By Carol Tannenhauser
Central Park was created in the 1880s to be “a respite from the stresses of urban life,” writes the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that maintains it. And, no doubt, it still is. But, since the 2018 ban on cars in the park, combined with increased usage during the pandemic, the park’s four main “Drives” have experienced “unprecedented use at all times of day by pedestrians, cyclists, joggers, increasingly popular electric modes of transportation, caregivers, school groups, bird enthusiasts, and more,” the Conservancy said.
Indeed, sometimes it seems like a circus out there — other times a speedway that has proven to be treacherous.
To address present circumstances, in partnership with the NYC Parks Department and the Department of Transportation, the Conservancy is devising a multi-year plan to “increase safety and mobility for the Park’s 42-million annual visitors.” It is being launched with the distribution to the Central Park community of an anonymous, multiple-choice survey, linked to here.
Why and how often do you use the park? Do you ever feel unsafe? What behaviors on the Drives are your greatest concerns? Would you support east-west bike lanes? What strategies would you support to make the Drives safer?
This is your chance to express your opinions and complaints and be part of the planning process and the solutions. It’s quick and easy. Do it for the Park and your own safety and enjoyment! Again, here’s the link.
You can also join a public meeting (hosted online) to learn more about the project and how you can share your ideas.
Choose one of the two webinars that works best for your schedule:
Tuesday, March 28, 12:00 pm–1:00 pm
Thursday, March 30, 5:00 pm–6:00 pm
I use the park drives a lot. I enter at W. 110th Street and Central Park West and head south. The runners and walkers stay in the left lane. Most of the roadway is given over to the bicycles. This is a good arrangement because it allows the bikes to keep well away from the pedestrians. The only thing I notice that concerns me is that I sometimes see motorized scooters going extremely fast. The other day I saw one going perhaps 40 miles an hour. That is way too fast. Someone who is crossing the roadway heading east could get mowed down.
The questionnaire is presented almost entirely from the perspective of a pedestrian, with cyclists implicitly identified as the main quality-of-life culprits. For example, in the question of how to make the drives safer, the options are almost entirely about enforcement of current rules, not questioning of the usefulness of the current ones. Now that cars are out of the park, is there a need for 47 traffic signals on the drive? Do these lights set up unreasonable expectations for recreational users and a false sense of security for those crossing? Should the outside lane continue to be set aside for motor vehicles? None of this is addressed. Very disappointing.
“Do these lights set up unreasonable expectations for recreational users and a false sense of security for those crossing?”
Why is this question you ask necessary?Obviously, if bike riders obeyed the rules, you wouldn’t have asked. But they don’t, and they don’t in such large numbers that, given reality, the Conservancy posed the questionnaire accordingly.
The questionnaire reflects current reality, which is that bike riders’ near total disregard for the rules has led to blowback from pedestrians and such as the CB7 resolution on enforcement in the Park which the CB’ Transportation Alternatives members vehemently opposed.
Perhaps a general regard for lights, rights of way, etc., would have made the entire survey unnecessary?
I only use the park as a pedestrian yet I find pedestrians to blame for much of the problems. Pedestrians should try to cross the roads as quickly as possible – I recognize that some of us can move more quickly than others and I am not asking people to sprint across but seeing pedestrians stopping in the middle of the road to take a picture, send a text, adjust items in a stroller, or whatever else is very frustrating. I answered “Other” to at least one of the questions to express this.
I also said that there should be no motorized bikes and that other bikes must go more slowly and be more respectful.
Unfortunately, most New Yorkers end up at one extreme or another. I tried to spread the blame across all parties and be more even-handed.
Actually, there is a space under most of the multiple choices where you can add this type of info. For instance, I added that didn’t think the park should add more lights or signage because cyclists already ignore what’s right in front of them. I chose the multicolored lanes. Maybe that would be easier for everyone on wheels to comprehend.
Excessive speed on drives.
Bikers on footpaths
Bikes going too fast, through lights and on foot paths; loose dogs; and deranged serial criminals.
Register the motorized Bikes, Mo Peds and other
types. dange out there
I found the survey to be poorly designed. You are allowed only 1 option for each answers. I think it would have been better to have the common ranking of our concerns as many surveys do.
I had more than one concern for each question.
Some of the questions allow you to check more than one box.
My main concerns are the speed of bikers and scooters and bikers on walking paths.
I use the parks several days a week. Many bikers do not stop for pedestrians.
Leg-powered bicycles and pedestrians are the given. We love to exercise and those are the modes for which I believe the drives were first conceived. Motorized vehicles do not provide physical exercise, and are a constant hazard to cyclists, runners and walkers alike. Motorized bikes and, of course, motorcycles, should be banned.
Correction: It is 42 million annual VISITS not VISITORS
I hope everyone who Commented also filled out the survey. One subject barely touched upon was “quiet”. I wrote in supporting Stop the Chop. The Central Park Conservancy has no power over the helicopter din (but I wish it did).
I really don’t understand the need/desire for dedicated east-west bicycle lanes beyond the drives. If a bicyclist is trying to get across the Park, do what I do when I don’t have the energy to walk: I go across 66th or 79th or 86th or 96th — in my case, on a bus.
I actually think this is very important to have. That poor pediatrician on his way to work a few years back would still be alive if he had been able to commute through the park rather than have to navigate the 96th St traverse where he was hit by a school bus with children on it. Horrifying.
Steen,
His death is sad.
