alt Hacker NewsI think we just have a different idea of what it means to be closed to cars. I live right by the stretch of Broadway you mention, so I’m very familiar. This is what it looks like: https://flatironnomad.nyc/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/4.2-Pla...
There is no restriction of through traffic. Effectively pedestrians are still confined to tiny and overcrowded sidewalks.
By comparison, here’s what a pedestrian street looks like in the non-US city I grew up in: https://sana.ae/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Corso-Italia-Stre...
Keep in mind that cars are still allowed for emergency services and (night time) deliveries. But the difference is night and day.
This is exactly what “the US can't imagine itself without cars” means to me.
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The entire country of Italy is only twice the size of the state of New York.
Man, there are street that are closed to traffic, and you just are either lying or being dumb.
They just don't look like streets anymore, as they are turned into plazzas or parks.
EG: E25st at Lex, Baruch College is truned into a plazza/walkaway. No cars. 8th/st Saint Marks, by A Ave, is off cars, (It is part of the Tompkins park). Irvin Avenue is part of a park (gets interrupted by Grammercy Park)
etc...
There are plenty of places like that, but over time they turn into plazzas or parks, and you think they were not streets at some point.
Ps https://maps.app.goo.gl/Df6U3DkPpUxirG5B9
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZivSNhiEnn2Q4pjr6
You can see throw time that it used to be a street at some point.
Anyways, there are plenty of examples like that. Just stop exaggerating.
Those photos say it all. The NYC reduced street still manages to park a Chevy Silverado smack in the middle of it all, and all those planters aren't there for the sake of having plants, but rather as crash barriers protecting the patios from traffic.