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New York to get more walkable

A chunk of Broadway is closing to cars -- and opening up to pedestrians. Oddly, the change is expected to speed up traffic!
Sun, May 17 2009 at 11:41 PM EST
Read more: ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION, CITY & URBAN, PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

If we could close one street in your town to cars, which would it be? In New York, that street's going to be a section of Broadway, thanks to the “Greenlight for Midtown” (PDF) project. (via kottke)
 
A big chunk of Broadway's going to be closed to traffic come May 24, making way for a pedestrian mall. Closing down the street’s actually expected not just to make Broadway a pleasant place for pedestrians, but also to relieve congestion and speed up traffic, too. 
 
Above’s a look at how Times Square would change. If you're like me, you're wondering if The Lion King paid the city anything for such great promotional placement in its public education materials about the project.
 
Buses too are expected to go faster once Broadway closes down. Subways won’t be affected — but check out this app Triptop NYC that creates subway travel time heatmaps (via kottke). Type in a location for a visual guide to how long it’ll take you to get to various locations in the city via subway. The tool's sure to come in handy when you're trying to decide where you want to live -- provided that you want to live in New York.
 
Image: Courtesy nyc.gov
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Comments(5)

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Posted By Siel Ju - Fri, May 22 2009 at 7:10 PM EST

best of luck in Palo Alto

Hope your efforts pay off!

Posted By Amrita - Fri, May 22 2009 at 6:37 PM EST

Palo Alto ped mall

Also, for those who care, you can read more about our project here
PaloAltoPedestrianMall.weebly.com

Posted By Amrita - Fri, May 22 2009 at 6:36 PM EST

Pedestrian mall in Palo Alto, CA

This sounds so good. We are actually a student group from Stanford University pushing for a pedestrian mall in Palo Alto. All eyes are on New york now. I hope the project is a big success so we can garner more support our initiative. We believe that ped malls boost local businesses and foster a stronger sense of community too.

Posted By Siel Ju - Tue, May 19 2009 at 6:39 PM EST

I wish LA were more like NY

I totally agree with you about the great walkability of NYC, even before this Broadway project. Sometimes I fantasize about moving there....

Posted By EastSideChick - Tue, May 19 2009 at 5:23 PM EST

that's great

The more walkable, the better. NYC is already (in my opinion) one of the most eco-friendly cities for transportation in terms of their walkability and access to public transportation - this should increase and attract more foot traffic.

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Hollywood socialite with a Ph.D blogs about health, beauty, and life.

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