TIMES SQUARE PEDESTRIAN ENGINEERING - DESIGN TRUST FOR PUBLIC SPACE FELLOWSHIP

Pedestrian Engineering

Client

The Design Trust for Public Space and The Times Square Alliance

Team

Michael Fishman (Philip Habib Traffic Engineer) (image credits: The Times Square Alliance, Philip Habib, Michael Fishman)

Urban Question

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Times Square, the mission was how to design the streetscape of Times Square to reflect the dynamic qualities the world knows as the heart of the City that never sleeps?

Urban Answer

A plan to more than double sq/ft for pedestrians was documented and developed. By eliminating automobiles at the center of Times Square, the formerly unusable medians, were designed as public space, providing a north south connection between the subways and the TKTS booth. NYCDOT has adopted and gone beyond the plan. NYCDOT City implemented ‘The Times Square Shuffle as a direct result of the product of the Fellowship and Broadway has been pedestrianized. http://www.designtrust.org/publications/publication_03times.html

Movement Defines Times Square. This is where the world marks the passage of time. Finally, pedestrians will be given priority in this most dense part of NYC. Times Square has been bedeviled since the advent of the automobile. Once bustling with people horse drawn carriages, and wall to wall activity, ‘the bow-tie’ was immediately reserved maximum rights of way for automobiles. The same curb lines existed for over a century leaving room for cars to reach capacity. Pedestrians out number vehicles 10 – 1 during peak periods, but for decades pedestrians have been relegated to 10 foot sidewalks, navigating through one another and more recently forcing people into moving lanes of traffic. This plan activated the medians (once unusable public space) as a north south connection between the subways and the TKTS booth, giving local employees and tourist twice the space to navigate Times Square. Subsequently, the NYCDOT has adopted these principals and gone beyond expectations implementing ‘The Times Square Shuffle’ in 2009.