A Failed Traffic Policy

For virtually the entire century, traffic policy in New York City has been to move motor vehicles faster by giving them more room in which to move. If cars, trucks and buses can move more swiftly, the theory goes, gridlock will be relieved, pollution will decrease and the streets will be safer.

This policy has not worked in the past and it is clearly not working now. One glance at almost any Manhattan avenue or area highway reveals a stark truth: despite — or because of — decades of accommodating motor vehicles, New York City traffic is as noxious, congested and unsafe as ever (see Chapter 18: Air Pollution). Cars may be somewhat more fuel-efficient and less polluting than a decade or two ago, but the ever-increasing number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) has canceled out progress in engine efficiency.

A 1988 Department of Transportation study of traffic flow on New York City's East River bridges illustrates the inefficiency of cars in city traffic: the bridges transport far fewer people by car than they did in their early years, when they were primarily mass-transit and pedestrian routes. [1]

NOTES:

1. According to Spanning the 21st Century, a 1988 study by Transportation Commissioner Ross Sandler and Deputy Commissioner Sam Schwartz, the Brooklyn Bridge carried 426,000 people daily during its peak year in 1907, when four tracks were dedicated to mass transit; now, with no mass-transit lines, the bridge carries an average of 178,000 people daily. Likewise, the Manhattan Bridge carried 703,000 people per day in its peak year of 1939 but carries only 360,000 people now. The Queensboro Bridge went from 326,000 people per day in its peak year, 1940, to 248,000 today.

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 A Failed Traffic Policy
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