New York Wants to Spend $350 Million to Turn Fifth Avenue Into a Walkable Thoroughfare

New York City may one day have its own version of Paris’s Champs-Élysées.

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A plan to redesign a much-trafficked stretch of Fifth Avenue is set to be unveiled on Thursday, The New York Times reported . Costing more than $350 million, it aims to make the 20 blocks between Bryant Park and Central Park more pedestrian-friendly, by widening the sidewalks, adding seating areas, and planting more than 200 trees.

“For us, it’s really about sort of balancing the street and finally giving pedestrians the space they need on Fifth Avenue,” Ya-Ting Liu, the city’s chief public realm officer, told the Times .

During the evening rush hour, an average of more than 5,400 people an hour traverse one of the given blocks on foot, The New York Times noted. But they have just 46 feet of sidewalk space to walk on, and they compete with the cars and buses that barrel—or creep—down the five lanes afforded to them. The new plan would do away with two of those lanes, angering some motorists and bus operators.

Under the current proposal, two bus lanes would be reduced to one. Two of three car lanes would be removed, and one lane would be shared by both cars and buses. Instead of installing a bike lane, city officials are seeking to expand one on Sixth Avenue into a two-way design.

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These suggestions don’t fully sit well with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority or those who advocate for transit riders and bikers. A spokesperson for the Riders Alliance, a group that supports public-transit riders, told the Times that the plan was incomplete. A former director of planning for Manhattan, meanwhile, said he supports the proposal but would like to see the addition of a protected bike lane.

Still, proponents of the plan are touting the potential benefits: Madelyn Wils, the interim president of the Fifth Avenue Association, told The New York Times that making the area more pedestrian-friendly would increase foot traffic. That in turn would lead to higher retail sales and property values, resulting in more tax revenue and fees for the city.

A public meeting to discuss the plan will occur later this month, and the overall design could still be changed. But the proposal doesn’t need major approvals, city officials told the newspaper, meaning that it should go forward in one form or another, with construction expected to start in 2028.

It may be a few years before we see a new Fifth Avenue , but it seems like a refreshed corridor is coming in the near future.

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