Why a Car-Free Central Park?
Central Park was created 150 years ago as a refuge from the street noise and bustle of the surrounding city. Tragically, the park’s status as a retreat from the urban din is compromised every weekday by the presence of drivers on the loop drive. Families with strollers, runners, bicyclists and tourists seeking respite must jockey for space in a narrow “recreational lane” inches away from the car traffic they are trying to escape. (See “Close the Loop,” The New York Times, May 7, 2006.) As a result, there are increasingly frequent collisions between the cars and recreational users. (See What It’s Like to Be Hit by a Car in Central Park ) In Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, which also allows drivers on its loop drive, a woman cyclist was killed by a speeding van in summer 1997. We fear that it is only a matter of time before a fatal accident occurs in Central Park.
