The New York Times Book of New York

by The New York Times

  At 8 a.m., crossing downtown Brooklyn was a singular chore. Nor was there joy in getting onto and across the Queensboro Bridge headed toward Manhattan. It took 26 minutes, from 8:46 to 9:12.

  The good news, if you can call it that, is that Wednesday’s drive took 12 fewer minutes than the 2:56 recorded the last time out, two years ago. That’s an improvement of nearly 7 percent. So it must mean that New York traffic is getting better, right?

  Yeah, right (a rare example of two positives making a negative).

  The sorry state of New York traffic is on many minds these days. One reason is a new experiment in mid-Manhattan, where traffic is often as congealed as a day-old lamb chop. Turns onto north-south avenues have been banned at certain times on 10 crosstown streets, the hope being that this will pick up the pace in Midtown, where vehicles were clocked last spring at an average speed of 4.8 miles per hour. Even Congress moves faster than that.

  $8 Traffic Fee For Manhattan Fails In Albany

  By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE | April 8, 2008

  ALBANY—Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s far-reaching plan to ease traffic in Manhattan died here on Monday when Democratic members of the State Assembly held a final, closed-door meeting and found overwhelming opposition.

  The plan would have charged drivers $8 to enter a congestion zone in Manhattan south of 60th Street during peak hours. It was strongly opposed by a broad array of politicians from Queens, Brooklyn and suburban communities, who viewed the proposed congestion fee as a regressive measure that overwhelmingly benefited affluent Manhattanites.

  The plan’s collapse was a severe blow to Mr. Bloomberg’s environmental agenda and political legacy. The mayor introduced his plan a year ago as the signature proposal of a 127-item program for sustainable city growth that helped raise his national profile.

  Without the approval from Albany, the city now stands to lose about $354 million worth of federal money that would have financed the system for collecting the fee and helped to pay for new bus routes and other traffic measures. New York had hoped to use the revenues from congestion pricing to finance billions of dollars in subway expansion and other improvements by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, money that must now come from somewhere else.

  Assemblyman Mark S. Weprin, a Queens Democrat, estimated that opinion among Assembly Democrats at the meeting ran four to one against the plan. But no formal vote was taken.

  “It takes a special type of cowardice for elected officials to refuse to stand up and vote their conscience on an issue that has been debated, and amended significantly to resolve many outstanding issues, for more than a year,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “Every New Yorker has a right to know if the person they send to Albany was for or against better transit and cleaner air.”

  Who’s Driving May Be Surprising

  By WILLIAM NEUMAN | January 12, 2007

  IT’S A COMMON ENOUGH THOUGHT AMONG city drivers inching through traffic: Everyone around me came from the suburbs, making my life miserable. But it’s wrong, because more than half the drivers who crowd into Manhattan each workday come from the five boroughs.

  That is only one fact about traffic in New York City that may surprise some people. For example, 35 percent of government workers drive to work, many because they have free parking. Also, one in five drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan are only passing through, on their way somewhere else.

  “There’s a lot of myths, and when you look at the data, the myths go pop, pop, pop, one by one,” said Bruce Schaller, a transportation consultant who has studied regional traffic patterns.

  One of the most prevalent beliefs to crumble beneath the data might be called the suburban myth, the notion that suburbanites make up a majority of the commuters who drive to work in Manhattan.

  Census data show that more city residents than suburbanites drive to work in Manhattan every day, according to Mr. Schaller. When plotted on a map, the data make a striking picture, showing that some of the densest concentrations of auto commuters are from the outer fringes of Queens and Brooklyn, where access to subways is limited.

  That applies to Dennis Alicea, of Bayside, Queens. Mr. Alicea, a banker for JPMorgan Chase, drives from Bayside to Manhattan. To commute on public transportation, Mr. Alicea, 38, would have to take a bus from his home to the Long Island Rail Road station at Bayside, ride a train to Pennsylvania Station, then take a subway.

  “You have to go into a stuffy, overcrowded train with people with attitudes,” he said. “I prefer driving for the peace of mind. It’s much easier.”

