W. K. Lis
Superstar
Fifth Avenue (NYC) loses sidewalk for more lanes of traffic
From N.Y.Times.
This image of Fifth Avenue unearthed by the Times' Jennifer 8. Lee is a fascinating relic from the dawn of the motoring age. The new geometry pictured here nicked 15 feet of sidewalk from pedestrians to make room for two traffic lanes. In one fell swoop, the balance of space shifted dramatically: Two 30-foot sidewalks and a 40-foot roadway became 22½-foot sidewalks and a 55-foot roadway. The insets show the sort of "imperfections" slated for elimination on the auto-friendly Fifth Avenue: terraces, stoops, gardens -- the type of amenities that make streets more than simply thoroughfares to pass through.
From N.Y.Times.
What the city giveth, the city taketh away — at least with regard to the balance of power between pedestrians and automobiles. The Bloomberg administration has been trying to tame vehicles with bike lanes, the pedestrianization of Broadway and the failed congestion-pricing initiative. But a century ago, just the opposite was happening. The city was cutting back sidewalks to make room for the increasingly popular automobile, which was displacing the horse and carriage and even people on foot.
The New York Times ran an extensive article on June 27, 1909, on how Fifth Avenue — then effectively only one lane of traffic in each direction — lost seven and a half feet of sidewalk on each side and gained an extra lane of roadway in each direction from 25th to 47th Streets. Stoops, gardens, courtyards — all had to be refashioned for the asphalt. Big losses were suffered by a number of churches, and by the Waldorf Hotel, which had a 15-foot-wide sunken garden. Until then, Fifth Avenue had glorious 30-foot-wide sidewalks.
“Nineteenth-century planners saw our streets as promenades, and many sidewalks were twice as wide as they are today,†said Wiley Norvell of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy organization.
But the promenades were gradually nibbled away by urban planners. “The rationale was that pedestrians didn’t need much space to walk, whereas cars needed a lot of open asphalt to move freely,†Mr. Norvell said.
But in its PlaNYC, the Bloomberg administration had a new rationale. As of Tuesday, the Department of Transportation will have added 200 miles of new bike lanes within a span of three years — much of that stolen back from the automobile.