In the ongoing battle for space on New York’s streets between fast-moving four-wheeled motorized vehicles and fast-moving two-wheeled vehicles, either electric or muscle-powered, often forgotten are the slower humans on foot or in wheelchairs. There are well-heeled lobbies to advance the interests of cars and taxis and trucks (who successfully bent Gov. Hochul’s ear on congestion pricing) as well as organizations advocating for e-bikes and pedal-power bikes, but who speaks for the rest of us, who just want to walk and not get run down?
Cy Adler, a friend and frequent Op-Ed writer in these pages, who died a few years back at age 91, proposed a city Department of Walking, under the reasonable idea that the rights of ordinary pedestrians weren’t being recognized by a government bureaucracy focused on catering to metal vehicles, whether cars or bikes.
Now comes a great idea along those lines from Mayor Adams to give back some of the planet’s most valuable real estate, the heart of Fifth Ave., to the pedestrians.
Under the proposal, traffic lanes on Fifth, from Bryant Park, at 40th St., to Central Park, which starts at 59th St., would be reduced from five lanes to three and the sidewalks widened significantly.
Now comes a great idea along those lines from Mayor Adams to give back some of the planet’s most valuable real estate, the heart of Fifth Ave., to the pedestrians.
Here’s the math: There’s 100 feet between the buildings on Fifth. Each lane of traffic uses about 10 feet, totaling 54 feet. The sidewalks are each 23 feet across, but 8 feet of that is cluttered with poles and signs and bus stops and lampposts and various kinds of refuse receptacles. So the human walkers only get 15 feet. Combined, that’s 30 feet, or 30% of the territory.
However, as Adams said, “70% of the people on Fifth Ave. are pedestrians, but they can only utilize less than half the space.”
The numbers show an average of 5,500 pedestrians per hour and up to four times that, 23,000 hourly, during the holidays. All those bodies would get to breathe more as the new sidewalks would grow to 33.5 feet across, 25 feet of it unobstructed. Think the Champs-Élysées.
L.A. is all cars. Amsterdam is bicycles. New York is about walking, like Alfred Kazin’s memoir, “A Walker in the City” (which is largely about Brownsville, Brooklyn).
From Gov. Al Smith’s campaign refrain of “Boys and girls together, me and Mamie O’Rourke; Tripped the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York” to Dustin Hoffman’s Ratso Rizzo in “Midnight Cowboy” banging on the hood of a yellow taxi yelling “Hey, I’m walking here! I’m walking here!” as he was jaywalking across Sixth Ave., the pedestrian rules here.
The city’s sidewalks, including along Fifth, used to be wider, but they were narrowed to make more room for vehicles. Now, at least on this premier stretch of the premier thoroughfare of the world’s premier city, which includes a certain Trump Tower at 56th St., the humans are pushing back.
This is different from the total closure of Midtown Fifth Ave. for a few Sundays in December, which bans all traffic. Cars and taxis and buses will still be allowed, but have to share with the far more numerous humans on the sides.
There will be more trees and seating as people engage in window watching of the elaborate department store displays during Christmastime or window shopping or actual shopping or just plain walking to get somewhere.