  TAXIS, PEDESTRIANS AND CYCLISTS

  A Pedestrian’s Lot Is Not A Happy One

  By ELIZABETH ONATIVIA | July 7, 1929

  THE DAY OF THE HERO WITH THE LONG careless stride is over. Pedestrianism in city streets today involves executive ability, planning and foresight, specialized knowledge and concentration. It’s pure paradox that walking is often quicker than motoring. And it’s paradoxical that it should be equally complicated.

  It’s hard on the pedestrian, for he has to keep turning and craning; and stopping and starting. Assuming that he has the right of way, and that no driver wants the satisfaction of running over him, he still has some justification for retaining his timidity. In the first four months of this year, according to recent figures, because motorists refused to grant the right of way, 54 persons were killed and 5,152 injured in New York State.

  The crafty New Yorker, therefore, walking for so-called exercise, to save money, to save time, plots his journey like a trip to Europe. He goes crab-like from east to west, say, crossing with the lights. He may even go crab-like down the main lanes, two blocks to this side to avoid the debris and boardwalks of construction work, two blocks to the other, to avoid the detour around the excavation. He develops all sorts of unconscious tricks and fancies. His mind is always on the job. If it isn’t, the blast of a horn, or the gentle push of a fender, will recall it.

  In some places, the arcades and underground, passages afford relief, but these take practice. For instance, the new passage from the station to 46th Street, under the New York Central Building, its delightful, after you have round the entrance, but even then you may end up in the more intimate quarters of the Railway Express. The pedestrian who is an adept at these passages exhibits his knowledge as proudly as if he were driving a car.

  Think You Own The Sidewalk? Etiquette by New York Pedestrians Showing Strain

  By MARC SANTORA | July 16, 2002

  ON THE SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK THERE ARE jaywalkers, baby walkers, dog walkers, night walkers, cell phone talker-walkers, slow walkers, fast walkers, group walkers, drunken walkers, walkers with walkers and, of course, tourist walkers.

  Unfortunately, all of these walkers are walking into one another.

  “There was a time that any real New Yorker had a built-in sonar in terms of walking down the sidewalk, even a crowded one, and never bumping into someone,” said John Kalish, a television producer in Manhattan. “Now—forget it.”

  Sometimes it is impossible to be a graceful walker. Still, strollers say that many problems could be avoided if basic rules were followed.

  First, walking rules are like driving rules.

  “Stay to the right is the golden, No. 1 rule,” said Chris Avila, 29, who has lived in the city for nine years.

  Second, don’t be a sudden stopper.

  “People who stop short really get me,” said Carla Melman, 26, a lifelong New Yorker. She said it was the equivalent of a car wreck on the Long Island Expressway on a Hamptons weekend.

  Third, when walking with friends, don’t crowd every lane of the sidewalk.

  Ms. Avila said she reserves a special sidewalk in hell for “mall walkers,” which she defined as groups who insist on walking three or four abreast. “They make me so mad,” she said. “When you are around a group of mall walkers, you just have to find a way around them.”

  Fourth, keep it moving.

  The average fast walker does not have to get stuck behind
a pack of mall walkers to grow sour. A single person moving can be enough. There is even a word for this slowpoke: meanderthal, defined by an Internet dictionary of slang as “an annoying individual moving slowly and aimlessly in front of another individual who is in a bit of a hurry.”

  ‘Walk’ Signals Set an Example For a City Losing Weight

  By DAVID W. DUNLAP | August 13, 2005

  Given New Yorkers’ tendency to ignore traffic lights, it seems unlikely that they’ll pay attention to a 45-diode weakling.

  IS IT JUST COINCIDENCE THAT IN THE SUMMER that New York City went to war against trans fats, a new generation of “Walk/Don’t Walk” icons began appearing around Columbus Circle with a noticeably skinnier walking man and an almost emaciated red hand?

