The Case for a Car-Free Manhattan

Manhattan the economic Center the economic Center which is also the economic center of the economic Center the downtown of the biggest city in the United States and the second largest on the continent the city as a whole contributing to eight percent of the entire country's GDP alone each day 1.6 million people from across the city in general metro area commute to Manhattan for work via a variety of different modes such as the Subway or commuter rail modes like the Long Island Railroad and the Metro North even the buses and of course my beloved Staten Island Ferry however one mode stands out from the rest no it's not the Mayflower whatever that thing is it's the one that the city is bent over backwards to accommodate yet its congestion never seems to end it's cars according to this pie chart from Transportation expert and consultant Charles commonoff which just had to use the color pink as a background color for some odd reason the amount of people arriving via automobile whether it's their personal vehicle or Rideshare like Uber or Lyft or Yellow Cab are about 15.6 percent of commuters at least in 2019. despite this small minority of commuters Manhattan streets are severely congested the average travel speed for all Motor Vehicles below 60th Street reached 7 miles an hour with speeds reaching almost 4 miles an hour at Midtown despite these abysmal speeds so slow it's significantly faster to ride a city bike than a taxi not to mention cheaper we still have streets in Manhattan that are built like this and this and this and that too there's many more examples and that's not counting the FDR and West Street or Joey DiMaggio Parkway or 11th Avenue at 12. my trip how many names you need for one stretch of road my point is is that all that space is dedicated to the most space and efficient method of Transport in the place where space is the most valuable you have car infrastructure in Manhattan roadways on-street parking and parking garages taking up an area equivalent to almost four times the area of Central Park enabling cars to keep screwing up the air quality killing 10 pedestrians a month on average in the city alone not even counting car on car crashes and making a huge amount of noise and the exorbitant price of road maintenance and with all those adverse effects and all that space just to move 717 000 vehicles per day most of them were just one person inside taxi is also usually with one passenger meanwhile a couple tunnels with a bunch of trains under Lexington Avenue move 1.3 million per day almost twice the amount in area four times out of Central Park does across the entire Borough and that's only counting the Lexington line 7th Avenue 1.1 million a day 8th Avenue 1 million per day let's see so now that we know a few reasons why cars are so bad let's talk about a few reasons why Banning them from Manhattan or at least below 60th Street will be one of the best changes in the city's history first of all all that space being taken up by cars will be freed including parking garages which could be sold to new developers who could build more housing with big zoning in its place something we desperately need nowadays these changes are also good for small businesses and just businesses in general for example whenever an open streets a summer streets program happens the areas brings to life with thousands of people who could stop by at say a deli or a local restaurant businesses within an open streets area saw a 19 increase in sales above their pre-covered Baseline another reason why Banning cars would be good is the reversal of all the bad effects of the automobile the air quality would become better crossing the street and cycling will become safer the city will become so much more quieter as cars are the source of most noise in cities road maintenance will become hell of a lot cheaper as two or more toned vehicles take a toll on asphalt buses would run so much faster and trans would become even more feasible now in the outer Bros things get a bit interesting Banning cars in the outer boroughs is obviously impossible as it stands currently but adding bike Lanes protected by actually solid barriers preferably what trees planted within like in this concept that are drawn and trams like in this other concept art I drew would do a ton at making our system have more capacity on crowded formerly bus lines especially Select Bus Service lines like the bx12 B44 b-46 and I'm a bit biased here but s79 another thing that would help is expanding the subway in the outer boroughs extensions like a Utica Avenue line or the six or D train to Co-op City would make many people's commutes a lot easier and faster and would also benefit drivers too as it would reduce the number of cartridges being made so now that we know all this what's the city doing now to work towards this well there's a new Third Avenue redesign between 59th and 96th Street that comes with a dedicated bus lane and bike lane curiously without a potential barrier seemingly not even those horrible plastic bollards there's also one for 9th Avenue between 34th and 59th that nearly doubles the sidewalk space cool there's also another for Sixth Avenue that introduces a parking protected bike lane which I guess is better than just the buffer but it still enables people to drive and apparently they're gonna remove a lane from Cars on Lexington to expand the sidewalk there's also the open streets and summer streets program but I argue that all of these are just not good enough we need a fully fledged transition from cars and these proposals as much as I like them and our steps in the right direction are just beating around the bush or throwing shoes at it though we are seeing more quality bike lanes and Street redesign proposals pop up in the outer boroughs especially in Brooklyn like that McGinnis Boulevard redesign at the end of the day my optimistic dreams of a car free Manhattan and bicycle-friendly Transit oriented outer Bros are maybe a little bit unrealistic a very small fraction of trips into Manhattan simply have to be made by motor vehicle and there should be exceptions in place to accommodate that as for the outer boroughs well nimbies or the not in my backyard types will always be quick to assemble in droves like a short-sighted and selfish version of The Avengers to shut down any and all changes to streets Avenues and boulevards alike that cater to pedestrians and cyclists like what's currently happening with that McGinnis redesign and I will admit that the NCA needs to be improved a lot in a way like it was when Andy Byford was in its ranks which is a whole nother video topic perhaps I'm looking too far ahead and these baby steps towards a better City reflect how the city's infrastructure is now with about a thousand other things to say but no idea where to start I'm forced to end it on a disappointed note maybe one day our city becomes the one that I and many other urbanists dream of but for now we're just forced to sit and listen to nimby's complain about one of the makes car lines being given to pedestrians and cyclists for the thousandth time [Music] no I don't really have an outro well actually I kind of do so I just started making videos like these and uh feedback is desperately needed so uh what are your thoughts on both the topic and the atrocious way I wrote this video what did you like and especially what did you dislike besides my opinion I kind of need all that to improve so yeah I was inspired by a lot of people like Jay foreman and even Mystic Transit who got me into rail Fanning somehow and by extension is why I have those Subway clips from earlier and of course rib monkey's let's be on Cars video which opened my eyes as to how much of a Scourge cars are to our cities and also the caretaker for giving me the channel name idea what do you think AJC stands for also all the links is to the sources okay all the links to must oh I bet it's speaking all the links to the sources are in the description it's not that hard to say I I don't know how to end a video like this

Channel: libetajc

Views: 19,365

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Id: O6Iw86BOyYo

Length: 7min 25sec (445 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 30 2023