{"id":351658,"date":"2026-09-20T12:56:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T12:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/351658\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T12:56:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T12:56:22","slug":"sorry-nyc-drivers-traffic-is-about-to-get-even-worse-than-usual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/351658\/","title":{"rendered":"Sorry, NYC drivers. Traffic is about to get even worse than usual."},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-block-key=\"vu6an\">Its. Going. To. Be. Very. Slow.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"c4nl\">Gridlock season is upon us. The U.N. General Assembly is in town this week \u2014 which always means some of the slowest days of the year for traffic in and around Midtown. But you can expect it to be even slower than normal, with large protests planned every day of the assembly, including but not limited to when <a href=\"https:\/\/gothamist.com\/news\/nypd-expects-daily-un-general-assembly-protests-as-nyc-street-closures-begin\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes his address Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"5tjmm\">A heavy police presence and rolling street closures won\u2019t make things any easier if you\u2019re behind the wheel.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"sjg5\">But this is just the start. The city Department of Transportation has identified 20 so-called gridlock days throughout the end of the year, beginning on Monday. More than half are in December, but some of the days leading up to Thanksgiving will be extra-congested as well.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"87b0l\">The DOT estimates that during the U.N. General Assembly, traffic around Midtown crawls to less than 4 mph (as opposed to the zippy 4-6 mph Midtown sees the rest of the year). The department will use variable message board systems around the city to warn drivers of expected delays.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"dv5u9\">The city advises \u2014 in general, but especially on gridlock days \u2014 to use public transport, bicycle or walk, whenever practical. The DOT says the First Avenue Tunnel protected bike lane, made permanent in 2024, should be helpful, providing a jersey barrier-protected express lane that bypasses many of the busy intersections around the U.N.\u2019s 45th Street headquarters. The DOT said it\u2019s the first tunnel in the United States to be repurposed to allow bike traffic while still maintaining vehicle travel.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"f29dj\">The 2026 gridlock days are:<\/p>\n<p>Monday, Sept. 21Tuesday, Sept. 22Wednesday, Sept. 23Thursday, Sept. 24Friday, Sept. 25Wednesday, Nov. 18Thursday, Nov. 19Tuesday, Nov. 24Wednesday, Dec. 2Thursday, Dec. 3Friday, Dec. 4Tuesday, Dec. 8Wednesday, Dec. 9Thursday, Dec. 10Friday, Dec. 11Tuesday, Dec. 15Wednesday, Dec. 16Thursday, Dec. 17Friday, Dec. 18Wednesday, Dec. 23<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Its. Going. To. Be. Very. Slow. Gridlock season is upon us. The U.N. General Assembly is in town&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-351658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351658","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=351658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}