  Your typical walking man—a familiar silhouette around town in the five years since the first new light-emitting diode pedestrian signal was installed at 35th Street and Queens Boulevard—is a pretty robust, smooth-shouldered, round-headed fellow who steps off confidently into traffic, as bubbly as a Keith Haring figure.

  This new guy, by contrast, seems a bit rickety. There isn’t a curve to his body. His head—is this too cruel to say?—is pentagonal. His arms and legs are mere sticks. Indeed, he looks as though he’s stooped over with a bad back. (Maybe from waiting so long for the light to change.)

  About that upraised hand. The one that New Yorkers have grown accustomed to is as smooth and solid as a porcelain glove mold. The new hand is so skeletally thin it might be the crypt keeper’s.

  But they say you can never be too thin. After all, the skinny man is formed of 45 light-emitting diodes, where the older version tips the scales at 60. The new hand has 64 diodes, the old one 120. So maybe this was an energy conservation step.

  Well, it turns out that the Department of Transportation is not quite sure what those skinny men are doing around Columbus Circle, though it may be the case that the nonconforming signals were installed mistakenly. They are not, in any event, tied into the antifat campaign the city announced this week.

  “We’re happy to do our part to encourage a healthy New York,” Iris Weinshall, the transportation commissioner, said in a statement. “However, the pedestrian signals will be inspected to ensure that they are the D.O.T. standard figure and hand.”

  And that may be the end of “Walk/Don’t Walk” lite.

  For the Hard Core, Two Wheels Beat Four

  By J. DAVID GOODMAN | July 27, 2008

  New Yorker’s have been biking to work for decades, and its popularity is growing. Figures suggest there currently are over 25,000 bike commuters in the city.

  IT WAS 7:30 A.M. ON A HUMID MONDAY, AND David Muller, a doctor and a suburban bike commuter, was sweating his way to work. As he rode along the George Washington Bridge and into Manhattan, Dr. Muller, 44, seemed indifferent to the low roar of rush-hour traffic. He was halfway from Teaneck, N.J.—where he lives—to Mount Sinai Medical Center—where he works—and was happy to be on his bicycle.

  “It’s free, it’s good for the environment, good for your health,” he said about 5 miles into his 12-mile ride. “And it’s a little dangerous, so you get a little thrill at the beginning and the end of each day.” He also gets satisfaction from beating cars across the bridge.

  Five minutes later, another commuter pedaled along. Henry Minnerop, a partner in a Manhattan law firm and “70-plus” years old, said he drives each day—year round—to Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and then bikes about 12 miles into Midtown. “There’s a gym in my office,” he said. “I shower and come out looking like a lawyer.”

  Police and a Cyclists’ Group, And Four Years Of Clashes

  By JAMES BARRON | August 4, 2008

  THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT, with its 35,000 officers, has in recent years been on the front lines of the citywide decline in serious crime. It has protected visiting dignitaries like Pope Benedict XVI at events that drew thousands of people, and it has posted officers in foreign capitals to gather information on terrorism and trends that could threaten New York.

  But the Police Department continues to be flummoxed by bicyclists riding together once a month.

  The rides are known as Critical Mass. The police say that the cyclists who take part in them break the law—running red lights and blocking side streets to allow riders to pass while shouting disparaging comments at officers. Over the past four years, the cyclists say, the police have arrested about 600 riders and issued more than 1,000 summonses during Critical Mass rides.

  A cyclist arrested in the latest rally was accused of riding straight into an officer in Times Square. When a video surfaced showing the officer going out of his way to shove the rider off his bike, it seemed to surprise officials.

  “From what you could see on the video, it looked to me to be totally over the top,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly told a television reporter, “I can’t explain why it happened. I have no understanding as to why that would happen.”

  The antagonism between the police and Critical Mass riders has festered for years. The police, unable to convince the courts that the cyclists need permits that would force them to adhere to some restrictions, have adopted what the riders consider belligerent tactics. For their part, the riders have avoided negotiations with the city—and oversight—by refusing to name anyone as their leader.

