DOT Commissioner Sadik-Khan Announces that Green Light for Midtown Plan to Improve Traffic Will Begin on Sunday, May 24
New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan today joined Times and Herald Square business and industry leaders to announce that the City's Green Light for Midtown pilot program will begin on Sunday night, May 24, when Broadway traffic through Times and Herald Squares will be routed to 7th Avenue as construction continues on the plan to simplify traffic and improve travel times through two of Manhattan's most congested areas. Thousands of advisories about the project have been distributed, emailed and flashed on electronic message boards around the city in recent weeks to motorists, taxi operators, local residents and businesses, and the outreach continues through the week. DOT also announced the first schedule of events and activities in the new public space. The new spaces will provide opportunities to make Times and Herald Square even more exciting and attractive for New Yorkers and tourists and are expected increase economic activity for local businesses. During the three-month construction period, the public events will keep Times and Herald Squares economically vibrant destinations as work proceeds.
"Green Light for Midtown will make the street work like it should," said Commissioner Sadik-Khan "For the first time ever, standard grid intersections will be reconnected in this notoriously gridlocked part of the City, creating major traffic flow improvements on 6th and 7th Avenues."
New pedestrian plazas will be created on Broadway from 47th to 42nd Streets and from 35th to 33rd Street. The plazas will provide more than three acres of new public space for shoppers, office workers, and tourists, allowing for increased foot traffic - a potential boon for tourism and sales at local stores and restaurants.
"The Mayor has done a great thing by including pedestrians in his plans for Herald Square," said Dan Biederman, President of the 34th Street Partnership. "We are happy to cooperate by programming and managing the spaces that will be created when traffic is diverted. This is long overdue, and we think the office workers, shoppers, tourists, and commuters who walk our district will appreciate it."
The newly created public spaces at Times and Herald Square will be home to
numerous events and attractions in the coming weeks and months as new space is created but before the project is completed, helping to maintain them as appealing, economically active destinations during the construction period.
A preliminary list follows:
Herald Square
"Meet the Birds"
Thursday and Fridays, Summer 2009
Thursdays and Fridays at lunchtime in Herald Square the Arcadia Bird Sanctuary and Education Center will bring gorgeous tropical birds to display. Come on by, look, listen and even have your picture taken with them. And for those of you who didn't know: kids love birds!
Reading Room
An outpost of the popular free "outdoor library" in Bryant Park, the 34th Street Partnership will open a reading room in Herald Square this summer.
Concerts
34th Street Partnership will provide weekly musical concerts.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2009/pr09_023.shtml
LONG BEFORE
The photograph on the left evokes a Golden Age of air travel. Dirigibles would cross the Atlantic, then appear over Manhattan and glide up to the Empire State Building. After a dirigible docked at the world's tallest building, passengers would transfer from airship to skyscraper, and an elevator would whisk them to street level. Through it all, New Yorkers would be treated to the behemoth hovering overhead.
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