Did you know that three quarters of vehicle traffic on the Upper West Side is from drivers who never actually stop on the Upper West Side?
In other words, of the roughly 480,000 daily vehicle miles travelled in Community Board 7, about 360,000 of those are just passing through.*
That means the folks in these cars aren’t picking an elderly neighbor up at their home; they’re not shopping at local businesses; they aren’t taking aging parents to the doctor or kids to school. Instead, they’re using our neighborhood as a highway, because that's how we've designed it.
The result is excessive noise and pollution and an omnipresent risk of traffic violence that stifles civic life by keeping neighbors apart.
What if there was an easy way to change this dynamic and reduce the number of motor vehicles zooming down the streets in front of our homes and schools on their way to someplace else?
There is—it's called a Low Traffic Neighborhood.
Low Traffic Neighborhoods, or LTNs, are a deceptively simple concept. By limiting the amount of traffic that cuts through a neighborhood or down a street, you can unlock all the economic, social, and health benefits that come with more walkable and bikeable communities without a major capital project or the political friction of removing parking.
Drivers can still access every block; it just might add an extra couple minutes to some trips—a small price to pay for the enormous societal benefits, like cleaner air, quieter streets, less speeding and fewer crashes, more independence for our kids and seniors, and more socializing for all of us.
Over time, LTNs end up changing behavior and reducing discretionary car trips, freeing up even more space for living that used to be reserved for driving.
And here’s the cool thing about LTNs: not much has to change to see immediate benefits from low traffic treatments.
Something as simple as changing the direction of a few one-way streets to divert through-traffic can mean tens of thousands of Upper West Siders could live, work, and go to school on streets that are cleaner, quieter, safer, and more social. And everyone can still get where they're going, receive packages, and load up the rental car for that weekend getaway.
LTNs aren't yet a thing in NYC, but they’ve been in place in cities around the world for years. The data from London, perhaps our closest peer city, suggests it’s about time we pilot some LTNs right here in New York.
And you can help bring them to the Upper West Side.
We’re taking suggestions for locations of LTNs on the Upper West Side, as well as in Morningside Heights and West Harlem.
LTN’s can work in just about any context, but they work best when they span several city blocks and where logical boundary roads exist on which to divert would-be through traffic, which is to say, just about anywhere in Manhattan.
Let us know your thoughts at the link below, and we'll put together a list to share with community leaders and elected officials.
Transformative change to the public realm doesn’t have to be flashy or expensive. In fact, sometimes the smallest changes have the biggest impact.
LTNs could make the Upper West Side significantly more livable virtually overnight. Help us spread the word by filling out the survey below.
