Transportation Alternatives’ Car-Free Central Park campaign saw an overflowing house last Tuesday at its rally at a Unitarian-Universalist church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Mixing facts, strong rhetoric and a lively sermon from Reverend Jessica Shepherd from the "Church of the Reformed Motorist," the rally presented an overwhelming case for banning cars from New York City’s most famous green oasis. The audience and speakers at the rally reflected the campaign’s diverse support: Central Park Track Club, Council members Eva Moskowitz and Bill Perkins, West Harlem Environmental Action, public health advocates and park users. T.A. executive director Paul White moderated the evening, noting that just a few thousand motorists drive through the Central Park Loop Drive each morning, compared to other park users who total around 70,000 per day.

The presence of cars in the park road, even when it is being far more heavily used by non-drivers, is perhaps the starkest evidence there is that New York City transportation policy is dictated by a combination of unimaginative traffic engineering principles and profoundly disproportionate deference to a small elite of car and taxi commuters.

The Regional Plan Association’s Jeffrey Zupan rooted the issue in transportation research, citing a British study of 60 worldwide examples of road closings. Results showed that in all cases displaced traffic largely vanished into the larger roadway system. If Central Park’s loop drive is closed to cars, "20-60% of the traffic will disappear," Zupan predicted. "Just as cars are attracted when new road capacity is added — build it and they will come — the reverse is also true — remove it and they will go." Zupan said the remaining displaced drivers would distribute themselves across Manhattan, leading to a very small overall impact and possibly better traffic conditions at intersections along Fifth Avenue and Central Park West.

In on-camera interviews shown during the rally, park users, health experts, and planners reflected on the many reasons for a Central Park car-ban. Fred Kent of Project for Public Spaces called on NYC DOT to be a "more people-oriented, community building agency, instead of a car agency." Author Jane Holtz Kay cited Olmsted’s vision for Central Park: "Crowded thoroughfares have nothing in common with the park proper, but every thing at variance with those agreeable sentiments which we should wish the park to inspire." Critic James Howard Kunstler summed up: "The 21^st century will be about living locally – about staying where you are," emphasizing that car dependence is a serious hindrance to quality of life.

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