Essays and Reports on a Car-Free Central Park

Below find thoughtful essays, historical timelines and important reports which all conclude one thing: Cars have no place in Central Park!

Ban the Cars! A Historical Plea

First printed in The City Section Sunday, May 15, 1994 reprinted with permission of the author.

Looking Back, Sadly, to 1899, When the Auto Invaded Central Park

By Kenneth M. Coughlin

Each weekday morning I ride my bicycle from my home on the Upper West Side to my work near Columbus Circle. Most of my travel is on Central Park's circular drive. It should be an idyllic way to commute, offering a tranquil interlude before joining the urban tumult. But this is not the case for me and the many other bicyclists, joggers and Rollerbladers who frequent the park in the morning, late afternoon, and early evening; instead, we are hemmed in by packs of hurtling, foul-smelling cars.

As I ride, I sometimes find myself brooding over how it came to pass, how New Yorkers allowed Frederick Law Olmsted's marvelous urban refuge to be invaded by that quintessential symbol of urban bustle — the automobile. I found the answer by following a trail of microfilm in my local library.

Back in 1899, automobiles powered by electricity, gasoline or steam were the playthings of New York's affluent. The local chapter of the newly-formed Automobile Club of America organized frequent "runs" through the city in which its members paraded their prized possessions before an admiring populace.

There was one place, however, that was off bounds: the loop drive in Central Park. In addition to being a favored thoroughfare for bicyclists and strollers, the drive had for three decades been the stage set for an elegant afternoon parade of the wealthy who came to the park to see and be seen in their carriages.

For years, automobile owners had clamored to join the parade, or at least take a spin in the park. They had been denied. In June of 1899, The New York Times reported, George C. Clausen, President of the Park Board, turned down another such request because "it was not thought proper to use the park for such a vehicle, which might frighten and otherwise be a disfigurement or annoyance."

On Friday, October 27, 1899, a lawyer named Winslow E. Buzby challenged Clausen's automobile ban head-on. At the wheel of his electrically powered phaeton, Buzby entered the park at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street. He was promptly stopped by a park policeman and informed that automobiles were not permitted. Replying that he knew of no such law, Buzby continued on, and was arrested.

Buzby's case was heard four days later by a police magistrate whose last name, in a small piece of historical irony, was Olmsted. The magistrate pointed to a park ordinance enacted in 1873 that stated, "The drive shall be used only by persons in pleasure carriages, on bicycles, or on horseback," and interpreted "pleasure carriages" to include automobiles.

Undaunted, Clausen told The Times that his department "would be blamable if it did not put first the protection of the public and the protection of the park features of peace and quiet, and second the matter of travel and transportation." The Park Board changed its rules to specifically ban "horseless carriages" and "motor wagons" from the park drive except by permission of the Parks Department. At the same time, however, the Board decided to hold a public hearing on the question "Should Automobiles Be Allowed in Central Park?"

The hearing took place at 11 A.M. on Thursday, Nov. 9, in the Central Park Arsenal (which the department to this day uses for offices), and was "largely attended," The Times reported, adding that "one woman, Mrs. E.L. Ashman, took part in the proceedings." Debate lasted two hours and centered on the issue of whether or not the presence of automobiles would startle horses on the park drive.

The hearing convinced Clausen that a test drive was called for, and the following Sunday he accepted an invitation from Mr. R.A.C. Smith to take a spin through the Park in an electric car.

The ride began in grand style, with the car surrounded by six mounted policemen and Clausen in the passenger seat, though The Times said a number of passers-by were under the mistaken impression that a bank president had been arrested and was being escorted to the station house. The drive ended abruptly when the car broke down and Smith and Clausen were forced to walk home.

The horses Smith and Clausen encountered during their ride had appeared little troubled by the sight of Smith's car, and the next day Clausen presented Smith with a permit allowing him to operate his automobile in Central Park. "There is every indication," the Times concluded, "that in a short time the driver of the ever-increasing-in-popularity automobile will be allowed to join the procession of wealth, beauty, and fashion in Central Park."

