Streetsblog New York City

Seven years ago, when Tim Tompkins took over as president of the Times Square Alliance, one of New York's largest BIDs, security and cleanliness were the top concerns. Despite incessant traffic and "pedlock," few decision-makers were focused, at first, on the vision of Times Square as a world-class public space where people take precedence over motor vehicles.

Speaking to a standing-room audience at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research building last week, Tompkins recalled when the lack of regular stabbings and violent crime seemed good enough for the crossroads of the world, and the quality of public space felt too esoteric to address. Gradually, Tompkins helped build public support for dramatic changes, starting with the re-design of Duffy Square. Working with NYCDOT, Tompkins began chipping away at the space allocated to cars and opening it up to pedestrians. Shortly after the completion of Duffy Square last October, said Tompkins, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan approached him about closing down a portion of Broadway to vehicles to create public plazas.

Now, cities around the country view the new Times Square plazas as potential precedents for transforming their own under-utilized or overcrowded streets into quality pedestrian space. Streetsblog San Francisco caught up with Tompkins during his west coast trip to talk about the new Times Square, how it came about, and the lessons we can draw from its ongoing transformation. Here is an edited transcript of the interview. 

Matthew Roth: What in your opinion has been the biggest change in Times Square over the past decade?

Tim Tompkins: The challenge of Times Square as a public space had changed. It’s not enough that it's just sort of safe to be there. This is one of the world's great public spaces. What's missing?

Over the last couple of decades we've learned a lot about how to make parks great, and that parks are important to life of the city. I think there's been an evolution over the last decade thanks to organizations like [Streetsblog], and Project for Public Spaces, and Transportation Alternatives that have said, "There is another part of the public realm, there is another part of city life that we need to pay attention to."

What I see is that what’s been happening is part of a larger movement in terms of the revitalization of cities. It’s kind of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, where you need to take care of the basics of comfort and security first before you can even think about anything else. That played out with respect to nature and parks, but wasn't really playing out in the streets and sidewalks. I think not only in Times Square and in New York City, but in a bunch of places... we've been paying attention to that. And that’s been the paradigm shift that’s driving a lot of this.

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In a stinging rebuke to New York City's street safety methods, the latest issue of Car and Travel, a.k.a. AAA New York magazine, serves up a razor-sharp critique of Broadway's new pedestrian plazas:

Newly digitized AAA mag: crazy for cars, mad about pedestrian streets.

The “test project,” now four months old, has been criticized by some as both tacky and ill-suited to the location. While we tend to agree, we are more concerned with serious safety issues created by mixing cross-town traffic and pedestrians, particularly where many of them are vacationing tourists. We also have yet to see the environmental and congestion benefits to justify the experiment’s costs.

The pedestrian plaza concept was the brainchild of city transportation officials intrigued with the idea of importing the pedestrian zones common in Europe to New York City. But so far, the project appears to be an unnatural fit for the heart of America’s biggest city. After all, Times Square is not Rome, Paris or Barcelona, where piazzas and squares lined with cafes and restaurants evolved naturally in the urban landscape.

Yep, all of a sudden pedestrians are mixing with crosstown traffic. Remember back when that never happened? Me neither.

Have fun picking this apart, Streetsbloggers. I'll just go out on a limb here and wager that the editorialists at AAA, headquartered out in Nassau, don't represent the views of real New Yorkers and probably never walked around with all those "vacationing tourists" squeezed into traffic by the sidewalk crunch at the old Times Square.

After the jump, a nice rejoinder from genuine city dwellers, courtesy of City Room, about the pleasures of having places to socialize in public.

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If you're a livable streets optimist, you probably suspected that car-free Times Square critics like Andrea Peyser, Susan Dominus, and John Liu were out of touch. After all, most New Yorkers don't own cars, and many of those who do spend more time as pedestrians than drivers. And really, how many people were driving their own private vehicles right through the middle of Times Square, anyway?

But maybe you had your doubts. Maybe the "It's just for tourists!" argument seemed like it might gain some traction. Maybe fears of Carmaggedon would win out.

Today's Q Poll settles the question: Car-free Times Square is a hit. Fifty-eight percent of New Yorkers think it was a good idea to close Broadway to cars and give more space to pedestrians, compared to 35 percent who don't. A surprisingly high number of New Yorkers -- 44 percent -- say they've seen the new Broadway for themselves. That translates to about three and half million people.

When it comes to transformative regional transportation policies, however, advocates still have a steep hill to climb. Majorities oppose East River bridge tolls and congestion pricing, even when the question explicitly states that funds would be used to limit future transit fare increases. Skepticism about the MTA's ability to deliver mega-projects like the Second Avenue Subway and the 7 line extension is very high.

