We\u2019re the Capital of the World.\u00a0Let\u2019s act like it, and even enjoy it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Locally, next week\u2019s United Nations General Assembly<\/a> is greeted not with pride, anticipation or some kind of proper welcome to the world, but with cynical groans at the annual ritual of the Department of Transportation\u2019s \u201cGridlock Alert Day\u201d announcements<\/a>.<\/p>\n But we\u2019re going about it all wrong; we can turn the General Assembly\u2019s need to curtail East Side vehicle traffic into a good, or even great thing.<\/p>\n Diplomatic and head-of-state security concerns lead the city, feds and UN to limit typical motor traffic and parking in the area comprising the United Nations buildings and the cluster of missions and consulates on Midtown\u2019s East Side during each fall\u2019s General Assembly, especially during the \u201chigh level\u201d sessions toward the end of September.\u00a0<\/p>\n So let\u2019s do traffic restrictions for real, by pedestrianizing a big piece of the East Side. We can invite our diplomatic guests to throw mini World\u2019s Fairs in the freed-up space and figure out other ways to throw the world and ourselves a great set of street parties alongside the global gathering.\u00a0<\/p>\n Just step out your door to remind yourself that September is one of the truly glorious seasons in our city.\u00a0<\/p>\n Recent history suggests we\u2019re capable of overcoming a pure lockdown approach to UN security issues. In 2019,\u00a0the city stopped its nonsensical policy<\/a>\u00a0of closing down the East Side\u2019s bike lanes at the same time it urged everyone not to drive. It even enhanced the First Avenue route by adding a bike lane to the UN-bypass tunnel (42nd to 47th streets). DOT had to work with the NYPD, FBI and others to make this change.\u00a0<\/p>\n But let\u2019s go beyond a basic operational approach and pedestrianize cross streets in at least the core General Assembly security zone in the 40s east of Second Avenue, as well as the lanes of the avenues not needed for motorcades or bike traffic. UN-related motorcades or shuttles needed for security could continue to run effortlessly and last a matter of minutes in most cases.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Doing something creative, beneficial and fun with pedestrian streets around the General Assembly would fit Mayor Mamdani\u2019s aggressive campaign trail talk about the public realm and street safety. At a public forum,\u00a0Mamdani said he would transform<\/a>\u00a0\u201cour relic of a streetscape\u201d within the congestion prizing zone (Manhattan south of 60th Street). He repeated this in responses to Streetsblog\u2019s candidate questionnaire, saying he would\u00a0transform \u201clarge amounts of public space\u201d<\/a>\u00a0within and around the congestion pricing area. The Mamdani administration again promised \u201cpedestrian zones\u201d this month in its Vision Zero policy refresh.\u00a0<\/p>\n So far, Mamdani supporters and transportation reformers await transformative or signature projects, while 2026 has started with DOT chugging along with well-known street redesign projects, with an accent on bus lanes (that car and truck drivers are still free to block).<\/p>\n Seasonal pedestrianization on the East Side could indeed lead to more permanent changes. It would create space to experiment with pedestrian streets at the edge of the Manhattan grid, perhaps reviving DOT\u2019s out-of-steam Public Plaza Program in the process. And note that something similar to this overall thought could be applied to a set of \u201cWinter Streets\u201d in any busy commercial district in town (last year, the city managed\u00a0one Sunday<\/a>\u00a0on Fifth Avenue). December is another gridlock season that New York treats as a curse rather than blessing. But done right, holiday pedestrianizations can be\u00a0gangbusters for retailers<\/a>, and fun for their customers.<\/p>\n Seeing the arrival of United Nations diplomats to our world-class city as a burden rather than asset is at odds with experience elsewhere, and shows up the relative poverty of quality public space in New York. International sectors in Vienna and Geneva are bordered by large public parks that remain open, while European capitals Brussels and Strasbourg are notable success stories in their citywide efforts to reduce car use and add public space.\u00a0<\/p>\n A lot of the fight for safe and livable streets in New York is simply trying to get the city to exploit and live up to its natural advantages: high density, high capacity subways and the walk- and bike-ability the two provide. As a world capital, we must flip the script and start treating the United Nations as an opportunity for a fun, engaging diplomacy street fair rather than a traffic problem for the gnashing of teeth.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t owe it to the world; we owe it to ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re the Capital of the World.\u00a0Let\u2019s act like it, and even enjoy it.\u00a0 Locally, next week\u2019s United Nations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63,52479],"class_list":["post-350564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-promoted"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}