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Opinions remain bitterly divided on the merits of the new Broadway pedestrian plazas that opened on Memorial Day, and an official analysis of the pilot program's traffic impact won't be available any time soon. The Times has found that the DOT's previous timeline for studying the changes has been pushed back because the department still isn't finished hanging traffic signals, painting roads, building out the plazas and adding concrete barriers. Officials won't start measuring the program's effects until the middle of August and won't submit a final report until December, when Bloomberg will decide whether to make the changes permanent. DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan says, "When we have finished the project, we will begin collecting the data. You wouldn’t want to look at a Picasso that’s halfway done." But some critics are already trashing Sadik-Khan's masterpiece; cab driver Fhahidul Hossain tells the Times, "If you have one fare to go to the theater district, your day or night is finished. A 10-minute fare is going to take you an hour or so. It's a nightmare. In Manhattan, you have to move, man. You cannot do it like this. This is not Europe. This is New York City, for God's sake!" And don't even get Hossain started on those lawn chairs.
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Oh yes. Go ask the cab driver for his opinion. I mean, the man spends fourteen hours a day behind the wheel of a taxi, he's gotta be an expert in urban planning, right? Right?
What chutzpah!
DOT Commish Sadik-Khan compares her silly pet project with its cheap lawn chairs and orange cones to Pablo Picasso, a 20th-century master and cultural icon?
That alone shows the hubris and arrogance of this person.
The fact that this simple project is still not complete five weeks on and that data has not been released shows her incompetence and disorganization.
Big on ideas, short on success!
What's up with those lawn chairs? It does make the plan less thought out. I thought the tourists brought them there when I passed by for the first time.
They've said a number of times... the lawn chairs are a temporary measure only. They have real street furniture on order, but it's apparently not ready yet, so they went with a cheap stopgap. Why get so hung up on the lawn chairs, though? Sure, they're cheesy, but they're better than Hossain and his cab speeding by.
Um, I think that was just an expression, such as, you can`t tell what a landscaping job will end up as half way through the job, not trying to compare a car-free broadway to Picasso. But I could be mistaken.
Don't expect anything resembling rational thought from "thefacts." He hates anything having to do with pedestrians, bicycles, the outdoors, public spaces, etc. He owns a bicycle but resolutely refuses to ride it. Ever. I'll be thinking of his face screwed up into a grimace of absolute fury and hatred while I enjoy the return of the bigger and better Summer Streets this August.
why would she compare this improvement with some overrated chicken scratch demented artist?
Seems to me I've only every been stuck in traffic in the theatre district while riding in a cab that has, for no reason and not by my request, been piloted into the theatre district by the unwashed and barely licensed cab driver in front. The problem of traffic in the theatre district is not the proliferation of fares to said district: it's the use of said district as a major artery, which it IS NOT. Horses could drive cabs better than most of these dummies doing it now.
The "pedestrian mall" is just an ugly, underplanned mess.
Enjoy the lawn chairs touristas, you won't find me there.
A big portion of the project is conditioning drivers not to drive through that area. Any report so soon after the project was implemented, before it's even complete, would not paint an accurate picture.
If it's a hassle to get to the theater district by cab, maybe people will use their brains and get there another way, since there are like fourteen different trains that go there. Problem solved.
When the homeless start settling in numbers and with their carts, then this experiment is over.
Anyone who goes into Times Square or the Theater District should know what they're getting into.
Either way they get what they deserve.
The NYT summed up the failure of this midwestern mall best:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/nyregion/01bigcity.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion
Tourists and transplants may like it, but no one else.
I am a native and I like it. I also think it should be extended to Central Park and down to 34th, and 42nd and 34th should be closed and converted as well.
Nobody goes that anyway -- it's too crowded.
It isn't a proper mall just yet: it lacks trees, grassy knolls and a stream running through the middle with class 2 rapids for kayaking.