Banning the Traffic

Is there a more permanent solution to Manhattan's traffic nightmare? When Mayor Robert Wagner banned nonessential traffic during last winter's crippling blizzard, a euphoria unequaled since the day Prohibition ended took hold of the city. People puffed happily up and down Broadway, jaywalked in Times Square, reveled in the unaccustomed silence.

Writing in the quarterly Dissent, Author-Sociologist Paul Goodman and his brother. Architect Percival Goodman, propose that the euphoria be made permanent: ban all cars from the island except buses, small taxis, vehicles for essential services, and light trucking. The city could close off alternate north-south avenues and nearly four out of five east-west crosstown streets in many areas. The island's gridiron, thus rearranged, could lead to an assortment of enclosed neighborhood "superblocks" of six to nine acres, with shopping centers, play and recreation areas, swimming pools and "non-nuisance" factories. (In the financial district and the main downtown shopping and business areas from 23rd to 59th Streets, the present street pattern and somewhat restricted traffic would be maintained.)

Instead of wasting valuable land for parking lots, the Goodmans would route nonessential traffic to multipurpose piers, which would be built on the island perimeter, where buses and taxis would ply. Drivers aiming to get off the island would presumably use elevated expressways. Manhattan, say the Goodmans, "can easily be a place as leisurely as Venice."

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