Tag Archive for "transportation" tag

Yesterday a stretch of Broadway around Times Square between 42nd and 47th Streets and another near Herald Square between 33rd and 35th Streets was closed to automotive traffic and more than 3 acres of new open space was added to the heart of Manhattan. Officially, a $1.5 million pilot project that will be evaluated throughout 2009 for a final approval, the Green Light for Midtown project has turned Broadway into a pedestrian mall that will soon be dotted with cafe tables, slacking smokers, tourists with rollybags and Chinese delivery guys on bikes. While Mayor Bloomberg might get all the glory (or grief) for this and other bike- and pedestrian-friendly civic plans (180 miles of bike lanes have been added in New York since 2006), it turns out that the bold genius behind turning Broadway into the newest park in New York is Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s Transportation Commissioner since 2007. Oddly, closing Broadway, and removing its diagonal slice through the Manhattan grid, is going to have a beneficial effect on auto traffic through Midtown. With no more 3-way intersections at 34th and 42nd Streets, Midtown traffic models predict a 37% improvement in travel times for cars traveling north on 6th Ave. and a 17% improvement to travel times when traveling downtown on 7th Ave. New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff sized up the first day without cars down Broadway this way:

Walking down the cramped, narrow sidewalks, a visitor could never get a feel for the vastness of the place. Now, standing in the middle of Broadway, you have the sense of being in a big public room, the towering billboards and digital screens pressing in on all sides.

See photos of the day Broadway was given back to pedestrians.

No really, take the freeway. A group of L.A. cyclist ne’er-do-wells calling themselves the Crimanimalz recently went for a ride on the traffic-choked freeways of Los Angeles. Specifically, about 30 cyclists took the 10 freeway to the 405 and got off at Santa Monica Blvd., weaving through traffic and passing all the cars before getting busted by the CHP. Take a look at the group’s previous ride a few weeks earlier. If you’d like to join them try reading more about the Freeway Traffic Jam Ride or going to crimanimalz.com.

The best First Class in the air is probably on Emirates planes where they offer private suites in First Class. They come fully equipped with individual storage, a coat closet, vanity desk and personal mini bar. The extra-large seat reclines to become a fully flat bed, and the 23″ wide-screen LCD screen with 600 channels of entertainment. It’s more like a train compartment with a real door you can shut.

If you’ve got a big enough crew, it really only takes a couple of minutes to do up a train right.