Car-Free Central Park Action Update

Below is an update from Ken Coughlin, Chair of Transportation Alternative's Car-Free Central Park Committee, to campaign supporters.
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Things have been happening, as I'm sure many of you are aware. The details and our analysis are below, but before getting to that, I have a personal message for all supporters of a car-free Central Park. If you read no further, please read this, and forward it on:

The next few weeks will decide whether Central Park will be car-free this summer, and, by extension, how quickly we will win a park that is permanently free of traffic. Even though you and thousands of other park users favor a car-free park, persuading elected officials to act against the interests of even a handful of drivers can be surprisingly difficult. YOU are the only force that will persuade them to do this. They have heard that 102,000 people signed a petition in support of a car-free park. But claims of signatures on pieces of paper are one thing; real voters who contact them are another.

As they decide how to vote, the Council members will be looking closely for evidence of continued strong support. If instead they sense apathy or indifference on this issue, they are unlikely to stick their necks out and vote against the interests of motorists.

Toward the end of this week, Transportation Alternatives will be sending out an action alert. There may also be follow-up calls for action. To win a car-free park, we all must respond. I know that you have heard this message before, but a successful advocacy campaign absolutely depends on persistent effort. No one can say whether we will prevail in the next few weeks, but I can guarantee you that we will fail unless we continue to demonstrate to elected officials that thousands of New Yorkers want Central Park to be car free, at least for this summer.

NOW THE NEWS:
As you may know, City Council members Gale Brewer and John Liu have introduced a bill, Intro. 276, mandating a car-free summer in Central Park from June 24 to September 24, 2006, as well as car-free afternoons in Prospect Park during the same period. On May 8, the day before the Council Transportation Committee's scheduled hearing on the bill, Mayor Bloomberg announced a six-month pilot plan to ban traffic from portions of Central Park's loop road that are already little used by cars. As of Monday June 5, 2006, vehicles will no longer be allowed on Central Park's East Drive north of 72nd Street in the morning or anywhere (apparently) on the West Drive in the afternoon. (In addition, Prospect Park's West Drive will be closed to traffic in the mornings.)

The mayor's announcement was clearly an effort to drain support from the Council bill by giving car-free supporters something while maintaining the loop road as a traffic artery. Whether this strategy will succeed remains to be seen. While any reduction in car usage is welcome, most of the loop road will continue to be flooded with cars during prime recreational hours. Worse, recreational users who may believe they are exercising in a totally car-free park will suddenly encounter traffic, perhaps with disastrous consequences. The administration is now boasting that the loop road is free of traffic "75 percent of the time." We don't know how they arrived at this figure. Between prime recreational hours of 7 am and 7 pm, the loop road is entirely free of traffic exactly 0 percent of the time. Considering that the park is officially closed from 1 am until 6 am, even under the new rules the loop will be entirely free of traffic for only seven hours -- from 7 pm to 1 am and from 6 am to 7 am (assuming the entrances are opened and closed on time).

The Council hearing went forward as planned the following day. The Transportation Committee, chaired by Liu, first heard from Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall. Although Weinshall had stood alongside the mayor the day before and said that "people come to New York City's parks to get away from the hustle and bustle of urban life," at the hearing she declared that Central Park's loop road was an "essential traffic artery" and that its closing would cause "significant" disruption. Pressed by Council member Daniel Garodnick for a definition of "significant," Weinshall and First Deputy Commissioner Michael Primeggia offered only more vague portents of traffic tie-ups.

They were followed by a panel of three independent traffic experts who believe that closing the Central Park loop road to traffic will lead to an overall reduction in traffic on city streets. Under questioning from Garodnick, consultant Bruce Schaller said that "shrinkage" -- the percentage of cars now using the park that would effectively disappear from the street grid if Central Park were closed -- could reach 100 percent. Schaller said that the Department of Transportation's assumption of 15 percent shrinkage was too pessimistic.

Other witnesses speaking in favor of the bill included Columbia University professor Patrick L. Kinney, an expert on the human health effects of air pollution. Noting that fine particles from car exhaust can lodge deep in the lungs and cause lung cancer, heart disease and asthma, Kinney said "moving traffic off of the park loop roads will significantly reduce health risks for people using the park, especially those exercising along the loop roads."

