‘YES’ TO BROADWAY CLOSURE

SPEED TRAFFIC BY FIXING A 200-YEAR-OLD MISTAKE

By Samuel I. Schwartz

Close a street to improve traffic flow? Is the city crazy? These may be your questions when you hear that Broadway will be closed to cars at Herald Square and Times Square. But my response is, “It’s about time!”

Wherever Broadway crosses an avenue, that avenue is narrowed both physically and temporally. Sixth Avenue at Herald Square, for example, is just four lanes wide, but north and south of the square it is six lanes wide. It is “pinched,” because Broadway traffic also has to be squeezed into the block between 33rd and 34th streets.

Sixth Avenue at 35th Street gets 55 seconds of “green time” in every 90-second signal cycle. But, at 33rd Street it gets only 32 seconds of “green time” because Broadway gets 26 seconds and 33rd Street gets 30 seconds.

The Green Light for Midtown Plan solves the pinch point at Herald Square by adding 21 more seconds of “green time” to Sixth Avenue now that we won’t have to worry about Broadway southbound. At Times Square, Seventh Avenue is widened from three lanes to four lanes, a capacity increase of 33 percent, and the “green time” is increased from 50 seconds to 54 seconds. All together, that yields an effective capacity increase of about 44 percent.

The streets will also be much safer. The diagonal Broadway reduces pedestrian crossing times and crosswalk lengths. It also creates a near head-on condition with Sixth Avenue in Herald Square. Right angle intersections have also been shown to be safer than acute or obtuse angled crossings, such as that caused by the diagonal Broadway. Restoring the grid for cars but not for pedestrians will improve safety for drivers and pedestrians.

Pedestrians in Times Square and Herald Square are constrained physically where the avenues intersect Broadway. Pedestrians also get less crossing time because of the multiple movements that must take place at these squares. When I think of Times Square, I think of the Yogi Berra quote, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” That’s the way I, and probably many veteran New Yorkers feel. Finally, with the Green Light for Midtown Plan we will see sidewalk widths that comfortably handle the huge flow of people.

Broadway may have made sense 200 years ago when our grid system was created. But with the advent of the car, it has been more of a detriment to traffic than a help. The city’s plan to create the Green Light for Midtown will restore the grid pattern for cars, improve traffic flow, make streets safer for drivers and pedestrians and give pedestrians the room to walk and enjoy our great “bowties.”
–
Sam (Gridlock Sam) Schwartz is a former Deputy Commissioner at New York City Department of Transportation and President of Sam Schwartz Engineering, a traffic engineering and planning firm.

Tweet This Post