Pedestrian Plaza Planned For 34th Street

The Bloomberg administration is going ahead with a radical redesign of the traffic movement along one of the most congested corridor of the city: 34^th Street. According to the plan, automobiles would not be allowed on the 34^th street, which stretches from Avenue of Americas to the Fifth Avenue. That would effectively create a pedestrian plaza splitting the street into two. On the west side, all the automobiles would move only west, towards the Hudson River while on the east side, all the automobiles would move only east towards the East river. However, buses will continue to operate in both directions, even through the pedestrian plaza.

The plan is expected to increase the mobility around the region. It is expected to improve bus travel times by up to 35%. Also, given the data that only one in ten people travel along 34^th Street by car, the increase in efficiency of the buses would directly benefit a large majority of people who use mass transport. The redesign plan has gathered universal praise from the transit advocates as it would encourage people to switch to mass transit and make the street friendlier to pedestrians.

The plan is only in its middle stage. The final draft of the design for the plaza and traffic changes is expected only in fall 2011, with late 2012 as the scheduled time for the completion of the redesign. The cost of the entire plan is expected to cost a minimum of $30 million, and officials said they would keep on tweaking the plan based on public reaction and in-house assessments.

Category: -