Can New York reduce car traffic on city streets?

A current title from Fordham University Press

Movement: New York’s Long War to Reclaim Its Streets from the Car

New York City has one of the most extensive public transportation systems in the world. But – from snafus over congestion pricing to debates over how much space should be made available for parking – when it comes to political decisions, there is often the impression that the car is king.

In MovementNicole Gelinas, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and co-editor City Journaland regular columnist for the New York Post OfficeGoes beyond the ideological clashes between Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs in the mid-20th century and examines the long history of the automobile that shapes urban planning discussions in New York.

“Starting a century ago, the automobile changed the world—and helped bring New York City (and other cities) to the brink of irreversible urban decline,” Gelinas writes in the book’s introduction, setting the tone for the rest of the book is a kind of rallying cry for renewed investment in local public transport and a rethinking of the city’s streetscape.

Bringing the conversation squarely to the present, Gelinas argues that moving away from car dependency is a key to New York’s long-term recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout.

“It’s time to stop blaming Moses, a man who has been dead for more than four decades,” she writes, “and trust that our current generation of leaders will give us the city that we need.”