  “It’s just a bike ride, but the cops are treating it like a war,” said Bill DiPaola, the director of Time’s Up, an environmental group that says it promotes the rides but is not involved in organizing them.

  The mood changed, cyclists say, in August 2004, when the city was preparing for the Republican National Convention. About 5,000 cyclists took part in that month’s ride. Some shouted “No more Bush!” as they neared Madison Square Garden, where the convention was to be held. The police arrested more than 100 people, mostly on charges of disorderly conduct.

  Since then, the relationship between the bicyclists and the police has been “antagonistic,” said a former commander of a Manhattan precinct often traversed by Critical Mass riders. “We look at them as just a bunch of radical bikers,” he said.

  Cyclists say labels like “radical” or “anarchist” are unfair. “Since the police decided to treat it as a criminal act, the entire tone of the rides has changed,” said Eric Goldhagen, a longtime rider who works as a technology consultant. “Instead of being fun, it’s now something that I don’t enjoy, but feel I have to do.”

  Not So Merrily, They Roll Along: Pedicabs Vie for Midtown Riders

  By SEWELL CHAN and NICHOLAS CONFESSORE | January 2, 2005

  AT FIRST, THE GIANT TRICYCLES DID NOT seem quite so threatening.

  Pedicabs were more of a novelty than a legitimate mode of transport when a group of environmentalists and artists in Manhattan began pedaling them—and peddling rides on them—nine years ago.

  But in the past two years, according to unofficial estimates, the number of pedicabs has nearly doubled, spurred by an influx of entrepreneurs and popularized when they were featured on Donald J. Trump’s reality television show, “The Apprentice.”

  Long popular in Southeast Asia, pedicabs are now combatants in a quiet war on the streets of Midtown, with tourist dollars as the primary spoils.

  Drivers of horse-drawn carriages and taxicabs are demanding a crackdown on the unlicensed three-wheelers. Along Central Park South, hackney drivers accuse pedicab operators of stealing their customers in what has long been their domain. Cabdrivers say their exclusive license to pick up passengers who hail them on the streets is slowly being undermined.

  “These guys have just gone out into the streets, and nobody’s questioned them,” said Cornelius P. Byrne, who inherited his father’s stable and hackney carriages in 1964. “It’s kind of crazy. Nobody is asking if it’s right, or legal.”

  Their growing presence at heavily trafficked intersections has rivals complaining, loudly. Mohammed Diarra, a cabdriver for five years, estimates that he has lost 10 percen
t of his business, concentrated in the Midtown theater and business district, since the pedicabs began to explode in popularity.

  “Business has definitely dropped off,” he said. “If I had a choice, I’d get rid of them. The traffic isn’t safe, and they pick up our passengers. We pay a lot of money to pick people up in Manhattan.” Three months ago, Mr. Diarra said, the weekly rental fee he pays for his medallion rose to $780, from $650.

  Thirty-Three Ferries In New York District

  By JOHN T. VOGEL | March 30, 1930

  The Staten Island Ferry Terminal at St. George in 1953.

  THE MOTORING MANHATTANITE, POISED LIKE a satyr for the green fields of spring, has a choice of 22 green routes to the countryside. Sunlit waves lapping the island are cut by more than a score of shifting ferry lanes. Even a Venetian has fewer boats to choose from.

  The domain of the Doges has its bridges, and so has Manhattan with the new Holland Tunnel added, but ferries still serve the convenience and contribute to the pleasure of many motorists. The Port of New York Authority lists 33 ferries in the metropolitan district. Two-thirds of the lines have terminals in Manhattan.

  An excursion trip in itself, the municipal line from Whitehall Street to St. George, S.I., is the longest ferry trip within the city limits. Motorists have found this a pleasant prelude to Jersey coast resort trips, the route going from St. George by way of Bay Street and Hylan Boulevard along the east shore of Staten Island. A confusing hairpin turn at the Outerbridge Crossing plaza has been eliminated, the motorist continuing in a more direct line across the bridge to Perth Amboy, N. J.