Over the next few weeks, Clausen issued permits to other owners of self-propelled "open pleasure carriages," while continuing to bar "automobile cabs, coaches or broughams." But the horseless carriage was out of the barn, and within a few years all manner of automobiles were gaining entrance to the park without special permit. And as the car became increasingly common, its drivers cared less and less about taking their place in the "the procession of wealth, beauty, and fashion" and more and more about using the park solely to bypass congestion on adjacent city streets.

By 1906, complaints about this misuse of the park were being heard. In an editorial that year, The Times charged that the typical automobile driver "is taking the park, not as a lovely work of art, to be slowly tasted and enjoyed, but only as a short cut to his possibly lawful but certainly loud and odiferous occasions." And a letter to the editor, describing automobiles in the park as "ugly, noisy and evil-smelling," inquired, "Where can one look for a remedy?"

Eighty-eight years later, as I pedal my bicycle up a Central Park hill while inhaling the exhaust from a line of cabs speeding by, I ask the same question.

Kenneth M. Coughlin is a writer and editor.

Central Park Lovers Speak

Words from Central Park's designers, policymakers, and users

[ Frederick Law Olmsted | Jane Jacobs | James Howard Kunstler | Jane Holtz Kay | Witold Rybczynski | Ken Jackson ]

Frederick Law Olmsted

"Crowded thoroughfares have nothing in common with the park proper, but every thing at variance with those agreeable sentiments which we should wish the park to inspire."
-- Frederick Law Olmsted (pictured left)

"[Central Park] should present an aspect of spaciousness and tranquility ...thereby affording the most agreeable contrast to the confinement, bustle, and monotonous street-division of the city."
-- Olmsted

For more information on Frederick Law Olmsted, check out http://www.newbedford.com/olmsted.html

Jane Jacobs' Statement on Car-Free Park

The Car-Free Central Park Campaign received a statement of endorsement from famed writer and urbanist Jane Jacobs several years before her death in 2006. Jacobs was the author of the classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Among her other books were Cities and the Wealth of Nations and Systems of Survival.

Jacobs' statement:

I enthusiastically endorse the campaign to close Central Park's loop drive to regular automobile traffic. We had the same sort of fight in Washington Square Park in the late 1950s and in my neighborhood here in Toronto a couple of years ago: same prediction of traffic chaos, same result of no chaos, diminished traffic counts and no counts increased elsewhere in consequence. Isn't it curious that traffic engineers are so loath to learn something new even after repeated demonstrations? Both in Washington Square Park and in my Toronto neighborhood we got our way by pressing for an experimental trial period. A trial, with traffic counts on the Central Park perimeter streets, will be more persuasive than any amount of talk, letter-writing, resolutions, and other endless wheel-spinning.

Good luck!

"Central Park was intended to be a landscape of tranquility set apart from the dynamism of the great city around it. Introducing motor cars to its original carriage drives, and then altering the road geometries to suit them, was one of the great blunders of civic design in the 20th century. The good news is that the 20th century is now over, and we no longer have to feel any undue proprietary investment in the stupid decisions of previous generations. Allowing cars to use Central Park's recreational drives as high-speed short-cuts has turned Central Park into another vanquished sector of what has come to be a national automobile slum. We could hardly make a better statement of purpose in this new century than to ban cars from Central Park -- as we then systematically take on the noble and difficult task of reducing the presence of motor vehicles everywhere else in the everyday life of America."


--James Howard Kunstler, noted author of Home From Nowhere (Touchstone Books, 1998), The Geography of Nowhere (Touchstone Books, 1994), and The City in Mind (Free Press, 2002). The first two are about how automobile-induced sprawl has laid waste to the American landscape and to our concept of community. They are wonderful reads (Kunstler is a novelist by trade).



"Vaux and Olmsted worried that 'a turbid stream of coarse traffic' bisecting the park would destroy the sense of unity and expanse that should envelop a visitor whose prime object was to contemplate natural scenery. Thoroughfares crowded with 'coal cars and butchers' carts, dust carts and dung carts' or the 'frantic zeal' of fire engines 'have nothing in common with the park proper . . . [and] those agreeable sentiments that we should wish the park to inspire'."
-- Rosenzeig and Blackmar, The Park and the People (Holt, 1992)

"Reinforcing their design with the suggestion that commercial vehicles be excluded from the park drives, Vaux and Olmsted affirmed [the] separation of work and leisure as distinct pursuits, each of which required a distinct environment."
-- Rosenzeig and Blackmar, ibid.