Perhaps most importantly, among transit riders who think the quality of service has declined recently, blame falls on the MTA more than the state legislature. Much more, in fact -- 59 percent to 19 percent. This is troubling.

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When New York City opened up new pedestrian zones in the heart of Midtown this summer, naysayers predicted a traffic nightmare. Nearly two months later, we're still waiting for the much-feared Carmaggedon.

In this video, Streetsblog publisher Mark Gorton takes us on a tour of Broadway's car-free squares and boulevard-style blocks, where conditions have improved dramatically for pedestrians, cyclists, and, yes, delivery truck drivers. As Mark says, the counterintuitive truth is that taking away space for cars can improve traffic while making the city safer and more enjoyable for everyone on foot. There are sound theories that help explain why this happens -- concepts like traffic shrinkage and Braess's paradox which are getting more and more attention thanks to projects like this one. While traffic statistics are still being collected by NYCDOT, there's already a convincing argument that Midtown streets are functioning better than before: To understand it, just take a walk down Broadway.

We've been meaning to post this vid from culture mag ANIMAL New York (h/t Gothamist), which neatly undercuts the argument that the newly pedestrianized Broadway is "only for tourists." Sure, the tourists are grateful not to be jostling for space right next to traffic anymore, but so are lots of people from the five boroughs. It is, after all, where 158,000 people go to work every day. Take that, Andrea Peyser.

Lately, you may have found yourself doing double takes at the words coming out of Council Member John Liu's mouth. The transportation committee chair, running for comptroller in a crowded field that includes two other candidates from Queens, has turned into a go-to source for quotes that disparage safety improvements for pedestrians and cyclists. (Liu prefers to make his point indirectly, couching his criticism in attacks on "process".)

During the MTA funding debate, Liu was also a vocal opponent of bridge tolls, a stark about-face given his early support for congestion pricing. Tonight you can see the new John Liu in action, when he makes an appearance on NY1's Road to City Hall at 7 p.m. The topic: Broadway's new pedestrian spaces, a transformation Liu pounced on as soon as the plan was announced.

If you're going to tonight's BRT workshop in the Bronx instead, you can catch the NY1 show again at 10:00 p.m.

When Memorial Day weekend rolls around, here at Streetsblog we usually take the opportunity to note the advent of the summer driving season -- and all the waste and violence that entails. This year's going to be a little different, because we've got a major livable streets milestone to celebrate in New York City.

With all those cars headed out of town, DOT is going to re-route traffic at Times Square around Broadway and onto Seventh Avenue. Come Memorial Day morning, New York City will have brand new public spaces carved out of the street, smack in the middle of Midtown. If you're staying in the city for the long weekend, it's time to party.

The Times Square Alliance will be out bright and early Monday setting up beach chairs. Virgil's Barbecue will be firing up the grill. At some point, a giant movie screen will get unfurled for a noon showing of "On the Town" (it's the last day of Fleet Week, folks). I suspect that I won't be the only New Yorker heading over to Times Square for the first time in ages.

So, this year we're not holding anything back: Happy Memorial Day weekend! We'll see you back here on Tuesday.

The New York Post has posted shocking video of a movie car chase being filmed in Times Square that ended with a car losing control, jumping the curb and injuring two pedestrians. (Warning: this includes some graphic images):

Fortunately, according to the AP, the pedestrians' injuries were not life-threatening.

It's not clear how tightly the set was controlled at the time. According to the Post, one of those injured was not associated with the movie, and the car ended up smashed into the Sbarro at the corner of 47th and Broadway, which was open for business.

Thanks to Gothamist, where we first saw the story.

A scene from Midtown early this morning, after Barack Obama was named president-elect.

On the A downtown from Inwood, new passengers were welcomed with screams and cheers at every stop. It was standing room only by the time the train reached 42 Street.

New Yorkers lined the sidewalks in Times Square. Cars rolled through slowly, drivers honking, with passengers hanging from windows waving Obama signs.

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Broadway Boulevard takes center stage in a USA Today story on New York City's recent pedestrian improvements. Those who questioned whether people would sit in plazas near passing traffic have their answer:

Bianca Assim-Kon, 30, was initially skeptical about the plazas. "I saw them doing this, and my co-worker and I (said) all the tourists are going to sit there and we're going to laugh at them because they're going to get hit" by cars, says Assim-Kon, who works as a production assistant in a building across the street from one of the plazas. "And now here I am, sitting."

Reading a "chick-lit" novel on her lunch break, she says she can eke calm out of the surrounding cacophony. "I'm a New Yorker," Assim-Kon says. "You learn to focus."

Understandable as those initial doubts may have been, anyone familiar with the work of Project for Public Spaces and William H. Whyte could have predicted that, yes, New Yorkers will even venture across a bike lane for a decent place to sit.

Bonus photo and quote from Whyte after the jump.

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