How To Reduce Traffic Congestion?

Close off five miles of a major north-south artery. I guess he was never that serious about the issue after all:

A five-mile stretch of road running from Lower Manhattan to Central Park will be closed to automobiles for three days in August, as part of a city Department of Transportation program that, if successful, could lead to regular street closings.

The proposal, expected to be announced by Mr. Bloomberg at an event today, is intended to provide New Yorkers and visitors with a safe place to jog, stroll, and ride without the congestion normally associated with the city’s streets. The car-free zone will run from the start of Centre Street in Lower Manhattan to 72nd Street on the Upper East Side by way of Lafayette Street, Fourth Avenue, and Park Avenue, and it will be closed between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. on three consecutive Saturdays: August 9, August 16, and August 23.

But while the plan is intended to accommodate residents, some fear that, even on a weekend, the toll on businesses will be higher than the value gained.

The owner of Elan, an antique furniture store on Lafayette Street, Jeff Greenberg, 55, called the street closing “a horrible nightmare.”

“There’s no doubt that it will affect my business negatively,” Mr. Greenberg said in an interview yesterday.

In addition to his concern that customers would not come without cars, he said the only way to load furniture into his store was through the front entrance on Lafayette Street, which would be impossible during a road closing.

“They’ve got to be kidding,” the manager and owner of the League of Mutual Taxi Owners, Vincent Capone, said. “It’s getting harder and harder for a cab driver to be out there making a living with all these traffic rules.”

Instead of closing off Manhattan streets, Mr. Capone suggested organizing an event in nearby Central Park or in Brooklyn. “This is New York, this is Manhattan,” he said. “We’re not in the middle of a forest somewhere.”