Give thanks for a car-free park
am New York
By Ken Coughlin
Transportation Alternatives

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Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

You heard the mounting calls for a car-free Central Park — 75,000 petition signers to date, 1,000 people who rallied last month on the Upper West Side — and you responded.

This past week, you approved a significant capital improvement in Central Park — one that won't cost the city or any philanthropist a dime. You decided to further limit traffic on the park's Loop Drive by closing five park entrances and banning cars altogether from 7 pm until 7 am on weekdays. You also approved plans to make the park's West Drive off-limits to single-passenger vehicles during the morning rush on a trial basis.

Thousands of park users seeking to escape the city will be breathing less fumes and will be safer from speeding taxis.

The changes you authorized are only the latest in nearly 40-year-long process of restricting car access to Central Park's Loop Drive. Until 1966, drivers seeking a short cut to Midtown could use the bucolic six-mile drive 24 hours a day, even though the park's designers intended that the roadway be used for recreation only. In the ensuing years, the city has slowly but surely throttled back on the presence of cars in the park.

It is clear that city officials have long recognized that cars and parks do not mix. But like a smoker who wants to quit yet cannot quite kick the habit, the city seems unable to bring itself to eliminate cars from the Loop Drive entirely. Yet studies continue to show that allowing cars there during rush hour is only worsening the city's traffic problems.

This latest round of improvements is something to be thankful for indeed. But now we intend to redouble our efforts to help the city kick its "cars-in-the-park" habit once and for all.

We will be joined in this effort by the broad coalition of organizations and individuals that has helped bring about the most recent changes: the American Lung Association of the City of New York, West Harlem Environmental Action, the Regional Plan Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Central Park Track Club, Harlem Hospital's Dr. Barbara Barlow, famed urbanist Jane Jacobs and Columbia University historian Kenneth Jackson, to name just a few.

Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg, for this early holiday gift to New Yorkers who depend on Central Park as a safe and healthy place to play, relax and exercise. We look forward to standing with you soon as you cut the ribbon on a car-free Loop Drive that has been finally returned to its intended purpose: a place of refuge and recreation 24, 7 and 365.

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