I've joked with friends that I have an incurable case of "Sidewalk Rage" and apparently, I'm not the only one power walking with purpose.The amount of people that walk the streets of NYC is straight up INSANE. On rainy days, when people have umbrellas- it's a battle of the fittest. I cannot go one day without getting overwhelmed about people traffic/people congestion, especially since I work in a landmark building. And the tourists?! Ohhhh boy, don't get me started on tourists. I'll be truckin' my ass down 42nd only to bump directly into someone who's standing there- short stopped and mouth opened in awe, staring at "aaaaallllll the biiiiiig buildings".
Here's the article about it in today's NYT
Feeling congested? Not your nose, your toes. City surveys confirm that sidewalks are becoming more crowded. And transportation officials say that’s good for the economy, the environment and for your physical, if not necessarily emotional, health.
Since the city began keeping score at 50 of the busiest intersections five years ago, its “pedestrian volume index” has climbed steadily, except for one year, from 2008 to 2009, perhaps because of the recession. Fixing the volume in 2007 at a base of 100, the index rose by more than 10 percent, to 113.2, last May.
They surveys are taken each May and September. Preliminary figures for September suggest a greater increase again. The volume on West 14th Street between Hudson Street and Eighth Avenue soared by 58 percent from the year before.
“Everybody is a pedestrian at some point,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, the transportation commissioner. “It’s staggering when you think how many people are walking the streets of New York City at any given time.”
How many? About 350,000-a-day in Times Square, 97,000 on Main Street in Flushing, Queens, and 80,000 on East Fordham Road in the Bronx, according to a 2007 study. New Yorkers not only talk the talk. They walk the walk.
Surveyors wielding hand-held counters found 31,701 people on West 34th Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on May 10 and 26,106 on Fifth Avenue between East 54th and 55th Streets during the same time period two days later. On West 14th between Hudson and Eighth, the volume was 11,166 in September, according to preliminary figures, compared with 8,911 in May and 7,0555 the previous September.
The least crowded of the 50 corridors in all five boroughs was Victory Boulevard between Bay Street and Van Duzer Street on Staten Island, which was traversed by 1,215 pedestrians between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on May 19.
“These include millionaires who like to walk and people without the wherewithal to get around any other way,” Ms. Sadik-Khan said, referring to the city’s strollers.
The Transportation Department has been widening sidewalks where possible and expanding pedestrian malls to make room for more pedestrians because streets that are too crowded can become unsafe and hamper business. Pedestrian volume has increased 12 percent in Times Square since vehicular traffic on parts of Broadway was curbed.
The problem is defining “too crowded.” A department consultant, Gehl Architects, says the maximum volume for comfortable pedestrian movement is 12 people per minute per yard of sidewalk width. By that measure, Main Street in Flushing is overcrowded 83 percent of the day. Is there a saturation point?
“People like to be around people,” Ms. Sadik-Khan said. “With 8.4 million people, you don’t live here unless you like people. And with 6,000 miles of streets, the challenge is re-engineering the real estate to deliver attractive, safe and sustainable streets.”
That includes adding benches — the city is installing 1,000 new ones — and signs to guide pedestrians.
“At any given time,” Ms. Sadik-Khan said, “you have 10 percent of New Yorkers who will admit they were lost in the previous week.”
By some measures, pedestrians are more likely to spend money than drivers.
“There’s a direct relation between how people get around and how much money they spend,” Ms. Sadik-Khan said. “A pedestrian can just stop and walk into a store, which means more feet in the door and across the threshold.”
Walking, she said, “is the most affordable way to get around, better for your health, for the planet. We continue to engineer our streets to make them safer for pedestrians.”
In fact, having more people walking the streets has not made them more dangerous.
Traffic fatalities involving pedestrians have declined 21 percent over the past decade, transportation officials say.
