The theory is that the city is gathering traffic data this summer as a baseline for a car-free park trial next year. That would jibe with recent remarks from Mayor Bloomberg and references to park data collection reported in the Times earlier this month.

Over the spring, supporters of a car-free trial lined up endorsements from every community board surrounding the park, and had hoped to free the park for recreational use from the July 4 weekend until Labor Day. The mayor was unmoved to implement a trial this year, but recently hinted that something might move forward once the city collected sufficient data.

“We are doing studies,” Bloomberg said on July 12. “Until we really can understand the traffic patterns and what effect it will have, we’re just not going to go and rush to do it.”

A request to DOT for confirmation that the city is indeed counting cars in the park was not immediately answered.

The proposal has gained near-universal support at the community board level, with hundreds of board members voting in favor and only a handful of votes against, and is simpatico with the wishes of Central Park Conservancy head Douglas Blonsky. But it will need a push to overcome resistance from Mayor Bloomberg.

Coughlin says the next step will be a public campaign by Council Member Gale Brewer and others. (Streetsblog has messages in with Brewer’s office for details.) The Manhattan Borough Board must also cast an official vote on the resolution, Coughlin says, “Which will give us another opportunity to raise the issue, but we hope we won’t need it by then.”

Not only would the trial give users much needed room and the freedom to enjoy the city’s premier green space without having to dodge cars and suck exhaust this summer, the effect would spill over into surrounding neighborhoods, which could expect a major drop in cut-through traffic. Given the benefits and such a diverse base of approval, it’s hard to imagine what constituency the mayor would be playing to by refusing to close the Loop Drive for two months.

The car-free trial resolution has pretty much sailed through in CB votes across Manhattan, and it cleared a combined vote of the CB 8 transportation and parks committees with only one vote against. As always, turnout is key. CB 8 is one of the districts bordering the park, all of which will have to pass the resolution in order to have a chance of overcoming mayoral resistance.

Tonight’s meeting will be held at 6:30 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, 430 E. 67th St. Auditorium.

There are two proposals in play. The first would close the park to cars for four months, from the July 4 weekend through the first weekend in November. A second plan, from the Manhattan Borough Board (borough boards are comprised of the borough president, borough City Council members, and the chair of each community board) would end the trial on Labor Day but allows for a DOT extension. Here’s the latest:

• Manhattan CB 7 has approved both the original and Borough Board resolutions by votes of 32-1 and 29-1, respectively.
• The transportation committee of CB 11 approved the Borough Board resolution unanimously.
• The CB 1 Planning and Community Infrastructure Committee also passed the Borough Board reso with a unanimous vote.

A Central Park cyclist was killed at this pinch point on the 66th St. transverse in 2006. Photo: rusticumjudicium via Flickr

A plan to open Central Park to east-west bike traffic is poised to move forward, and proponents are encouraged to turn out Thursday night to voice their support.

Phase one of the Central Park Conservancy project, which took root last year, will convert two existing pedestrian paths for shared use in the northern area of the park, one around 103rd St. and one near the 97th St. transverse. If all goes well, the conservancy plans to revamp three additional paths to the south — one south of the 86th St. transverse, another near the 72nd St. transverse, and a third to the south of the Sheep Meadow, in the mid-60s. Only two of the trails, 103rd St. and 72nd St., will require engineering work beyond markings and signage.

The plan is not subject to community board approval, and though Community Board 8 does not border the part of the park involved in phase one, the conservancy will on Thursday night present its plans to the CB 8 parks committee. As Streetsblog readers know, CB 8 is not known for its hospitable attitude toward cyclists. As always, the more friendly faces at this meeting, the better.

The benefits of cycling as transportation being self-evident and all, talking points abound. But the primary reason these trails are necessary is that cyclists currently have no direct way to cross the park that is both legal and safe. The transverses at present are deadly by design, and the city has no plans for improvements that would prevent crashes like the one that killed a cyclist on the 66th St. transverse in 2006.

If you can make it, let CB 8 know that thousands of bike-riding park users need routes that will allow them to go east and west without breaking the law or risking their lives. Details on the meeting are here.

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.

