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A new study from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) finds that Lower Manhattan ranks second for communities anywhere in the five boroughs for the overall density and volume of pedestrian traffic—behind only Midtown—and six local intersections see counts of several thousand people per hour during morning and evening peak periods.
The analysis, “Spatial Distribution of Foot Traffic in New York City and Applications for Urban Planning,” published in the peer-reviewed academic journal, Nature Cities, is the first ever to examine all 315,577 intersections and sidewalk segments (between intersections) throughout the five boroughs.
Midtown ranked highest, with an average of 1,697 pedestrians per segment per hour, and Lower Manhattan (defined here as the footprint of Community Board 1, bounded roughly by Canal, Baxter, and Pearl Streets, and the Brooklyn Bridge) was second, with a corresponding metric of 740 pedestrians.
But this comparison can be misleading, because individual Lower Manhattan intersections surpass the Midtown average at certain times of the day. Broadway and Fulton Street sees 2,330 pedestrians per hour in the morning rush, and 2,320 in the evening peak. Broadway and Dey Street is the site of 2,184 crossings in the morning, and 2,035 in the evening. The intersection of Nassau and Fulton Streets sees 2,125 people at the start of the day, and 1,948 when businesses begin to close up. Nassau and Liberty Streets host 2,026 walkers in the morning and 2,248 in the late afternoon. William and John Streets see 2,044 and 1,937 crossers during these hours, and William and Liberty Streets draw 1,948 and 2,081.
Professor Andres Sevtsuk, leader of MIT’s City Form Lab, says, “We know how many cars pass through every intersection, how car traffic ebbs and flows over the course of a day, how congestion propagates across networks. These measurements... determine funding formulas, infrastructure priorities, street-design specs and ultimately the physical shape of cities.”
“Very few cities make plans for pedestrian mobility or examine rigorously how future developments will impact foot-traffic,” he continues. “But they can. Our models serve as a test bed for making future changes.”
The MIT report comes as City Council member Christopher Marte pushes the City’s Department of Transportation to complete a long-overdue pedestrian study of the Financial District, first promised in 2016. Since then, local organizations have commissioned and completed their own studies, including one by the Downtown Alliance and another by the Financial District Neighborhood Association (FDNA).
The FDNA proposal, “Make Way for Lower Manhattan,” seeks to reclaim large swaths of Lower Manhattan’s streetscape for pedestrians under a program that would widen sidewalks, take down construction scaffolds, decrease traffic, exile parking (especially by official vehicles), and create new public plazas. With the ultimate aim of creating new pedestrian and cycling arteries throughout the Financial District, the Association wants to set up a “slow-street district” between Broadway and Water Street, from City Hall to the Battery, within which vehicular traffic would be subject to a ten mile-per-hour speed limit.
The Alliance’s plan, “A More Welcoming Wall & Broad: A Vision for Improving the Stock Exchange District,” envisions transforming the area through innovations such as creating curbless “shared” streets surfaced with historical contextual paving materials, and using stone street furniture to act as bollards and security barriers, while doubling as benches and planters. The plan also seeks to create a distinct sense of place by erecting “gateway” structures at entrances to the zone. These interactive sculptural installations would serve purposes both aesthetic and informative, displaying text to give visitors way-finding directions and historical background. The Alliance plan also contains logistical improvements, such as a centralized drop-off point for delivery trucks, from which parcels could be distributed using hand trucks or small vehicles.
Matthew Fenton
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