"Endorse Central Park! Truth to tell, the need to support Central Park when Central Park supports and makes life livable in New York City and a joy for so many millions seems almost an embarrassment. Do we really have to say again, and yet again, that automobiles deteriorate and degrade not only the park but our lives and larger landscape? It is outrageous that the park needs us--activists, alternative transportation advocates, urbanists, etc. etc--today, to restore Central Park to what it was and should have remained. In this period of evolving environmental consciousness, in an era in which cities become more and more attractive as recreation centers, and an epoch when sprawl and global warming require us to enhance our greenery and livability, it is worse than myopic of city officials to allow New York's great public space to become a brutalized race track."
-- Jane Holtz Kay, Author of Asphalt Nation and Architecture Critic for The Nation

"Parks are special places where people can enjoy a sense of peace and freedom difficult to find elsewhere in the city. It is the purpose of these updated Park Rules to preserve that right for everyone. Rules were first established for New York parks in 1850. Since then the city has changed in many ways, making the preservation and protection of our vital green spaces more important than ever."
-- Introduction to the City of New York Parks and Recreation Rules and Regulations, 1996

"The primary objective of the park is as a rural resort where the people of all classes, escaping from the glare, and glitter, and turmoil of the city might find relief for the mind, and physical recreation."
-- Egbert L. Viele, Chief Engineer of Central Park, 1861

"The singular achievement of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's plan for Central Park is its long-lived ability to adapt to a range of uses and users entirely unforeseen by their makers. Roller blading, speed walking and even bicycling were unknown in the nineteenth century, yet the park is ideally suited to these activities. The Sheep Meadow has been the site of progressive playgrounds in the early 1900s and antiwar demonstrations in the sixties. Concerts and plays likewise take their place ...

"Yet there are limits to even Central Park's flexibility. Olmsted and Vaux went to great lengths to ensure that commercial traffic could cross the park with the least visual impact, by sinking the four transverse roads. Today, the presence of cars on what were intended to be leisurely carriage drives within the park seriously compromises their vision of a place to escape the bustle of the city. Cars are simply too large, too noisy, and too fast. ‘Crowded thoroughfares,' Olmsted wrote, have 'nothing in common with the park proper, but every thing at variance with those agreeable sentiments which we should wish the park to inspire.' Let us heed his advice."
-- Witold Rybczynski, author of A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century (Scribner, 1999)

"Skating in the recreation lane is unsafe when there are cars in the Park. Therefore, skating is not recommended. Young children should not use the Drive when there are cars."
-- NYC Parks Department A Guide for Sharing the Drive in Central Park, 4/98

"There are many public needs in a park. We serve one, and to us, it is sacred. The park is a retreat from the tumult of the city, not an extension of commercial activity."

-- Jack Linn, Assistant Parks Commissioner, quoted in the New York Times, 9/4/2002

"We use the parks in Harlem and Central Park very broadly in our youth activities and it is very important for us that the Park be a safe place for children to play, to bike, to skate, to walk - for children and their families to enjoy a peaceful piece of greenery in the midst of all this concrete. We know that nationally there is a problem with obesity in children and this is a true problem in NYC, but it is hard for parents to let their child recreate with cars in Central Park. So it is a real needed thing for our community - for our Harlem community - and for the city that there is a safe place away from cars to bike, walk, exercise and run."

— Barbara A. Barlow, M.D. Department of Surgery, Director of Injury, Speaking for the Free Coalition for Kids

"I think one of the possibilities we think about as we [look forward to a car-free Central Park] is that children would have a lot more access to riding in the Park. It would give children a real opportunity to ride around - probably less supervised, probably eliminate some of the fear parents have of some vehicle, some motorist not paying attention and side-swiping a cyclist. And in that regard I think many parents would feel a lot more secure about being in an environment where there were fewer or less cars riding around Central Park. It is also a really, really beautiful area, children have an opportunity to see lots of trees and grass and certainly in Manhattan that is a novelty."