Since this was just a hearing, the committee's stance on the bill was hard to read. We know that Liu and Brewer are 100 percent behind Intro. 276. At a press conference prior to the hearing, both spoke strongly in favor of it, as did Brooklyn Council member Bill de Blasio and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, whose latest newsletter to Manhattan residents twice mentions his support of a car-free Central Park. We believe Intro. 276 also has the support of East Side Council members Garodnick, Jessica Lappin and Melissa Mark Viverito. The big question mark is Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who may hold the key to not only the bill's passage but its passing with enough votes to overcome an almost certain mayoral veto. Quinn has not yet made her position known.

It is likely that the Transportation Committee will vote on Intro. 276 in late May, and, assuming it passes, a full Council vote will come shortly thereafter.

Again, prior to these votes the Speaker and other Council members will be paying close attention to the level of popular support the bill has. We need to show them that New Yorkers want nothing less than a safe and pollution-free Central Park loop road this summer.

Ken Coughlin,
Chair
Transportation Alternatives' Car-Free Central Park Committee

Suozzi Proposes Pricing

Nassau County executive and New York State Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Suozzi proposes London-style congestion pricing on the Long Island Expressway on today's Brian Lehrer show.

"Everybody talks about traffic, everybody talks about how they are concerned about global warming, everybody says they want to do improvents to our transportation systems but we are tens of billions of dollars short. I said, 'Let's explore congestion mitigation pricing'..."

"Let me make it very clear, it's not popular in my own house, my wife doesn't even like the idea. The reality is that the people of Long Island are sick of the traffic, the people of Long Island are very concerned about the environment... To solve these problems requires real ideas."

Suozzi is worth a listen.

Parking it in the Slope

On Saturday, a group of Livable Streets advocates staged a "parking squat" in Park Slope, Brooklyn (see QuickTime video here). Organizers David Alquist, Jeff Prant and Geoff Zink showed up in front of the Connecticut Muffin shop on 7th Avenue and 1st Street at 9:00 am, dropped quarters in two parking meters, unfolded lawn chairs and proceeded to hang out, drink coffee, read the paper and chat with friends, neighbors and passersby in street space that would typically be occupied by two lifeless automobiles.

A parking squat challenges the idea that the vast majority of a crowded city's street space--its public space--is best used for the storage and movement of private automobiles. Space is one of New York City's most precious and valued commodities. The sidewalks of Park Slope's shopping avenues are narrow and on nice weekends they are jam-packed. Yet, while pedestrians hauling strollers and shopping carts jostle up against one another on tiny strips of sidewalk, single-passenger vehicles frolic across vast swaths of asphalt. And while some people in this neighborhood pay as much as $2,500 per month to rent an apartment the size of a parking spot, renting an actual parking spot costs a mere 25 cents per hour.

Centrally-located, catty-corner from the P.S. 321 flea market, and with generous outdoor seating, Connecticut Muffin already functions as a kind of neighborhood Town Square. On nice days like last Saturday the benches fill up fast and the line for coffee extends out onto the street. The demand for sitting space at this corner is high and as soon as the squatters put out their chairs, they were filled. People even came and sat on the curb.

New York City regulations say that metered, curbside parking spaces are only to be used for the storage of vehicles. This kid made sure the rules were being followed.

Artists, activists and regular people in cities all over the world are staging similar events to point the irrationality of public space policies that put automobiles and parking ahead of people and communities. Last fall members of Transportation Alternatives staged New York City's first-ever parking squat in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. That was inspired by an art collective in San Francisco that, literally, transformed a parking space into a park. The San Francisco project also spurred on a group in the Sicilian town of Trapani to transform a strip of curbside asphalt into that city's first and only public lawn. Recently, artist Michael Rakowitz used a car-shaped tent to create his very own affordable housing program in Vienna, Austria. In July 2003 this group in Oxford, England staged the grand daddy of all parking squats, putting an end to speeding in their neighborhood by installing a fully-furnished living room in the middle of their street. When one pissed-off motorist crashed into some of the furniture, it sparked "Britain's first documented example of 'room rage.'"

The Open Planning Project's Clarence Eckerson filmed the Park Slope squat and got some great interviews. If you still think a parking squat sounds a little bit crazy listen to how articulate these people are in explaining what they are doing and why. Consider running a parking squat in your own neighborhood one of these days.