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

Upper West Side residents want to make Central Park once again a welcoming place for recreational cyclists, based on the near-unanimous position of Community Board 7′s parks and transportation committees at a joint meeting last night. But with the NYPD intransigently committed to its ticketing blitz and DOT unwilling to pay for changes to the traffic signals in the park, it’s not clear how to move forward. Some bright news is on the horizon for cyclists hoping to use Central Park for transportation, however: Two east-west routes through the northern end of the park should open this summer.

As of mid-March, the Central Park Precinct had handed out 230 tickets to cyclists in 2011. In comparison, they issued only 160 speeding tickets to motor vehicle drivers in all of 2010. The members of the two committees all agreed that the crackdown was negatively affecting Central Park. The central concern of the discussion, as presented by parks committee co-chair Klari Neuwelt, is that “there seems to have been a substantial decrease in the number of cyclists using Central Park for exercise.”

The NYPD’s new bike enforcement policy was uniformly perceived as excessive. Transportation committee co-chair Dan Zweig voiced the least critical view, thanking police for enforcing traffic laws against cyclists but adding, “I wish they had picked a better place than Central Park to start doing it.”

The widespread agreement, however, didn’t extend to the question of how to best facilitate cycling during car-free hours. The problem is that there isn’t an easy fix within reach.

The simplest solution would be for the police to return to the former status quo and stop making cyclists running red lights a top priority. Unfortunately, said Neuwelt, “we came to a dead end in that discussion. We’ve got nowhere to go with the police.”

If you can’t change the way the law is enforced, the community board thought next, change the law itself. The most popular position seemed to be a plan to change the lights to blinking yellows during off-peak hours, with push-buttons for pedestrians to request a red light if needed. “That’s the answer,” said transportation committee co-chair Andrew Albert. “Don’t stop if there’s nobody there.”

City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez introduced legislation last week that would require traffic lights in parks to be blinking yellows during car-free hours. It currently has the support of Council members Gale Brewer, Vincent Gentile, and Brad Lander.

Blinking yellows, however, also are opposed by the city. According to Neuwelt, DOT thinks that blinking yellows would be too dangerous for pedestrians and, given the old traffic signal technology in the park, be prohibitively expensive.

Community members presented other ideas as well, each with its own set of drawbacks. Board member Suzanne Robotti, for example, proposed retiming the traffic lights to the speed of cyclists rather than cars as a way of allowing cyclists to ride without stopping while still keeping red lights so pedestrians can cross. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the concept until it was pointed out that cyclists travel at very different speeds.

Similarly, Upper West Side resident Jim Zisfein’s proposal to add signage urging cyclists to stop for pedestrians ran into questions about what would happen when the signs’ instructions conflicted with the message of a red or green light.

Ultimately, the community board did not endorse any specific plan. Instead, the next step will be a meeting of all the stakeholders organized by Council Member Gale Brewer, who was in attendance at last night’s meeting.

More concrete progress was announce on plans to allow cyclists to cross the park from east to west. The Central Park Conservancy’s Caroline Greenleaf announced that the first two crosstown routes would be open early this summer: one along roughly 102nd Street and one along 96th. The park is still working with DOT on configuring the entrances and exits for the 102nd Street path.

“If these two paths turn out to work well for everybody,” said Greenleaf, “we’re looking to expand them southwards.” One future location would go along the north side of the Great Lawn, at roughly 86th Street. Below that, it’s not clear where any additional routes would go. Higher pedestrian volumes at the southern end of the park and automobile traffic along 72nd Street present challenges, according to Greenleaf.

The paths are likely to have strict rules limiting bicycles. “There will be some sort of speed limit,” said Greenleaf, likely either 5 miles per hour or “walking speed.” “These paths are so heavily used,” she explained.

The community board did not offer a formal resolution on the east-west bike routes, but seemed very supportive. Board members uniformly spent their time suggesting possible low-conflict routes for the southern end of the park, not critiquing the proposal.

Via Andy Shen at NYVelocity, here’s the video of this week’s press conference and rally at City Hall, where Council Members Ydanis Rodriguez and Brad Lander kicked off the push to set traffic signals in Central Park and Prospect Park to flashing yellow during car-free hours. It’s encouraging to hear some clear thinking from Council members about traffic enforcement, and great to see the big crowd that turned out on a cold, rainy Wednesday for this event.

The NYPD has handed out 230 tickets to cyclists for running red lights in Central Park so far this year. And while police have apologized for most of the “speeding” citations they hit cyclists with earlier this week, Central Park precinct commander Philip Wishnia has given no indication that the red light tickets will stop.

