Tuesday, May 26, 2009

It's a marvelous place for a Barnes dance...

As you've all probably heard by now, Broadway from 42nd to 47th Streets was turned over to pedestrians last night. Commissioner Sadik-Khan says that it will actually improve (car) traffic flow, because they won't have to have three phases for the lights at those diagonal intersections. Certainly the cars seemed to be moving fine on Seventh Avenue today.

The Department of Transportation will be tweaking the project from now until December. Here's a tweak I humbly suggest: the intersection where Broadway crosses 45th and Seventh requires pedestrians walking down Broadway to cross one way, wait and cross the other way. That breaks up the flow. A Barnes dance would allow people to cross diagonally and continue down Broadway, connecting the chunks into a more coherent whole.

I know, it would require three phases in the light. I hope it would still be an improvement over the old pattern.

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