Gansevoort project will study traffic, public space

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 4 | October 20 - 26, 2006

By Albert Amateau

The title is a mouthful and the project itself is ambitious.

The Greater Gansevoort Urban Improvement Project, introduced at an Oct. 16 forum to an audience of Village and Chelsea community leaders, will take a comprehensive look at motor and pedestrian traffic in the area bounded by W. 16th and Gansevoort Sts. between Ninth Ave. and the Hudson River.

“We see the area around the Gansevoort Market as a special district with historic buildings and wide streets, open plazas and the potential to create welcoming public space,” said Jo Hamilton, a West Village resident and member of the project’s steering committee along with Florent Morellet, a Gansevoort Market restaurateur; Josh David, co-founder of Friends of the High Line; and Brad Hoylman and Jay Marcus, respective chairpersons of the transportation committees of Community Boards 2 and 4.

Sam Schwartz, former commissioner of the city’s Department of Transportation, and the Regional Plan Association are conducting a survey of the flow of vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the area as it changes over a 24-hour day and during an entire week.

In a district where nightlife, high-end retailing, art galleries and the remnant of the wholesale meat industry bring crowds of pedestrians, cabs and trucks to the area, the goals of the project include promoting pedestrian safety, reducing the negative impacts of vehicular traffic and creating a sense of place in the Gansevoort area.

With the proposed opening of the south end of the High Line Park in 2008, the future will bring even more pedestrian use.

“You’re going to see survey people all over for the next couple of weeks,” said Schwartz. “They’ll be counting cabs at night, they’ll be counting trucks and they’ll be counting you walking in the streets,” he said. One of the problems, he noted, is that cars from city agencies frequently violate parking and traffic rules in the district.

Schwartz noted that some streets are as wide as 120 feet to 140 feet — “as wide as a six-lane highway” — and potential sites for pedestrian-vehicle conflict. “But with so much space, there are opportunities,” he added.

Schwartz and Tom Wright, R.P.A. vice president, both declared that there are no preconceived plans.

“This will be a community-generated process,” said Schwartz. With representatives from city D.O.T. and the Department of City Planning in the audience, Schwartz said, “The city agencies are with us every step of the way.”

Indeed, D.O.T. has anticipated the project by planning a long-awaited change of Ninth Ave. traffic between 14th and 16th Sts., where two uptown traffic lanes make the normally downtown avenue two ways for those two blocks.

“We’re planning to redirect one of those lanes downtown and make the other a pedestrian plaza or a Greenstreet,” Chris Gloried, a D.O.T. spokesperson, said later. The change, which has the support of Community Board 4, is still in the planning stage with construction anticipated to being in the late spring of 2008.

One resident at the Oct. 16 forum noted that the district, characterized by wide cobblestone streets, lacks greenery and suggested that trees should be a part of the project design. But Schwartz warned that the city Landmarks Preservation Commission might decide that trees are not historically appropriate for the Gansevoort Market Historic District.

Another resident praised the project but wanted the study area expanded to 18th St. to deal with the possibility that traffic diverted from the project area would overwhelm the streets to the north. Morellet responded by saying, “We have to start somewhere and we didn’t want to bite off more than we could chew.”

Nevertheless, the organizers distributed a two-page questionnaire seeking input from people who live, work and do business in the area on the problems and preferences to be considered.

The questionnaire, available online at www.greatergansevoort@verizon.net, asked for a ranking of problems, including pedestrian safety, weekend traffic congestion, traffic speed, sidewalk width, public transit connections, truck and delivery access, bicycle safety and access, illegal parking and handicap access. The questionnaire also asked for rankings for 10 locations in the study area, including intersections and midblocks, regarding those problems.

Elected officials came to the forum to lend support. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Tom Duane and Assemblymember Deborah Glick welcomed the project. Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Congressmember Jerrold Nadler sent representatives.

Funding for the entire project came from Quinn, The Kaplan Family Foundation, Diane von Furstenberg, Veuve Clicquot champagne, Taconic Properties (owner of the Port Authority office building between Eighth and Ninth Aves. from 15th to 16th Sts.) and the clothing company Theory, whose new headquarters is on Gansevoort St.