Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Car-Free Parks

Gale Brewer Introduces Bill to Make Central Park, Prospect Park Car-Free

By Noah Kazis | Mar 23, 2011 | 19 Comments

Upper West Side City Council Member Gale Brewer introduced legislation today that would restore Central and Prospect Parks to their original car-free status. Brewer’s bill would ban private vehicles from using the park drives in either park; official vehicles would still be allowed to use the roads. Brewer’s legislation would also commission a study examining […]

Tonight: Ask NYPD for a Return to Sanity in Central Park

By Ken Coughlin | Mar 14, 2011 | 20 Comments

Major crimes in Central Park may be up by 50 percent, but that hasn’t stopped significant resources from being spent on the ongoing NYPD crackdown targeting recreational cyclists in the park. Precinct officers are stopping cyclists for a variety of infractions, including spot equipment checks for missing bells and lights, but most notoriously are handing […]

Central Park Drivers Get Bigger Holiday Gift Than Usual

By Noah Kazis | Dec 6, 2010 | 11 Comments

In what’s shaping up to be a yearly tradition, car-free hours in Central Park have been cut back for the holiday season. Each weekday this month, on the southeast corner of the park drive, the park’s pedestrians, joggers, cyclists, and dog-walkers have three fewer hours of quiet and safety. The stretch of the park drive […]

Central Park Administrator Pushes East-West Bike Routes, Car-Free Park

By Noah Kazis | Sep 21, 2010 | 56 Comments

Central Park Conservancy head Douglas Blonsky wants his park to get a lot more bike-friendly, he revealed at a meeting of Manhattan’s Community Board 7’s parks committee last night. Not only is he working to create shared use paths that would allow cyclists to cross the park east-west safely and legally, he repeatedly announced his […]

Parks Department Vows to Save New Yorkers From Menacing Street Life

By Brad Aaron | Apr 22, 2010 | 22 Comments

Look out! Vendor "congestion" in Union Square Park. Photo: Ben Fried The parks department will hold a hearing Friday on plans to clamp down on what it sees as an unnecessary, untamed incursion into some of the city’s most vaunted public spaces. Of course, we’re talking about art vending. The idea dates back to at […]

JSK’s “98 Percent” Car-Free Central Park Claim Is 100 Percent Wrong

By Ken Coughlin | Mar 9, 2010 | 25 Comments

DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan appeared on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show last Wednesday to talk about the agency’s plans to, as Lehrer put it, "spread the Times Square model." When Lehrer invited listeners to call in with their ideas for other streets that should be made car-free zones, "Steve from Manhattan" asked why the Central Park […]

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