In its latest effort to deal with traffic in Manhattan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration announced the creation of special bus lanes along First and Second avenues in Manhattan, two crowded north-south thoroughfares on the city's un-subwayed, far-east side. The buses allow people to load in more quickly because there are more doors, and passengers aren't required to show their tickets while loading (it's an honor system that comes with a $100 fine for breaking it). And of course, the buses won't have to compete with other traffic if they have their own lane.
This is another step that comes after Bloomberg's failed attempt to institute congestion pricing in the city, in which he wanted to charge cars entering the most congested parts of Manhattan during the day. That plan had to be approved by the state Legislature, and wasn't. While it would have been a good source of revenue, Bloomberg is still doing what he can to make the city less car friendly. Most recently, he created pedestrian plazas in Times and Herald Squares, two of the most nightmarish intersections in the city. While results on traffic are mixed, everyone predicted a disaster that didn't happen. The plazas are there to stay. Bike lanes pop up around the city on a regular basis now, too.
That's what's really different about New York City; it's a city in which it's really a burden to have a car. And Bloomberg is using an aggressive, top-down approach to make it even more so. It's not only expensive, but it requires a lot of regular maintenance. At least once a week, most residents have to move their parked cars to make way for street cleaning or pay high prices to park in a garage. Traffic is bad, and it's often quicker to take public transportation. In other cities, efforts to increase the number of pedestrians or bike riders take place on top of the existing, car-friendly infrastructure, but those policies don't discourage the use of cars. So far, low-car cities are old cities partly for that reason. So to make us less dependent on oil, you can't just encourage alternatives. You have to discourage the idea that vehicular travel is the default.
-- Monica Potts
