Feb 26, 2009 8:21 pm US/Eastern
Times Square To Become Giant Pedestrian Mall
Bloomberg Wants To Close Several Blocks Of Times Square To Vehicle Traffic
Mayor: 'Will Help Make NYC A Less Polluted City'
Not Everyone Is On Board, Critics Call Plan 'Counterintuitive'
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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The Great White Way is on the fast track to becoming a pedestrian mall. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced experimental plans to close part of Broadway to vehicles. (File)
Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images
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The Great White Way is on the fast track to becoming a pedestrian mall.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced experimental plans to close part of Broadway to vehicles.
But as CBS 2 HD has discovered, not everyone is on board.
"This midtown traffic mess is one of those problems everyone always talks about and you always say there's nothing you can do about it, well, we're going to try and do something about it," Bloomberg said on Thursday.
The mayor announced an ambitious plan to actually close blocks of Broadway for pedestrians.
"We expect both travel times and safety to improve and in some cases substantially," Bloomberg added.
The mayor's plan, according to published reports, would be to close Broadway from 42nd to 47th streets and put chairs, benches and cafe tables where taxis and trucks usually go. The mayor's vision would resemble last summer's Broadway Boulevard Project below 42nd Street, which is still in effect.
Under the new plan, traffic below 42nd Street would return again for seven blocks until Herald Square, where it would be shut down for two blocks from 33rd to 35th Street. Below 33rd, it would open up again.
It's the latest attempt to make city streets friendlier to pedestrians and cyclists, a spokesperson to the mayor said.
"Our goal is simple - to give midtown faster streets that are also safer and help realize our goal of making New York a less polluted sustainable city," Bloomberg said.
But not everyone is on board, including some cabbies who fear they won't be able to grab as many fares in the theater district.
"It's a bad idea you know, because the mayor wants to make life harder for working people," said cab driver Hasem Zaid.
"The city wants to make things harder for the working man," said a disgruntled unidentified cabbie.
While early critics of the plan say it's counterintuitive to relieving traffic congestion, the city thinks it'll work because it may take away Broadway's diagonal flow of traffic that tends to jam things up. It also serves to fulfill the mayor's agenda of making New York City more pedestrian friendly.
CBS 2's Magee Hickey also contributed to this report.
How do you feel about this idea?
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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