1. Do you favor banning cars from the transverses?

• Absolutely not. The four transverse roads were intended to carry through-traffic as part of the park's original design. Realizing that traffic would disrupt the park's tranquility, Central Park's designers intentionally sank the transverses eight feet beneath the park's surface. Regular traffic should be barred only from the six-mile drive that loops around the park, as well as from the connected crossing at 72nd Street, both of which were conceived as a key element in the park designers' pastoral plan.

2. Won't banning cars from the park increase traffic on adjacent streets, such as Fifth Avenue and Central Park West?

• The impact on surrounding streets will hardly be noticeable, and in fact a closing of the park drives to cars will result in an overall reduction in traffic in the city.
  
  First, only one-half of one percent of the people entering New York's Central Business District on an average workday rely on the park drives. Furthermore, history has shown that when roads are closed, a large percentage of New York's car users find alternatives. For example, until 1959, Fifth Avenue ran right through the middle of Washington Square Park. Proposals to end Fifth at the park were met with predictions of traffic catastrophe. But the actual result was less traffic in the neighborhood around Washington Square. Similarly, when portions of the West Side Highway collapsed in 1973, more than 90 percent of the traffic that could no longer use the highway simply disappeared. Motorists found ways to get to work that did not involve driving a car the length of Manhattan.
  
  A recent study of similar road closings around the world demonstrates that a closing of the park to cars will result in less traffic in the city. In "Traffic Impact of Highway Capacity Reductions: Assessment of the Evidence" (MVA, March 1998, Landor Publishing), researchers at a large British transportation consulting firm assessed the traffic impact of more than 60 road closings around the globe--from Germany to Japan. Some of the roads were closed by design, others were shut down by acts of nature, such as earthquakes. The researchers failed to find a single instance where a road closing resulted in long-term traffic problems. In fact, the researchers discovered that in almost all cases, much of the traffic that had formerly used the closed roadway simply "disappeared"--drivers either used very different routes or chose another form of transportation. On average, one-quarter of the cars vanished, and in a few cases virtually all the traffic evaporated. The researchers noted that the more alternative forms of transportation that are available, the more traffic is likely to "disappear." If Central Park were closed to cars, there is an abundance of alternatives. Fifteen subway lines surround the park, and 20 bus lines criss-cross or go around it.
  
  It's a little-known fact that thanks to Marathon Week and various Corporate Challenges and other park events, the Central Park drive is already car-free on weekdays for about two weeks out of the year. If the city can survive these two weeks without access to the park drive, it can survive the other 50 as well.
  
  Traffic problems are not solved by giving cars access to the park drives. More roads for cars leads to more cars, which leads to more congestion and pollution, not less.

3. Aren't the park drives safer due to the presence of cars, particularly early in the morning and late at night?

• There is no evidence that the presence of cars prevents crime. The drives are already car-free three nights out of four (Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays), as well as every weeknight from 7:00 - 10:00 p.m. and the entire week preceding the NYC Marathon--all without any reported increase in crime.
  
  If a crime were to commence, the occasional taxicab speeding by with a fare at 30 miles an hour is unlikely to hear, much less stop for, a person in distress. We know of no instance during the last 30 years when a driver has stopped and come to the aid of a crime victim on the park drive. A car-free park would certainly draw more runners, cyclists and other recreational users to the drives, and these users would be far more likely than a motorist to hear and respond to a cry for help.
  
  Meanwhile, we already have ample proof that cars imperil the life and limb of park users every day, making the park drives unsafe rather than safe. In February 1998, two runners on the park drive were seriously injured by an out-of-control taxicab. In 1997 in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, which similarly allows car traffic, a 57-year old woman was struck and killed by a van while riding her bike. There are also many less serious accidents involving cars and park users, and between park users competing for space in the narrow "recreational lane."

4. If cars are eliminated from the park drives, won't speeding bicyclists pose an even greater threat to park users?

• Once cars are eliminated from the park, the drive can be restriped to separate users of different types and speeds-- a far safer alternative to the current helter-skelter situation. If bicyclists, rollerbladers, or other users of the drive continue to pose a hazard, officials can devise other solutions to the problem. But the main point is that if bicyclists or other recreational users are a problem, it is a separate one from the extreme hazard currently posed by the close proximity of recreational users and automobiles weighing thousands of pounds and emitting carbon monoxide and other pollutants. Between 1994 and 1997, motor vehicles killed 1,020 pedestrians and cyclists in New York City. During that same period, five New Yorkers were killed by cyclists. One of those deaths occurred on the Central Park drive during car-free hours: a rollerblader executing a stunt turn crossed into the path of a cyclist. If the drive had been striped to manage recreational users rather than cars, such a tragedy might never have happened.

5. If cars are banned, what incentive will the city have to maintain the loop drive or clear away snow?

• First, with thousands of cars no longer using it, wear and tear on the drive will be sharply reduced. Second, the city will still maintain the drive and keep it cleared to allow passage by emergency and Parks Department vehicles.

6. What about access for emergency vehicles and those who cannot walk?

• We support continued access to the park drives for police, emergency and sanitation vehicles on official business, as well as authorized vehicle access for the handicapped, elderly and other special groups.

7. What's wrong with sharing the park with cars?

• Defenders of allowing cars in the park often argue that the "park must be shared" by its many different "users." This argument rests on a profound misconception of what a "park user" is. People who drive through the park are indeed using the physical space occupied by the park, but they are not using it as a park; rather, they are using it as a traffic artery. Essentially, a portion of the park is closed during those periods when its physical space is converted from parkland to traffic artery. Moreover, the portion of the park that is effectively closed extends well beyond the loop drive: the noise and pollution generated by traffic shuts down much of the park as a peaceful refuge from the stresses of the city.