Rodriguez introduced the bill on Wednesday, and word is that you’ll see it pick up more co-sponsors starting next week.

Video: Kevin Scott

NYPD resources at work: Police in Central Park during the early morning ticket blitz that nabbed cyclists for riding faster than 15 mph. Photo: Dave Chomowitz via Gothamist

NYPD’s apparent bid to criminalize recreational cycling in Central Park took another surreal turn this morning. One week after hundreds of people asked police to stop the irrational barrage of red light tickets for cyclists in the park, NYPD has apparently doubled down on its bike enforcement blitz. Cycling message boards lit up today with stories from an early morning sweep that caught about half a dozen people training in the park, where cops dished out hefty fines (reportedly as high as $350) for going faster than 15 mph.

The NYPD habit of picking off easy traffic enforcement targets under dubious pretenses, while leaving real problems unaddressed, seems to be holding steady. Gothamist’s John del Signore has some highlights:

Dave Jordan of the Century Road Club Association tells us that at least six or seven cyclists received speeding tickets this morning for biking over 15 mph (not the actual speed limit), and cyclist Dave Chomowicz, who took this photo, says, “They had a radar gun out. One or two riders in the picture and two of my teammates were ticketed, and some triathletes got tickets. I believe one of the cyclists was going 20 mph. I took the picture at 6:45 this morning and came back to the park for a while, after cars started coming in and the speed trap was gone. Cars were going far in excess of 15 mph. I saw cars going through red lights.”

Jordan believes six or seven cyclists were ticketed for speeding, and tells us one was slapped with fines totaling $350. “These are athletes and responsible people,” says Jordan. “The people they want are people who are doing this in the middle of the day on the weekends when the park is crowded and you want to do something with your kids and there’s some guy f-bombing as he’s biking around. The law states that we should yield to pedestrians. To enforce lights that have no purpose when there are no cars in the park just doesn’t make sense.”

The 15 mph rule, which doesn’t hold on city streets and apparently applies only to bikes inside the park, has been especially bewildering. The Central Park Conservancy website says the official speed limit for bikes and cars in the park is 25 mph. Some signs inside the park, impossible to read from the roadway, do indicate a 15 mph cap for cyclists. (Athletes can easily run faster than 15 mph, by the way, which is slower than the average speed of every Olympic medalist in the men’s 1,500 meter race going back to 1960.) The same signs imply that bicyclists don’t have to stop for full red light cycles, but should simply yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk. Regardless, the rules only seem to apply if you’re on two wheels and you’re an easy mark. Central Park’s red light-running cabbies and speeding drivers can carry on.

In other news, NYPD issued no charges to either of the two drivers involved in yesterday’s noon-time Jackson Heights smash-up, in which one car careened into 82-year-old bystander Margaret Choborka, inflicting fatal head trauma.

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.

Photo: adf/Flickr via Gothamist

But the Wall Street Journal reported this week that a big hotspot in the bike crackdown isn’t “the streets” at all, really, but rather Central Park. NYPD has handed out ten times the number of bike tickets in the park this year compared to all of 2010. And the policy doesn’t seem to be singling out riders who are racing full tilt past pedestrians with the right of way. Cyclists whose only transgression is not sitting for the full red cycle at traffic lights in the park — even when the crossing is clear and car-free hours are in effect — are getting hit with $270 fines.

The ticket blitz has upended a longstanding social compact between cyclists, pedestrians, and cops in the park, which applied a common sense “yield to peds” rule during car-free hours. Now, with traffic-control devices designed for cars setting the enforcement agenda, riding in the park doesn’t seem so relaxing or recreational.

Why the sudden change? Randy Cohen, author of the Ethicist column in the Times (and star of a few Streetfilms), reports on an enlightening conversation he recently had with a Central Park police officer:

I just returned from riding in the (blissfully warm, if swampy) park, where I had an amiable chat with a police officer who couldn’t have been friendlier. When I asked about the current bikes and lights policy, he smiled ruefully — with what I took to be professional embarrassment — and said that the policy is to enforce the traffic laws. When I asked if the long established practice — during car free hours, yield to pedestrians who have the light, but if there are none, roll one — wasn’t better, he agreed that, in his words “there’s a difference between law and common sense.” I asked when, if ever, things would return to how they’d been for the past thirty years, he smiled and said: “You’ll have to ask the mayor next time you see him.” Again, this officer was entirely reasonable and courteous. But there you have it, the further impression that the mayor created this situation and only he can change it.