— Erik A. Cliette, Director - Harlem Hospital Injury Prevention Program

"New Yorkers walk, ride bikes, and use transit more than anybody else in the country and it just seems a city like this - that has so many people living and working together should have one place where we play together. And we have that in Central Park. But it doesn't make any sense to mix cars with kids and people who are running as hard they can - and yet having to breathe car fumes. People who are on bikes who should have one place in the city they don't have to be worried about being hit by a car. People who are on playgrounds who don't have to worry about the taxis going by are going to trigger an asthma attack.

Central Park is a place that people should be able to come to play as hard as they want and not have to worry about accidents and car fumes."

— Rich Kassel, NRDC

Ken Jackson, History Professor, Columbia University:

ON TRANSVERSE ROADS VERSES PARK DRIVES AND OTHER ROADS IN CP:

"...the other roads in Central Park were designed for people in a carriage, or on horse, or on foot to meander at a relatively slow speed and what we have seen is a similar process that we see so many other places - that the park purpose is being eroded and now it's just a quick place to cut thru. So often in the park cars are going so fast that it is hazardous to body and soul to be on skates, or running, or riding a bicycle or anything else because clearly the cars are trying to even out the turns. It's really quite scary."

ON THE FUNCTION OF CP:

"The purpose of [Central Park] was to be the lungs of the city, a place where people could almost literally rub elbows with people of different ethnicities, different classes of themselves and the end result was that by being in the park was to become a better person...not to become a person who could more quickly get from one place to another."

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF CP TO NYC:

"The idea of a park is you sort of slow down. This is clearly NYC is one of the busiest, most frenetic places on the face of the Earth and Central Park has this enormous importance as a place where the city can step back from itself and remember what it is like for a 2 year old to roll on grass, or sit under a tree and read a book, or watch a duck swim. One thing we don't have is space, so Central Park more than any other parks had to function like the backyard does for so many Americans.

ON THE CAR IN NYC IN GENERAL:

"...we need to make the car less comfortable in NYC, not more comfortable."

Conservancy Report Highlights Problem of Cars in Central Park

The Car-Free Central Park Campaign has obtained a copy of the Central Park Conservancy's "Central Park 2000" Master Plan, drawn up in 1995 to map strategies for spending $51 million in restoration funds over five years. The Conservancy, which effectively runs Central Park, has never taken an official position on the presence of cars in the Park, preferring to let the Parks Department handle such "policy" matters. However, the section of the Master Plan titled "Improving Park Circulation" makes a strong case that Central Park's Loop Drive has no business accommodating traffic.

First, the report admits that cars have destroyed Central Park's rural character:

"[T]he carriage drive, bridle trail and pedestrian paths were intricately intertwined with the landscape and played an integral part in the organization of the Park. Given the narrow site chosen for the Central Park, the circulation system succeeded admirably in reinforcing the illusion of randomness and rural liberty as the Drive, trail and paths wound inconspicuously through wood and glade. On the Drive, carriages were meant to move leisurely through a rural countryside. . ."

"[Under the current circulation system] the Drive has been partially re-engineered to accommodate automobile traffic, and has become a parkway for vehicles rather than a country drive in the park." (emphasis added)

The report goes on to concede that automobile traffic is disrupting the growing recreational use of the Drive:

"[T]he Drive is the major destination in the Park for recreational use. When the Drive is closed to automobile traffic, recreational use mushrooms, proving that there is a huge demand for space to bike, rollerblade and run. . . The carrying capacity of the Drive is tested each rush hour when joggers, cyclists and pedestrian commuters vie with cars for space."

Despite all this, the best the Master Plan could suggest in terms of a "restoration strategy" for the Drive was the closing of a few entrances to vehicles. The Conservancy had the opportunity to consider closing the Drive but it did not pursue this option.

What It's Like to Be Hit by a Car in Central Park

On Thursday, February 12, 1998, a cab driver suffered a fatal heart attack while on Central Park's loop drive. The cab went out of control and struck two runners who were in the "recreation" lane. (See "Cabby, Stricken at Wheel, Injures 2 Joggers," The New York Times, February 13, 1998.) Following is a statement sent to the Car-Free Central Park Campaign by one of the injured runners, Cheryl Burger.

