BY DENNIS LYNCH | An ongoing effort from commuter advocacy group Transportation Alternatives (TransAlt; transalt.org) to establish a “PeopleWay” car- and truck-less thoroughfare on 14th St. during the L train shutdown — and possibly permanently — received mixed reviews from the public at a Community Board 4 Transportation Planning Committee meeting on the night of Wed., Oct. 19.
TransAlt Director of Organizing Thomas DeVito called the plan extremely preliminary — a “cake not fully baked” — and that his group was looking for input from locals. PeopleWay would make 14th St. a largely high-capacity bus-only roadway with protected bike lines. DeVito and his group said this would be the most efficient way to move people across Manhattan during 2019-2020’s 18-month L train closure, but many locals said the group hadn’t thought of where the cars and trucks that now use 14th St. would go.
“Our organization has been extremely upset because we have experienced when all of these vehicles do get detoured, there is no mitigation possible on any of this,” said Stanley Bulbach, head of the West 15th St. 100 and 200 Block Association. “The local residential neighborhood does not support this, we make that perfectly clear.”
Bulbach and others also criticized TransAlt for what he said was a misleading pitch, because representatives did not disclose that the PeopleWay plan is meant to be permanent, not a temporary fix during the L train shutdown.
A handful of folks supported the plan. Gary Roth, a Columbia University urban planning professor and W. 24th St. resident, said that a rapid bus system and bike lanes were the only way to move a volume of people on the level the L train moves each day, and that a PeopleWay would naturally attract fewer cars to the area.
“When you take down roadways, people don’t drive in, so there won’t be this flood of traffic, I think this is the best way to do it,” said Roth. “As the High Line helped change how an urban park is conceived, I think a redesigned 14th Street could be a new way to look at a crosstown route in Manhattan and this could be the template of a crosstown street.”
TransAlt did not ask for an endorsement of the plan because of its preliminary nature and Transportation Planning Committee did not weigh in on the discussion. On Nov. 9 at 6:30 p.m., the group will hold a public workshop to hear more input from locals (Fulton Auditorium; 119 Ninth Ave., btw. W. 17th & W. 18th Sts.).
