City May Replace Times Square Plazas With Traffic

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has a cure for the costumed characters and painted topless ladies in Times Square. In an interview with 1010 WINS on Thursday, he said the city should dig up the pedestrian plaza installed by the Bloomberg administration and bring back the traffic lanes.

Speaking at an unrelated press event the same day, Mayor Bill de Blasio signaled that he was open to the idea.

“You could argue that those plazas have had some very positive impacts, you could also argue that they come with a lot of problems and a lot of the surrounding business community has certainly cited those problems,” said de Blasio.

The mayor has tapped Bratton and Carl Weisbrod, head of the Department of City Planning, to co-chair a task force to study the situation in Times Square. Weisbrod is credited with leading the clean-up of the Times Square starting in the 1970s and then later in the 1990s as head of New York City Economic Development Corporation. 

De Blasio’s decision to create the task force — and its plans to review the pedestrian plaza — appeared to come in response to days of negative headlines focused on the city’s inability to manage a growing cottage industry of street performers and hustlers — with and without their clothes.

While it’s not the first time de Blasio has expressed his ambiguity on the city’s streetscape, advocates reacted with shock that his administration would consider tearing out a symbol of rebalancing the city streets in favor of pedestrian safety.

Paul Steely White, head of Transportation Alternatives, said bringing cars back to the Big Apple's core runs antithetical to another one of de Blasio's priorities known as Vision Zero, which aims to eliminate traffic deaths on city streets.

White said the city should find other ways to deal with pan handlers and street hustlers. “You know those challenges can be met with mayoral leadership, with better management of public space, with proper enforcement. But it's no reason to return to the days when pedestrians were risking their life and limb just by walking down the street.”

Business leaders offered mixed feelings on the future of plaza.

Kathy Wylde, head of the Partnership for New York City, suggested that Times Square has been overrun by tourism which can be bad more businesses there.

“I think most of the big employers in the area (as well as anyone trying to navigate it by vehicle) would be happy to have the plaza disappear,” Wylde said in a statement.

Tim Tompkins, head of the Times Square Alliance, which represents businesses in the area said his members have historically supported the plaza, even before it was made permanent.

“The idea that we can't deal with a handful of petty thieves means we're going to prioritize cars over 450,000 pedestrians is just crazy,” said Tompkins.

“All options are on the table,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Karen Hinton. “The mayor expects the task force to come back with the best recommendation for dealing with the problem," she added.

Those recommendations are due October 1.