This is an account of an accident I was involved in on February 12, 1998. This account is for anyone who erroneously believes cars and pedestrians can "cohabit" Central Park.

It was a bit past 4 p.m. on an overcast day. I was walking north on the East Drive behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I felt an enormous crunch on my upper back and then found myself rolling and rolling, hitting my neck and back over and over from the force of some "impact." I ended up on my back facing north with no idea what had happened.

A man ran past calling for help. As I started to get up to see what the trouble was a sharp pain ran down the length of my back. I lay back down and tested to see if I could move my fingers and toes. I could.

At some point, I was told that a cab had hit another woman and me. As I waited for the ambulances, the ground kept getting colder and colder and I was unable to stay warm. I was going into shock. My left leg was aching terribly and I asked several times to have my sneaker taken off, as the leg felt like a tree trunk. But I was told because of the uncertainty of head, neck or back injuries, nothing could be done until I got to the hospital.

I'll spare you the rest of the details. My injuries turned out to be quite minor, although I later learned that the "crunch" I experienced was my being thrown up onto cab's windshield and then tossed another 20 feet into the air before rolling to a stop. Miraculously, I suffered no spinal or head injuries. I could have landed on the concrete, instead of the earth, or could have been thrown into a tree or into the path of another car. Eyewitnesses later told me they thought I was dead. Dead I am not, but I had to use crutches for a month and was out of work for three. My left leg was so swollen and sore I would not let a doctor touch it for several weeks. I still experience "apprehension" when crossing large intersections or when cars cross behind me, and I often find myself jumping when this happens.

I was much more fortunate than the other victim. It is surmised that the cab ran over her right leg. She was in the hospital for more than three months, underwent at least eight operations, and was out of work for more than a year. Nevertheless, she tells me over and over that she considers herself lucky because the doctors were able to save her leg.

It is also fortunate that the accident took place on a gray and overcast February day. If the day had been nicer or during a warmer time of year, the stretch of road behind the museum would have been far busier, filled with children, tourists from the museum, nannies with strollers, bicyclists and others enjoying the park. More park users likely would have been injured or killed.

I wish the Car-Free Central Park Campaign all the best in its efforts to ensure that this kind of unnecessary tragedy never happens again.

--Cheryl Burger, November 11, 1999

Car in Central Park Ends Career of Promising Cyclist

This is the story of how a car in Central Park ended a cyclist's dreams of becoming the next Lance Armstrong.

On a drizzly evening in May 1998, Jesus Martinez was training on the loop drive. Because of the wet weather, Jesus had the park drive virtually to himself, except for the occasional car that whizzed by as he pedaled in the "recreational lane."

Jesus was 23 and an up-and-coming cyclist in the amateur ranks. After victories in a number of races, he was making plans to turn professional.

"I really wanted to go big into cycling," says the soft-spoken Bronx resident. "I was young and I was actually very good."

At about 6 p.m., Jesus was rounding the curve on the East Drive, just north of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when he felt something bump him from behind. He did not know it, but a car had failed to negotiate the turn and was careening out of control into the bike lane. "The next thing I know, I'm on the ground and a car is dragging me off the road," Jesus recalls. After pulling Jesus for about 100 feet, the car finally came to rest against a tree.

When Jesus tried to get up, he realized his foot was badly injured. An ambulance was summoned and Jesus spent the next month in the hospital, enduring surgery to remove pieces of metal and losing a section of his foot, including two toes.

Unfortunately for Jesus, the driver who struck him had only minimal insurance, not enough to cover his entire hospital bill. Temporarily unemployed at the time of the accident, Jesus had to find a way to pay the substantial difference. He also was unable to afford the physical therapy that was recommended following his hospital stay.

Four years later, Jesus still loves to cycle, but the severe damage to his foot means that he will never again be able to consider competing with the world's best cyclists. As far as Jesus knows, the driver was never charged with any traffic violation. He just walked away, having changed forever the life of a promising young athlete. There also was no note of condolence from the New York City Parks Department, which continues to allow drivers to use Frederick Law Olmsted's sanctuary as a thoroughfare.