Photo: Ken Coughlin

In what’s shaping up to be a yearly tradition, car-free hours in Central Park have been cut back for the holiday season. Each weekday this month, on the southeast corner of the park drive, the park’s pedestrians, joggers, cyclists, and dog-walkers have three fewer hours of quiet and safety.

The stretch of the park drive between Sixth Avenue and Central Park South and E. 72nd Street and Fifth Avenue is already open to cars more than any other part of the park. Year-round, it’s open to cars from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m on weekdays. But between November 29 and December 30 this year, drivers have an extra three hours each day to use Central Park as a shortcut to the Upper East Side.

That means 2010 will actually be the second annual step backwards from the goal of a car-free Central Park. During the 2009 holiday season, the same stretch of road was opened to traffic until 9:00 p.m. For the two years before that, DOT had actually done away with the practice of imposing holiday hours to move more cars through the park.

Last year, Streetsblog reported that the decision to open up the park for longer wasn’t made by DOT, the agency in charge of the city’s streets, but rather by the NYPD.

Photo: Ken Coughlin

This year, the changes aren’t posted where vehicle hours are listed on either the Parks Department or Central Park websites, and the reduction in car-free time isn’t included in DOT’s annual holiday traffic plan [PDF]. The DOT press office referred our initial request to NYPD. We’re awaiting a response from the police.

At least this year, the city put up sufficiently visible signage alerting those on foot or a bike that they’re headed into traffic at hours when there normally isn’t any. Last year, the only signs were laminated 8½ by 11-inch flyers stuck to signpoles. One reader wrote in to say that the same flyers are back, and they’re just as hard to notice. This time, however, park users without an engine also merited the same electronic signs that alerted drivers of their extra hours.

Photos: Ken Coughlin

Fortunately, no cyclists or runners or moms with kids were involved, but as long as the city's most iconic public space remains open as a motor vehicle thruway, people who use it will always have to worry about the next driver coming up behind them. Odds are one in four of those drivers is speeding by at least 10 mph. And if one of those speeders hits someone, the chance of death resulting from the collision is at least 85 percent.

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.

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.

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.

With help from Transportation Alternatives, a group of mothers and families known as Mobilized Moms led a  car-free Central Park rally on Tuesday. Streetfilms' Robin Urban Smith says about 50 supporters, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and City Council Member Gale Brewer, came out in support of the Moms, who marched from Central Park West and 72nd Street to the Naumburg Bandshell.

The group plans to collect kids' artwork from the event, along with written correspondence, for a book to send to Mayor Bloomberg in hopes that a car-free trial period might finally be instituted. 

The latest push to remove auto traffic from the park has prompted Brooklyn Community Boards 7 and 14, along with Assembly Member Jim Brennan (718-788-7221), to demand an environmental review before such a trial is implemented.

In other car-free parks news, Mobilized Moms will lead a Central Park rally today at 4:30 at 72nd St. & Central Park West. The Moms are expected to be joined by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and City Council Member Gale Brewer.

Dear Mayor Bloomberg, 

As Brooklyn representatives, we ask you to explore a simple and inexpensive policy change that could greatly improve the lives of our constituents -- to study the possibility of making Prospect Park car-free with a three-month car-free trial. We call upon your office, the New York City Department of Transportation and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation to implement a three-month pilot program to close the Prospect Park drives to vehicular traffic and to study the effect of this policy on park use and traffic on local streets. 

Prospect Park is the lifeblood of the communities we represent. It is their place to exercise, to escape the heat of a hot apartment, to celebrate a birthday party, to barbeque, to listen to great music and to play with their kids. Just being in Prospect Park and enjoying all it has to offer makes life better. 

Because Prospect Park is such a popular destination for our constituents, it is busy. From morning till night, the loop drive is packed with people walking, running, and riding bikes.  When cars are permitted to drive through the park, these people are often put in danger. A recent speeding survey found that over 90% of cars travelling through the park were going beyond the posted speed limit —- up to 50 mph. Runners and cyclists may find themselves just feet from this traffic and have no barrier to protect them from deadly collision. 

