Sound Vision: Two Broadway blocks for permanent upgrades

Two blocks of Broadway in Midtown will become permanent bike and pedestrian zones, the first major transformation along the Manhattan corridor since the Bloomberg administration banned cars from Times Square.

The city eliminated a plaza on Broadway between 39th and 40th Streets and created a shared street configuration three years ago on the block south of W. 39th Street, which officials plan to redesign with concrete to be level with the curb Department of Transportation officials told the Community Board 5 Transportation Committee on Monday.

“We really want to create a world-class public realm,” Casey Gorrell, acting design and capital lead for the DOT’s Public Realm Unit, told the committee. “We’re basically starting from scratch because we’re doing a major rebuild so we can really take advantage of the significant narrowing of the roadway to calm traffic and reduce traffic volumes.”

The overhaul is part of the DOT’s Broadway Vision, which has been improving the marquee corridor between Times and Union Square for a decade and a half, and the agency is laying the groundwork to jointly replace more of its recently canceled designs with tougher infrastructure with the Department of Design and Construction.

“We use a lot of design treatments at Broadway Vision that are more modern and serve as a testing ground for new designs as part of the corridor,” Gorrell said.

Reconstruction of the capital would begin in September 2026 and last two years. The spaces will house a two-way bike path, public seating, plantings and spaces for art.

The block between 39th and 40th streets will be car-free thanks to steel bollards. The square is connected to the triangular, privately owned, publicly accessible plaza called Golda Meir Square on the west side of Broadway.

Between 38th and 39th Streets, the DOT will implement a similar layout, but with a shared street that allows southbound car traffic and bicycle traffic in both directions.

The agency is also beginning to plan more permanent upgrades for other sections of Broadway, Gorrell said, near the Flatiron Building between 22nd and 28th Streets and, in earlier phases, between 28th and 33rd Streets.

“Much of this design work will be applied to later projects … such as Flatiron or areas south of Herald Square,” the agency representative said.

Advocates have long pushed to remove cars from the diagonal street that cuts through Manhattan’s street network, and the DOT has made some changes, creating more space for pedestrians and cyclists. But drivers can still navigate much of the roadway, even if they have to do so at slow speeds.

“What you’ve presented looks fantastic,” said Andrew Hyatt, co-director of the Broadway Linear Park, which has led the campaign for a car-free Broadway. “I particularly like the shallow gradient and I think the bollards to slow down the bikes will actually be quite effective.”

The newly announced work in Midtown is more similar to that launched under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which turned five blocks of Broadway north of 42nd Street into a public space the size of two football fields.

The Adams administration last remodeled four blocks north of Union Square in September, but pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure relied on paint and planters.