The Great White Way will turn into a great walkway.
In a stunning Midtown makeover, Mayor Bloomberg is expected to announce Thursday that traffic lanes along Broadway from 42nd to 47th streets and from 32nd to 35th streets will be torn up starting Memorial Day and transformed into pedestrian plazas in an experiment that will last through the end of the year.
To accommodate downtown traffic through Times Square, Seventh Avenue would be widened from three to four lanes at 45th Street, said one source briefed on the plan Wednesday night.
Officials are hopeful that the removal of the 45th Street crossover between Broadway and Seventh Avenue will allow for smoother traffic flow down Seventh Avenue in what is now one of the most congested roadways on the planet.
Drivers on Broadway would have to turn off onto 47th Street or side streets north of it.
Similarly, cutting Broadway out of the mix at Herald Square, where it converges with 34th Street and Sixth Avenue, is expected to make life easier for motorists headed uptown.
“The big winner here is Sixth Avenue,” said the source. “When you go up through the 20s, you hit a wall at Herald Square. There’s a 90-second traffic signal. Broadway gets 30 seconds. Sixth Avenue gets 30 seconds and 34th Street gets 30 seconds. When this change is made, Sixth Avenue might have 55 seconds [for motorists to zoom cross 34th Street]. It’ll be dramatically better.”
The stretch of Broadway between 42nd and 35th would remain open to motorists for local traffic and deliveries.
Pedestrians should be in heaven.
The TKTS booth will be no longer stand on its own island because its sidewalk would be extended to the west side of Broadway starting at 47th.
The military recruiting booth also would become part of the Broadway “mainland” on the east side of the street.
Although designed to speed traffic flow, the changes also are in line with the mayor’s agenda to make the city more pedestrian-friendly.
The administration already has installed several pedestrian islands in Manhattan that come complete with folding benches, chairs and colorful umbrellas.
This won’t be the first time someone has tried to remove Broadway from the traffic stream.
A proposal in the 1980s went nowhere after objections by Macy’s and fears that the pedestrian islands would be overtaken by the homeless.
“Macy’s is on board this time,” said the source, “and the homeless aren’t really an issue now.”
The mayor’s office declined comment.
Additional reporting by Tom Namako