The dangerous and unhealthy environment created by this traffic scares people away. A 2006 survey of 450 park users found that 4 out of 5 people would use the park more often if cars were banned. This survey also found a 40% drop in people entering the park when cars are permitted. As our city struggles to fight a rise in obesity, asthma and diabetes, we call on you to explore solutions to this troubling situation. 

While the benefits of prohibiting cars from the park are many, we also recognize that closing Prospect Park to traffic may have an impact on the surrounding community. Conducting a three-month study and trial closure, to fully analyze the resulting effects on traffic and related quality of life issues would allow the City and the community to understand the full impact of a full closure. Furthermore, this study would allow the Department of Transportation the opportunity to analyze how the traffic patterns around the area are affected by the Prospect Park loop drive and to gauge what mitigation measures might be necessary to deter traffic buildups in the surrounding community, were the park to be car-free. 

Parks are the very foundation of a healthy population. As public leaders, we need to do everything in our power to make our public parks and recreational areas as safe and inviting as possible, while also making sure to balance the diverse needs of the surrounding communities.  

Sincerely,     
David Yassky   Bill de Blasio    Letitia James

It seems elitist "green" types aren't the only ones who think city parks should be reserved for people. A passage from this week's New York Magazine feature "Who Owns Central Park?" reveals that regular Joe business execs recently warned Mayor Bloomberg of the economic consequences of a city so dominated by cars.

Last April, about two dozen executives signed a letter delivered to the mayor’s office arguing that the administration’s car policy is hurting the city’s ability to prevent hedge funds from decamping to Greenwich, or Wall Street jobs’ being shipped overseas. “The talent pool we seek to draw from is increasingly focused upon maintaining personal fitness. They are disproportionately triathletes, marathoners, and the highly fit. Cycling in particular is a key interest, and has become a key business-related networking activity,” the group wrote. “What about the loss of yet another team of financial professionals, formerly based on Wall Street, who decide to move to Connecticut to start a hedge fund, because life is just too difficult in New York City?” 

Though the story focuses on the territorial battles among park users, it reads, "There’s one issue about which runners, cyclists, and dog owners are in full agreement: cars." Says Transportation Alternatives' Paul Steely White: "The anger you see in the park is similar to the ire you see in Park Slope with the double-wide strollers. Our view is, Don’t get mad at the stroller moms. Get mad at the city for providing such limited car-free space.”

Earlier this month, TA was joined by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in calling for a three-month car-free trial for Central Park, based on a study that showed it would reduce cut-through traffic on neighborhood streets. Brooklynites are pushing for a car-free summer in Prospect Park as well. With the city's "Summer Streets" program set to launch this year, keeping cars out of parks seems only logical, but no word as of yet.

Photo: Ed Yourdon/Flickr

A study released this week by Transportation Alternatives undercuts the claim that closing Central Park's loop drive to cars would increase traffic on the streets of Harlem. To the contrary, findings indicate that loop entrances on 110th street at Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevards "act as traffic magnets," drawing vehicles onto neighborhood streets from more appropriate routes like the FDR, Harlem River Drive and the West Side Highway.

During a series of driver interviews conducted in the spring of 2007, T.A. found that 57% of private car trips into the park through Harlem originate outside Manhattan, and that private cars -- not taxis -- make up the majority of traffic (two-thirds) on the loop drive. Reads a T.A. media release:

Much of the traffic clogging Harlem streets only enters the neighborhood because the Park drive is open to cars. This is consistent with NYC DOT's own findings that predict at least 3,107 private vehicles would be removed from Harlem streets each week during the morning commute if the drive was closed to car traffic. Armed with this information, T.A. and more than 100,000 Car-Free Central Park Campaign supporters call on the Mayor and City Hall to support a three month car-free trial in the park this summer.

T.A. initially presented its data privately to city decision-makers, hoping it would confirm the city's own analysis and provide the final impetus for a three-month trial closure. That didn't happen, so T.A. is publicly releasing the report [PDF] in hopes that New Yorkers will take up the issue with their electeds -- Mayor Bloomberg in particular -- and urge them to make good on this long-overdue improvement.

T.A. and other car-free park advocates are joined by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in pushing for a summer trial. Says Stringer: "This action has the potential to achieve real and immediate benefits for our city, and to send an unequivocal message that New York City is serious about achieving its green priorities."

Photo: Frodrig / Flickr