I have a desire named streetcar. How I long to see streetcars reclaim their rightful place in New York City, i.e., smack dab in the middle of the road, passengers waving out the windows, Judy Garland belting out a song up front. (I know it was a trolley. And St. Louis. Give me a little license here!)
Anyway, until we return to the 1940s, I would happily settle for a single streetcar line running along a car-free 42nd St. And, not-so-coincidentally, that just happens to be the plan unveiled this week by the engineering/architecture firm Vision 42.
These plans, more radical than several 42nd St. proposals of the past, look incredibly cool. Imagine a sleek light-rail system running from the E. 35th St. ferry terminal up to 42nd and over to the ferries on the Hudson. Riders would whiz past widened sidewalks, trees and cafes. With multiple passenger entrances and street-level doors for easy wheelchair access, a crosstown trip would take only 21 minutes, even while halting at all the old bus stops and street lights.
Drivers, I feel your pain. Not! Five times more people walk than drive in midtown.
We win.
In fact, walkers have to win or 42nd St. is headed for what Transportation Alternatives chief Paul White calls "ped-lock." Simply put: As the sidewalks become impassable, pedestrians spill into the street, making the streets impassable, etc., etc.
Foot traffic on 42nd has already jumped 45% in the past five years, says Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance. "And then you have another 4 or 5 million square feet of office space going up. So you've got even more people coming. Someone's got to be thinking about how they are going to move."
Banning cars and running a spacious streetcar every four minutes sounds like it would solve the problem. But of course, not everyone agrees. Gene Russianoff, senior attorney at the New York Public Interest Research Group, says, "I've become a fiscal conservative in my old age." He wants all transit dollars to be spent maintaining the existing subways and buses.
Hey - I want a working transit system, too. But the beauty of the streetcar plan is that it will actually pay for itself. As property values along the beautified 42nd St. skyrocket, increased property tax revenue would pay for the project in just a few years.
Vision 42's numbers seem to prove it, even after factoring in the inconvenience and expense of diverting all 42nd St. deliveries. So what are we waiting for?
Great ideas are like streetcars - they haven't come along for a while. This one deserves a run.
Originally published on April 20, 2005
