Times Square Goes Car-Less! (Could King Street Be Next???)

Where thousands and thousands of cars passed daily...just pedestrians, and a "V" for Victory!

FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST...

New Yorkers...drive. Aggressive, car-horn-blaring, brake-stomping drivers who are just as likely to use their car as a battering ram as they are a transportation device. Don't get me wrong, they won't run you over on purpose but they may nudge out into the pedestrian intersection before the light turns, or blow through a walk sign just to keep the pedestrians from getting too comfortable.

But as GM and Ford are under attack, it seems that New York's driving culture is being challenged as well.

[And last weekend] may well have been the dawn of a post-automotive city.


Late at night, while New Yorkers slept, an army of workers and contractors descended on the heart of the city and began to put up barricades, beginning to create the largest swatch of pedestrian space that has been carved out since perhaps Central Park was created.

The battleground is Times Square. And while it may seem that the winners are pedestrians, that's merely a by-product of the wholesale face lift of Broadway from 47th to 42nd. The real winners are cyclist, who find themselves with an unlikely ally in Janette Sadik-Khan, the City's Transportation Commissioner.

New York's Battle of the Bikes goes back to a bunch of hard charging bike activists known as Critical Mass, who've been gathering to ride en-mass throughout city streets around the world to demonstrate in favor of more bike-friendly urban environments.

For the entire article, visit the Huffington Post by clicking here.