The crosstown bus, which has operated for decades, has always been the best way to get crosstown.
Good point about helicopter noise. Some years ago I tried to get the Central Park Conservancy to add its voice to opposition to tourist helicopters circling over the Park, but the Conservancy was not interest in speaking to that problem.
This poll was clearly designed to get certain results and it is sure to get those results. Of course many people do see cyclists as a major concern. But when nearly all answers to a question say that cyclist behavior is the biggest concern (“Excessive speed on Drives, Failure to stop at red lights, Bikes/vehicles/pedestrians travelling against traffic, Bikes on footpaths”), it will be hard to argue that this is an objective survey.
As a frequent user of the park, I have many concerns about the safety of its many visitors, locals and tourists alike. Pedestrian and vehicle issues aside, I am surprised that more people haven’t mentioned one of the most serious threats. ..
Werewolves.
Now, I know what most of you are saying. “That’s only an issue during the full Moon, one night a month” or that this is more of a “London issue” than NYC. Well, I’m here to say it still needs to be addressed.
Furthermore, due to the very strict gun control in NYC, all the silver bullets in the world have been rendered useless, leaving all of us completely defenseless.
Just something else to think about.
Bikes not stopping at the light, going way too fast for a park
Smell of weed everywhere. We banned smoking in parks, how come nobody is asking the pot puffers not to pollute fresh park air and our lungs?
E-vehicles on drives going way way faster than the 25 cars have to drive. Bikes all over on footpaths and the bridle. Too many park vehicles zooming on the bridle paths and footpaths as well, driving at excessive speeds and actually honking at you to get out of the way. And bicycle rickshaws that do what they want. And the police sit in their cars and do nothing about the above.
Biggest issue…motorcycles, and the tour buses/cars that will pass through there. It’s getting a bit too common.
Also – enough with the ‘pedicabs.’ They’re motorized now, and not cute. People can walk
No. I do not support east west bike lanes!
Bikes need to be remove from our streets
Clearly at this time it is obvious bikes have
congested our streets proved to be a dangerous to pedestrians and should be
removed from our streets as a bad idea
Marie,
Exactly.
People can take the bus crosstown or walk.
No. I do not support east west transverses!
Cars need to be remove from our streets
Clearly at this time it is obvious cars have
congested our streets proved to be a dangerous to pedestrians and should be
removed from our streets as a bad idea
Mike,
Actually bicyclists too do a lot of ecommerce ordering which is now a huge segment of vehicles on the streets.
In fact, many deliveries now done by gig workers using their own cars (not commercial plates) – eg Amazon last mile, instacart, fresh dog food etc
Thanks very much for your excellent article, Carol, and for providing links to the survey and upcoming public webinars. I hope people respond in great numbers and in detail about their concerns, I am all in favor of the Conservancy’s reform project!
I am so glad I left New York after 30 years of hoping that maybe, certainly, possibly, hopefully, surely, at some point in time New Yorkers would see the value of bicycling and the point of providing reasonable infrastructure for bicycling to be safer. The comments here indicate that if anything, it’s gotten worse. There are still no dedicated and well designed ways to cross the park from East to West and vice versa on a bicycle? The one at 72 works, sort of, but is full of dangers and conflicts. The rest of them don’t fully cross the park. So the only alternative for most of the park is to travel with the trucks, buses and speeding cars through the twisting transepts that were never designed for us. The Central Park Conservancy seems to be a bunch of Upper East Siders who see CP as the back yard where they get to walk their precious pooches, and has always hated bicyclists. Based on the structure of this questionnaire they obviously just want to crack down further on cyclists and place as much blame for all conflicts on them rather than put their heads together and create a design that accommodates everyone, now that cars are mostly gone from the drives.
Ciao!
You are 100% correct about traversing the park and totally wrong about the rest of this.
It’d be easy to set up paths for REASONABLE bike rides across the park just north of 96th and just south of 86th (the part used by the prescient cars). But the lack of reasonable transverses doesn’t excuse the behavior of riders on the loop, and it doesn’t mean that we should add fully powered vehicles to the mix.
As I see it, one of the main problems is that the CPC sees the circular drive as the only place for cyclists. Since it only travels in one direction, and circles the entire park, it ends up attracting racers and by default turns the drive into a place full of people expecting never to have to stop or even slow down. Wouldn’t it be possible to redesign the drives with bicycle traffic going both ways, use structural cycle traffic slowing measures (speed bumps, crossings, narrowings, path connections etc) that remove the incentive to gather speed and encourage gentler and more recreational cycle traffic? Rather than a bunch of stop lights–which by their very nature imply that vehicles are fast and accelerational?
Electric cycles are a newer problem, and I imagine some kind of enforced speed limit would be a place to start.
tHERE IS MORE TRAFFIC IN THE PARK. THERE ARE RULES FOR BICYCLISTS THAT ARE NOT BEING FOLLOWED. THERE SHOULD BE A BAN ON ELECTRIC VEHICLES..
Will they listen if we beg for more bathrooms? The fact that so many of the playgrounds have no way for children to go in an emergency is ridiculous.
BTW in Amsterdam where more people bicycle than use mass transit or walk (a 10 block walk that would be routine for New Yorkers would be too much for many Dutch – they’d hop on a bike rather than walk), an elected official is calling for legislation that would limit bicycle speed to 20 MPH.
That’s 20km/hour which translates to 12.5 mph.