NYC: City May Replace Times Square Plazas With Traffic

[marmar]

from Transportation Nation:



Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has a cure for the costumed characters and painted topless ladies in Times Square. In an interview with 1010 WINS on Thursday, he said the city should dig up the pedestrian plaza installed by the Bloomberg administration and bring back the traffic lanes.

Speaking at an unrelated press event the same day, Mayor Bill de Blasio signaled that he was open to the idea.

“You could argue that those plazas have had some very positive impacts, you could also argue that they come with a lot of problems and a lot of the surrounding business community has certainly cited those problems,” said de Blasio.

The mayor has tapped Bratton and Carl Weisbrod, head of the Department of City Planning, to co-chair a task force to study the situation in Times Square. Weisbrod is credited with leading the clean-up of the Times Square starting in the 1970s and then later in the 1990s as head of New York City Economic Development Corporation.

De Blasio’s decision to create the task force — and its plans to review the pedestrian plaza — appeared to come in response to days of negative headlines focused on the city’s inability to manage a growing cottage industry of street performers and hustlers — with and without their clothes. .....................(more)

http://www.wnyc.org/story/city-may-replace-times-square-plazas-traffic/

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Horrible idea.

Cities should have more pedestrian areas, not fewer.

You want to 'clean up' the area, require licenses for street performing, and don't allow nudity in the pursuit of money. Get rid of the actual problem, don't try and pull a Rube Goldberg workaround that you 'hope' will get rid of the problems.