ENHANCED PARK AVE

The train shed under Park Ave leading to Grand Central needs vital repairs and must be completely rebuilt.This will require reconstruction of Park Ave between 46th and 57th St.It is our opportunity to build it back better.

Goal

NYC has stated the prime goal is to "Put the park back in Park Avenue."

  • A return to the historic, wide medians

  • Plants and decorative foliage

  • A comfortable, quiet environment for those outside vehicles.

DOT Plans

The city has released 2 official plans:

A plan without a bike lane

And a plan with a bike lane

But these renderings are not accurate.In response to why more of the 8 lane road surface can not be devoted to serving the main goal of "putting the park back in Park," they have cited the potential desire to move large volumes of vehicles through the area.This is what that actually looks like:

Pedestrians will have to fight blocked cars between every block.

People on bikes will also be blocked and forced to swerve into traffic.

There is a better way of doing this.

Compare all 3. (top 2 are official DOT plans with unrealistic traffic volumes depicted.)

But don't we need to accommodate lots of traffic volume?

This is a common fallacy. In actuality the level of congestion in an area is not a fixed quantity. When you reduce road space for vehicles you actually get less traffic, not more.This is a well-studied effect called induced demand and its inverse reduced demand.It is established science and has been known for decades. It is not subjective. It is how roads work.

(In case you're wondering why, it's because demand for driving is elastic and people adapt to whatever road conditions exist. If there is more road space, more people will choose to drive. If there is less, fewer will. There is a base level of necessary vehicles, like emergency service vehicles and deliveries that always exists, but the vast majority of the road traffic is discretionary and can be repurposed to better modes.)From Wikipedia:

Support

This enhanced plan is already getting a lot of support from Community Boards and the media:

Enhanced Park Plan discussed at CB6

So let's get serious. Is this really even a choice?

Get Involved

The most important thing we can do right now is generate demand for this enhanced plan. You can reach out to elected representatives and the DOT.
They have an official feedback form here.You can also send tips in to news organizations requesting they cover this. Google your favorite news org's tip lines. They all have them.Community Board 5 will have a public feedback meeting on this project with DOT present on
Thursday, May 28 at 6pm – (Virtual)

This alternate, enhanced plan was compiled by Miser, best known for running the MicromobilityNYC community.We have 42,000 members and can largely be found on Reddit.