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Winter 2004, p.17 Parks
You may not be out of bed yet, but at 6 am Central Park’s loop drive is alive with runners, walkers and cyclists. Unfortunately, a relatively small number of motorists roaring around the drive at high speeds mar the Park’s early morning charm. Park users say that they need relief from this loud, dangerous traffic. T.A. agrees and has been asking the Parks Department and Central Park Conservancy to increase weekday car-free hours to include early morning hours until 8 am as well as overnight hours since it is very unlikely that the police and Parks Department will close the park entrances in a timely fashion at 5 am. Currently, Central Park is
car-free from 10 am to 3 pm and 7 pm to 10 pm on weekdays between January 1st
and Thanksgiving. Based on park user feedback, T.A. is advocating that the City
expand car-free hours to 7 pm to 8 am, in anticipation of the park eventually
being
Take Action! Write to the Central Park
Conservancy to tell it that you want more overnight and early morning car-free
hours. |
It is easy for the City to
expand car-free hours overnight and in the early morning: Traffic is very light
but intrusive during these times. Traffic studies have shown that adding these
hours would not result in congestion on surrounding streets. Councilmembers
Miller, Moskowitz, Reed and Brewer all support adding car-free hours.
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