This Tuesday, the New York City Council has scheduled a hearing on proposed legislation that would end motor vehicle traffic within Central Park — for the summer, at least — and it's about time.

New York City, like many urban areas, sacrificed much during the 20th century to make way for the automobile. Expressways destroyed thriving neighborhoods. Streets were widened, sidewalks steadily narrowed, and the playground was born as a substitute to what had been children's natural play space: the street outside their homes. But of all the sacrifices to suit the needs of automobiles and their drivers, few have been more incongruous than the invasion of that most hallowed of public spaces, New York's Central Park.

In the 1850's when a design contest was held for Central Park, one of the requirements was the inclusion of at least four public streets that traversed the park. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won the competition in large part because of their ingenious scheme for meeting that requirement in a design that created the illusion of countryside within the city.

As Olmsted's biographer, Witold Rybczynski, tells us, Central Park's architects knew that "city traffic would have been a noisy and dangerous intrusion and would have destroyed the effect of country scenery," so they placed the four required public streets in large excavated trenches, eight feet below ground, creating what we now call the transverses.

Olmsted and Vaux also created a winding, bucolic carriage road that was as vital to the overall feel of the park as its lakes, woods and verdant expanses. But they had no idea that with the coming of the automobile, their pastoral drive would be transformed into a crowded, noisy thoroughfare. Soon after automobiles gained access to the north-south carriage road in 1899, the park essentially became a convenient shortcut to Midtown.

Today, those who come to Central Park seeking a refuge from the city to walk, run, cycle or skate on the park's loop road find themselves restricted to a narrow lane during prime recreational hours. With the constant jockeying for position that occurs among the lane's users, collisions between users or with cars that edge into the lanes are frequent.

Over the last few decades, as the recreational use of Central Park's loop road has boomed, public officials have been slowly returning it to the city dwellers for whom it was intended. Car-free hours have been increased and some vehicle entrances closed. But in a city of constant traffic, noise and toxic emissions, it is a shame that our elected officials haven't let Central Park be one area where their constituents can get away from it all.

The legislation that will be heard this week to ban vehicles during the summer, when traffic is lightest, is a step in the right direction, but ideally, the Central Park loop should be closed to cars all year round. Those who object to this idea claim that it will worsen congestion on surrounding streets. But that's not true.

In fact, closing the park to cars should alleviate the city's congestion woes because of what traffic researchers call "shrinkage." Right now, the Central Park loop is an enticement to drive to Midtown. If the loop were closed for a sustained period, experts predict, the traffic would shrink. According to the Regional Plan Association, closing the loop would eventually induce 20 percent to 60 percent of the drivers who now use the park to switch to other transportation or significantly modify their driving patterns.

In 2001, Mayor Michael Bloomberg campaigned on a platform of reducing private automobile use. He should acknowledge that closing Central Park's loop is one painless way to accomplish this by supporting the legislation and even calling for a year-round ban. Yes, a few drivers will be inconvenienced and may well have to consider alternatives like mass transit, but isn't that good public policy? Moreover, ridding Central Park of traffic would be an important symbol to the rest of the country and the world that New Yorkers are willing to place sensible limits on the use of cars.

New Yorkers owe an incalculable debt to the people who ran our city in the mid-19th century. When they carved out and carefully designed great tracts of open land amid a growing and bustling city, they understood that every resident, rich or poor, young or old, needed an occasional respite from the unremitting din of urban life. Central Park is a glorious example of this enterprise. But sadly, we have squandered this gift by allowing it to do double duty as a traffic artery. It is now up to us to reclaim that gift.

Kenneth M. Coughlin is a board member of Transportation Alternatives, a cycling, walking and public transit advocacy group.