reported that the DOT had quietly done away with "holiday hours" on Central Park's loop road, ending the annual suspension of car-free time that had been used to accommodate motorists during the holidays. The change was a huge success in that the only people who seemed to notice were the park's recreational users, who were delighted. Holiday hours didn't resurface last winter, and the annual holiday traffic plan that DOT produced for 2009 contains no mention of the change [PDF]. (The DOT and Parks Department press offices both directed inquiries to the NYPD.)

Park users may have thought holiday traffic hours were gone for good, but they were wrong.

Would you notice this sign if you were passing by? Photo: Ken Coughlin.

"I was riding home through the park at 8:30 p.m. and cars were pouring in from Sixth Avenue," said commuter cyclist Albert Ahronheim, who first alerted Streetsblog to the extra time allotted to park traffic. "I thought someone must have left the gate open by mistake." Ahronheim only discovered the small signs when he returned the next evening to take a closer look.

By contrast, the city has taken great pains to ensure that any driver traveling up Sixth Avenue is aware of the change. Like a bright star in the east guiding the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem, a large mobile electric sign is positioned at Sixth Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets, announcing in foot-high, blinking letters: "PARK OPEN TILL 9 PM N/B [northbound] ACCESS 59TH AND 6TH EAST DRIVE IN CENTRAL PARK UNTIL 9PM." To ensure that no motorist will fail to remark the glad tidings, a duplicate sign flashes between 58th and 59th Streets -- still enough time to change lanes and speed into the world's most famous urban green space.

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.