Last night NY Post columnist Steve Cuozzo triumphantly tweeted: "City has dropped insane plan for 34th St mall! Maybe they read my warning." Cuozzo, as you probably know, hates these pedestrian plazas, and the Post has waged a relentless editorial war to pressure the DOT to abandon a proposal that would radically transform 34th Street to prioritize buses and pedestrians over passenger cars. DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan (whom the Post calls "Sadist-Khan") says the reversal comes in response to community feedback, not tabloid demagoguery. But we all know what Steve Cuozzo's new pick-up line is.
"The design has evolved as we continue to work with the community,” Sadik-Khan told the Times last night. “We want the public process to play itself out.” There are still big changes in store for 34th Street, but the DOT is waiting until March 14th to announce them. The original proposal would have essentially cut 34th Street in half, with the section west of Sixth Avenue running one way toward the Hudson River, and the section east of Fifth Avenue running one way toward the East River. Buses would have traveled in both directions in their own special lanes, and between Fifth and Sixth there was to be that infamous pedestrian plaza.
The DOT says there will still be express "Select" bus lanes in the final plan, but the rest is TBA. The changes were received with guarded optimism from local opponent Tim Hughes (he of the priceless "I can't get my bottled water, 30 pounds of Goya beans and my 3-year-old and 1-year-old inside because the city has determined that a one-minute improvement is more important for a guy from Ronkonkoma!" quote). Hughes tells the Times he's glad the pedestrian plaza died on the vine, but he still fears for his curbside access. Other critics were more sanguine. "You need the traffic flow. If you stop it, it's like stopping a heartbeat," declares one Yvette Mercado, 50, who we're guessing is a traffic expert who moonlights as a heart surgeon.