But Jesus is an optimistic fellow and there is not a trace of bitterness as he relates his story. Now 27, he recently married, has a new job, and hopes to raise a family someday. He's also discovered a talent for the game of chess and is looking forward to competing in local tournaments.

"Before, I didn't think much about getting cars out of Central Park," Jesus says, "but now I see the need for having a safe place to ride."

Early May, 1998: A bicyclist is struck by a car on the eastern portion of the loop drive, near 87th Street. Two of the bicyclist's toes have to be amputated.

That same week, another bicyclist is struck by a car and hospitalized. No details on this incident are available.

Where Will All the Traffic Go?

(when we have a car-free Central Park)

The most common objection to banning cars from Central Park's loop drive is the belief that traffic chaos will inevitably result. The cars would spill out onto adjacent streets, so the story goes, causing instant gridlock. A recent study of similar road closings around the world demonstrates that this will not happen, and that in fact closing of the park to cars will result in far less traffic in the city.

In "Traffic Impact of Highway Capacity Reductions: Assessment of the Evidence" (MVA, March 1998, Landor Publishing), researchers at a large British transportation consulting firm present their findings from a study of more than 60 different road closings around the globe--from Germany to Japan. Some of the roads were closed by design, others were shut down by acts of nature, such as earthquakes.

The researchers failed to find a single instance where a road closing resulted in long-term traffic problems. In fact, the researchers discovered that in almost all cases, much of the traffic that had formerly used the closed roadway simply "disappeared." On average, one-quarter of the cars vanished, and in a few cases virtually all the traffic evaporated.

How can traffic "disappear"? It's simple: drivers elect to use an alternative mode of transportation, to drive at a different time or on a different route, or to share a vehicle with someone else. Road closings the researchers studied included those that ensued following the Loma Prieta earthquake in northern California in 1989 and the collapse of Manhattan's West Side Highway in 1973, in addition to numerous conversions of roads in European city centers to exclusive pedestrian or mass-transit use as a way to reduce traffic congestion.

The MVA study strongly suggests that the same phenomenon can be expected if Central Park's drive is closed to cars. Indeed, an unusually high level of traffic "shrinkage" would be expected because so many alternative forms of transportation are readily available. The MVA's study found an average of 24% reduction in overall traffic in cases where road capacity is reduced. The DOT's 1991 study of the impact of closing Central Park used a far more modest estimate of 15% shrinkage, despite the more flexible and diverse transportation system NYC enjoys.

Following are some selections from the MVA study's findings:

"A first broad review of the evidence looked particularly for any cases where reductions in traffic capacity resulted in the expected 'traffic chaos' which lasted longer than a relatively short adjustment period.

It proved to be very difficult to find such cases. Indeed, there have not so far been any references to long-term traffic chaos or prolonged gridlock resulting from taking space away from cars, even in the event of major catastrophic breakdowns due to earthquakes." (Cairns, et al, 5)

. . . to find so many cases of reductions in traffic, at a time when increasing car ownership and general traffic growth create prevailing expectations of increases, shows a balance of evidence that a proportion of traffic can indeed ‘disappear' when capacity is reduced." (Ibid, page 23)

It is evident that, in some cases, modest trip retiming or choice of obvious alternative routes may be unattractive because conditions are already congested there as well, or quickly become so if all of the traffic using the original route diverts. Yet in every case studied, even quite drastic reductions in road capacity have not been followed by prolonged gridlock, and major increases in existing levels of congestion are typically only temporary.

Instead, there is a fairly substantial body of evidence to suggest that some proportion of traffic effectively ‘disappears' as a planning consideration for a particular route or a particular place. (Ibid, page 29)

In general, the most robust finding from the case studies appears to be that road capacity can be reallocated to other modes, or other uses, without prolonged gridlock or traffic chaos occurring. (Ibid, page 53

Sometimes there has not even been a short term problem. Two characteristic comments from local transport planners are: "it'll be all right by Friday", and the ubiquitous "the traffic has disappeared and we simply don't know where it has gone to". (Ibid, page 54)

Source: "Traffic Impact of Highway Capacity Reductions: Assessment of the Evidence" (MVA, March 1998, Landor Publishing).

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