If cars are eliminated from the park drives, won speeding bicyclists pose an even greater threat to park users?
• Once cars are eliminated from the park, the drive can be restriped to separate users of different types and speeds– a far safer alternative to the current helter-skelter situation. If bicyclists, rollerbladers, or other users of the drive continue to pose a hazard, officials can devise other solutions to the problem. But the main point is that if bicyclists or other recreational users are a problem, it is a separate one from the extreme hazard currently posed by the close proximity of recreational users and automobiles weighing thousands of pounds and emitting carbon monoxide and other pollutants. Between 1994 and 1997, motor vehicles killed 1,020 pedestrians and cyclists in New York City. During that same period, five New Yorkers were killed by cyclists. One of those deaths occurred on the Central Park drive during car-free hours: a rollerblader executing a stunt turn crossed into the path of a cyclist. If the drive had been striped to manage recreational users rather than cars, su
