NEW YORK, NY – Take a walk through Manhattan, and it's clear that pedestrians think they own this city. They dash through red lights on the way to work, meander through traffic-clogged streets and can sometimes bring cars to a standstill with their strength in numbers.

Starting today [May 24], pedestrians will really own a piece of the city.

Broadway will be closed to vehicle traffic for five blocks at Times Square, turning part of the Crossroads of the World into a pedestrian mall of throbbing lights, animated billboards and towering skyscrapers. The city thinks the move will reduce pollution, cut down on pedestrian accidents and increase the flow of traffic.

A second pedestrian promenade will be created from 33rd to 35th streets on Broadway by Herald Square, where Macy's dominates the intersection. The city will try out the pedestrian malls for the remainder of the year. If things go well, the change could become permanent.

Planners hope that the uncontrolled chaos that has long defined the heart of this city will shift to a gentler landscape, one where a visitor could conceivably use the word "stroll" to describe getting from one side of Times Square to the other.

No one is strolling there now. People press up against one another, pushing the unlucky onto the street to walk alongside the cars. A sea of yellow cabs trickles foot by foot down Broadway. People who want to enter stores play a game of human Frogger, dodging pedestrians going in both directions, getting a toe crushed here and there.

Those caught in the crush of people say that some additional breathing room would be a welcome change. Carlos Grande, who has spent his 52 years in New York, says he hopes the pedestrian walkways can transform Midtown into a grand, Old World-style space.

"We don't have the history where we can sit in a piazza that's 1,000 years old, but it's still a wonderful idea," he said. "It slows the pace of life."

With 350,000 people walking through Times Square every day, injuries here are 140 percent higher than in nearby areas, said Janette Sadik-Khan, the city's transportation commissioner. She compares walking through the crowds to "a human slalom course."

New York's history has added to its traffic woes, Sadik-Khan said.

In 1811, traffic commissioners developed the grid system that would define the city's streets, but they left in place a precolonial footpath cutting diagonally across Manhattan. Broadway's irregular path created a number of the squares that define city life -- from Union Square to Times Square. But it also jammed up the flow of vehicle traffic, creating three-way intersections at hot spots throughout the city.

"It contradicts the order of the city's grid," Sadik-Khan said.

Cars will still be allowed to cut across the pedestrian promenades at cross streets, but they will then be rerouted to a newly widened Seventh Avenue and other north-south avenues across the grid.

From 42nd to 47th streets, planners hope pedestrians will lounge on outdoor chairs and stroll along the avenue. They hope drivers will begin using Broadway between the two promenades only if they're headed right there.

The city has hired an array of musicians, magicians and other performers to keep lunchtime crowds in the area. And next month, the Tony Awards will be broadcast on the Times Square pedestrian mall.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. From http://www.washingtonpost.com. By Samantha Gross.
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