City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan says she’s back ing off her radical remake of 34th Street — but she’s never played straight with New Yorkers before, so why take her at face value now?
Problem is, Sadik-Khan says her planned pedestrian mall on 34th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues is history, but that happened only after Post columnists Steve Cuozzo and Andrea Peyser — and this page, too — eviscerated the bizarre scheme.
And then the City Council took a belated interest in it.
For absolutely sure, it’s no small thing when Sadik-Khan admits to error. As far as we can tell, she’s never done it before.
Not that she hasn’t com mitted a boatload of costly mistakes — starting with turning over vast swaths of city streets to delivery boys on bikes and the occasional cool dude peddling along in his Day-Glo tights.
The 34th Street plaza was a humongous mutation of her other tour de force — the tourist refuge that cut the heart out of the former crossroads of the world, Times Square.
Again, Sadik-Khan says “the plaza is no longer” in the project — hurrah and hallelujah — but, again, who’s to say it will stay out?
Meanwhile, other mischief remains.
Her plan to redirect traffic on 34th Street may also be in flux — though it’s hard to say, because with Sadik-Khan everything is a secret until it isn’t. But there is no doubt that any significant traffic manipulation will create a permanent nightmare for nearby side streets.
And it’s not remotely clear whether residents and businesses will continue to have curb access all along 34th Street — or, if they do, what restrictions will remain.
Sadik-Khan says she’ll make more details public on March 14.
If she follows form, much of it will be on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. And, if Mayor Bloomberg’s past indulgence of his transportation commissioner maintains, that’ll be the end of much of the discussion.
Sure, the department prom ises to publish traffic and environmental studies later this year — but the agency conducts such studies itself, and previous “reviews” generally have simply ratified its original proposals.
In the rare instances when the studies produce inconvenient results, they are either paid lip service or ignored.
So if any municipal agency has earned vigorous independent oversight, it’s the Department of Transportation.
To that end, City Council Transportation Committee Chairman James Vacca has already scheduled a hearing on the 34th Street project.
And Councilman Peter Vallone is hard at work on legislation that would curtail DOT’s power to make complete structural transformations to the city’s traffic patterns.
Don’t flinch, gentlemen.
It’s time that Janette Sadik-Khan’s little kingdom was toppled.
New York needs its streets back.