On October 19, Tom DeVito, Manhattan organizer for Transportation Alternatives, speaks to supporters of a comprehensive street redesign for Fifth and Sixth Aves.
BY ZACH WILLIAMS | About three dozen transportation activists made their way through Chelsea and the West Village on Oct. 19 to support businesses in favor of redesigning Fifth and Sixth Aves.
The city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) is studying Fifth and Sixth Aves. for possible redesigns, which would better integrate bicycle, automobile and pedestrian traffic.
Activists from Transportation Alter-natives (TA), a traffic safety advocacy group (transalt.org), celebrated DOT’s effort with a neighborhood walk-through. A petition which had urged the department to conduct the study garnered more than 15,000 signatures in support of the two-year effort.
Earlier this year, a DOT traffic study of Hell’s Kitchen resulted in numerous changes to the area — including pedestrian islands, designated bikes lanes and other safety-minded measures. Streets that have been redesigned to include separate space for automobiles, bikes, and pedestrians (and sometimes buses) have resulted in an average decrease in accident rates of 20 percent citywide, according to Tom DeVito, Manhattan organizer for TA.
He told Chelsea Now that a study of Fifth and Sixth Aves. represents how such initiatives are moving in from the Manhattan periphery.
A gathering at Zen Bikes (W. 24th St.), after the Oct. 19 walking tour of Chelsea and the West Village.
“They’re right down the center of Manhattan, where everybody is, where densities of pedestrians are the highest of the city, and density of cyclists are the highest in the city,” said Albert Ahronheim, chair of the TA Manhattan Activist Committee. “And put cars together in that mix and you have two avenues with the highest rates of injury in the city.”
Business owners said in interviews that a progressive approach to traffic makes the surrounding neighborhood more livable by improving safety in addition to boosting their bottom lines.
Retail sales increased by as much as 49 percent for Ninth Ave. businesses between 23rd and 31st St. following the redesign this year, according to a recent DOT report (“Measuring the Street: New Metrics for 21st Century Streets”). Injuries to all street users fell by 58 percent on Ninth Ave.
Traffic flow can move more quickly even as drivers reduced speeds, notes the report. Commercial vacancies fell by 49 percent along Union Square North as speeds decreased by 16 percent while median speeds increased by 14 percent.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero initiative continues with the implementation of a 25 mph default speed limit citywide (which takes effect on Nov. 7). In Chelsea, activists are looking to Seventh Ave. as the next subject of a DOT study. The Community Board 4 Transportation Planning Committee approved a resolution on Oct. 15 supporting the idea, contingent on neighboring CB5 doing the same. CB2 approved a similar resolution in September.
But reaching zero traffic deaths requires more than clever design and improved street signage, activists say. A cultural shift among New Yorkers is necessary in order to reduce local habits such as jaywalking and aggressive driving, they say.
Nonetheless, the increase of traffic safety awareness in the last few years contrasts starkly with the previous two decades, according to John Keoshgerian, owner of Zen Bikes on W. 24th St. (btw. Sixth & Seventh Aves.).
“There were no bike lanes. There was no advocacy,” he said of prior years.
