EPA press release on WTC cleaning hotline launch, June 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

New York City Department ofTransportation's Street Management Program At over 200 acres, streets and sidewalks comprise the largest category of public space in Lower Manhattan. As such, the street network is subject to the highest demands from the most diverse group of users. These users include pedestrians, private vehicles, buses, trucks making deliveries, taxis and for-hire vehicles, tourists, bicyclists, emergency response vehicles, sanitation vehicles, utility maintenance and construction, vendors, and many more. At critical periods during the day, the conflicting demands of so many users overwhelm the capacity of the street network and the street fails, not just for a given user group, but for all user groups. The New York City Department of Transportation(NYCDOT) has developed a Street Management Program which aims to allocate street, curb, and sidewalk capacity fairly and efficiently among competing user groups.

The crux of a Street Management Program is identifying priority uses of given streets at different times of day and restricting other uses to maximize efficiency for the priority uses, implemented in a manner consistent with physical improvements to the street and other changes in Lower Manhattan (e.g., at the World Trade Center site, along West Street, along Fulton Street, or at the East River waterfront).

Identifying priority uses depends upon stated overall goals for the Lower Manhattan street net­ work. These goals include: promoting the livability of Lower Manhattan, encouraging business development, accommodating heavy pedestrian volumes, providing access to the streets for those vehicles that need it, reducing congestion on the streets, and supporting traffic management and emergency response during crisis situations.

There is precedent for restricting access to streets based on priority needs. Many streets in the Financial District, including Fulton Street, Nassau Street, John Street and others, are already closed to vehicular traffic during the day to give priority to pedestrians at lunchtime. In September of 2002, NYCDOT implemented the Church Street Busway, which restricts private vehicular access to Greenwich Street, Trinity Place and Church Street during the morning and afternoon rush hour periods, giving priority to buses on the most heavily used bus corridor in Lower Manhattan. In Midtown, NYCDOT had success with its Thru Streets program, restrict­ ing turning movements and truck deliveries on pairs of streets to facilitate faster crosstown travel times.

As plans for Lower Manhattan begin to take form and as neighborhoods change, so too will the demands placed on the street network change. A key component of Street Management is con­ tinuous data collection to determine how the street network is being used, who uses it when and where it fails. New technologies will allow for the collection of real-time data that can be used to

48 Lower Manhattan Transportation Strategies

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