Bravo, New York City: in your latest act of civic theater, you’ve decided cars are so last century. Who needs the hum of an engine, the convenience of a driveway, or the ability to get a sick relative to a doctor on a schedule when we can have more protected bike lanes, pop-up plazas and fearless experiments in turning traffic logic into modern art?
I’m 62, born and raised in this city, and I have watched Gotham reinvent itself more times than I care to count. I also drive — have since I was 18 — because my work, my family’s medical needs, and the unforgiving logistics of living in a dense metropolis sometimes demand a vehicle. Call me old-fashioned, but I like not being told I should rearrange my entire life to suit a pilot project launched between a tweetstorm and a press release.
Don’t get me wrong: I want safer sidewalks, cleaner air, and reliable transit. But many of the recent street redesigns feel less like thoughtful urbanism and more like an ideological scavenger hunt. Some changes are helpful. Others create baffling, even dangerous, situations: lanes that vanish mid-block, delivery vehicles diverted into residential side streets not built for heavy loads, left-turns turned into a puzzle worthy of the Sphinx. The result? More congestion, more honking, more close calls — and, perversely, sometimes slower buses and longer ambulance routes.
Here’s the awkward truth no campaign slogan will admit: New York is not a place where you can import suburban or small-city traffic models wholesale and expect magic. We are denser, louder, and fed by a tangle of delivery requirements, shift workers, taxis, paratransit, and vintage infrastructure. Yet it feels as if some officials and consultants have enthusiastically adopted playbook ideas from places that have the luxury of space and a very different urban DNA.
Which brings me to the political theater behind the curb paint. Who’s pushing which projects? There’s no harm in advocacy — healthy cities have energetic civic actors — but when it looks like policy is being shaped by well-funded interest groups (and, yes, by newcomers who recently moved here from places where these traffic patterns made perfect sense), the rest of us have a right to ask for a little transparency. Are some agendas being fast-tracked because they sound trendy on Instagram or because particular constituencies are pushing them hard? The Department of Transportation should not be in the business of implementing what amounts to ideological experiments without clear data, community buy-in, and contingency plans.
If this is meant to be a pilot, then let’s pilot properly. That means:
- Set measurable goals before you paint the first line. If the aim is fewer injuries, faster buses, or less pollution, say so — and measure it publicly. If the result is worse outcomes, own it and undo it.
- Engage real New Yorkers, not just the socially mobile influencers who preside over curated pop-up plazas. Outreach needs to reach delivery drivers, seniors, small business owners, night-shift workers, and native-born residents who actually rely on the status quo in ways planners sometimes don’t appreciate.
- Protect essential vehicle access. Hospitals, paratransit services, home-care workers, mortuaries — none of these can be experimented on. Design with them in mind, not around them.
- Implement incrementally and listen. If a block is a disaster, don’t mirror it across an entire borough because the playbook said so. Adapt.
- Reveal who’s funding and lobbying for these changes. Not because advocates shouldn’t exist, but because people deserve to know whose priorities are being prioritized.
Look, I get it: the dream of a car-free city sounds poetically righteous. It also sounds impractical when you’ve got a diabetic mother with appointments at two different borough hospitals, a contractor who needs to make a delivery at 7 a.m., and an ambulance that suddenly can’t cut through where it once could. Ideals are not a substitute for logistics.
If our leaders insist on reshaping our streets, do it with humility. Ask, listen, measure and adjust. And if the DOT is going to be wooed by the latest transport trend from someone who moved here in 2021 and misses their Portland commute, someone should at least have the decency to run it by a lifetime New Yorker before painting over our bus stop.
We all want better streets. But “better” must be practical, equitable and safe — not just stylish. If officials are serious about change, they should prove it with evidence and accountability, not with triumphant ribbon-cutting photos while the rest of us navigate a new kind of mayhem. Until then, pardon my skepticism — and my horn. I’ve earned the right to use it.
