Opinions on Fifth Ave Midtown Plan?

How will the stores be restocked if there is no place for a car/truck to stop? Also, 40 bus routes affected. A lot of them are express buses to parts of town that are not well-served by the subway system.

This city has been overtaken by lunatics.

This war on cars is getting out of control. The city wants to remove more car lanes and people wonder why traffic is so bad. The pedestrian lanes on 8th avenue are mostly used by lunatic cyclist and delivery people who go the wrong way and blow through traffic lights. Ditto for the DOUBLE bike lanes on 10th avenue. In fact the most useful purpose these serve is for the occasional ambulance or police car responding to an emergency who despite their lights and sirens blaring, can’t move an inch on the road because there is absolutely no room for the cars to move out of the way. Unfortunately, many people who both work and live in NYC depend on cars and using public transportation for them is a not feasible. Ultimately businesses who cannot efficiently function due to car restrictions/tolls/fees etc..will pass these costs onto consumers or simply not to business in NYC anymore.

My problem with a lot of this stuff is more that we are making getting around harder, not easier.

If street closures/restrictions came along with real transit improvements, it would be another thing entirely.

Instead transit is getting worse, and we are restricting roads in ways that also make taking an uber/taxi worse.
All while city officials beg companies to force employees back to the office more and more.

I was wondering how the average walking time to subway stations varied by neighborhood. I have found Manhattan so far:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/lyhiek/manhattan_neighborhoods_ranked_by_average/

That was nice. But then scroll down a bit and look who I found!

https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/lyhiek/comment/gpttr3y/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Nice find nada

My problem has been how much transit has degraded in terms of reliability and headways since the "summer of hell" followed by covid. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/nyregion/subway-mta-finances-congestion-pricing.html

Walking distance to subway is one thing, but if your line is constantly having delays, long headways plus night&weekend shutdowns.. good luck.

We almost need another metric which is something like - percent of neighborhood within 5 minutes walk of 2 different subway lines (not stops, but lines). Or a composite A-F score based on - minimum distance to a station, number of lines within 5 minutes walk, and then the on time % / headways / night & weekend services of those lines.

I opted for an uber Saturday going to lunch because one of my lines had a planned closure while the other line had an emergency track repair. As I sat in traffic crawling in my uber, I noted that the MTA website had the vast majority of lines experiencing planned closures, unplanned closures or delays.

I think the problems are exacerbated outside Manhattan because frequently the service change is "the train is not going to Manhattan".

Bad idea. 'Let's beautify instead of fixing what we have'.

Subways are running on spit and duct tape. Why not start with those?

re 5th Ave: At least they put the bus lane in the middle, rather than the right (west) side where it is now, so the bus lane is less likely to be clogged with cars. Don't know how will passengers board though. But, had the Gov not caved to whatever sprite whispered in her ear (or threatened to not refill her pocketbook), and actually enacted congestion pricing, perhaps along with stringent enforcement of traffic laws and increased fines, so that driving in NYC is actively discouraged and appropriately priced for its effect on the city, this is all just eyewash and decoration. And two-way bike lanes on 6th Avenue is a few dozen pedestrian injuries just waiting to happen.

One can just look at 42nd street for a preview - this street does not move. Taxis picking up passengers in front of grand central are in the way of buses. There is nowhere for for cars and trucks to stop to load unload and do passenger pickups. Hilariously, this week I have seen a car parked on a bus stop for two days straight. How come it didn't get towed?

One underlying issue here is how much the city likes to pass laws but not actually enforce existing ones.

Bus lanes, taxi stands, loading zones, bike lanes, etc don't work if they are just suggestions and we are transitioning to be a lower trust society..