How about a plan to put the “park” back in the plan to put the “park” back in Park Avenue?

The city Department of Transportation has largely earned praise for two design concepts that it put forward last month to widen the garden median on Park Avenue to include strolling and seating space, and possibly a bike lane, instead of plants just sitting there surrounded by cars.

But at a community board meeting on Monday night, street safety advocate Alex Duncan presented a third option to truly reimagine the corridor by repurposing an additional lane of Park Avenue from car drivers and also eliminate some cross-street traffic to provide an unbroken pedestrian and cycling experience.

Notice how some cross-streets are closed to cars. Graphic: Alex Duncan

“My idea is to specifically amplify the main goal, which is putting the ‘park’ in ‘Park Avenue,’” said Duncan, best known as Miser on the Reddit Micrombility NYC sub. “And a park isn’t very good if it’s broken up every 100 feet by car traffic. We can all agree that we wouldn’t do that to Central Park.”

This version, without a bike lane, maintains a lot of space for cars. Graphic: NYC DOT

Duncan told attendees at the Community Board 6 virtual meeting that he liked DOT’s proposal, but added that if city officials are “being honest,” they’d see that their design (right) “is still kind of a six-lane highway.”

“This is our chance to fix this,” he said. “Design for the traffic that we want in the city and not what the traffic that we have. I don’t think just replicating the chaos of lots of cars speeding through and turning all over the place and getting in pedestrian and bikers’ ways is a good principle to start with.” (Duncan’s segment is here.)

CB6 Transportation Committee Chairman Jason Froimowitz called it an “interesting” proposal because it would create “more continuous pedestrian space without the cross streets [and] would improve the pedestrian experience.”

Agency rep Nicholas Pettinati also called the plan “interesting,” but couldn’t comment further because it was the first time he’d seen such a thing, he said.

“Obviously the traffic implications are the thing we would have to study,” he added. “I don’t know if we can actually close off those cross streets from a volume perspective.”

In a subsequent interview, Froimowitz praised the DOT’s proposals as great starting points, but questioned the notion that “the standard for public realm or street safety projects should be zero impact on vehicle traffic.”

“The question should be whether the overall design produces a safer, more useful, and more people-oriented street,” said Froimowitz, who made it clear he was speaking for himself, not his committee or in any official capacity. “Vehicle throughput is one factor to consider, but it shouldn’t be the only one or automatically outweigh the needs of pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, and everyone else who uses the street.”

Duncan also focused on that notion that vehicle thru-put must always be maintained — a stance that undermines so many of the DOT’s sustainability, safety and public space goals.

“We need to reduce demand for cars in Midtown Manhattan,” Duncan said. “Park Avenue can’t be both a park and a highway. Congestion pricing has shown how much better our city can be when we lean hard into the reduction of cars, and massively reducing the amount of surface area in the city dedicated to their movement and storage is the next huge opportunity.”

Duncan’s proposal came as the East Coast Greenway Alliance was already mulling how to influence DOT to add more green to its plan.

Sofia Barandiaran, the group’s New York & New Jersey manager, had reached out to Streetsblog independently of the CB6 meeting to propose writing an op-ed on the subject of how Park Avenue could be New York’s first true “greenway street.”

“By pairing green infrastructure that protects us from flooding with bicycle and pedestrian space that empowers us to move safely and sustainably, we can create a blueprint for the streets of tomorrow,” she told Streetsblog.

A spokesperson for DOT said the agency will consider all feedback and will continue to look at traffic flow during the design finalization process.

Manhattan Community Board 5 will take up the DOT proposal on May 28 at 6 p.m., but the location has not yet been announced (check here for updates). If you want to tell DOT what you think, the agency is conducting an online survey here.