Can New York go car free?

To a large number of New Yorkers it’s almost a moot question. 54% of households do not own a vehicle, with those percentages going up in the denser and more transit-heavy parts of the city such as Brooklyn, where 56% of households are car-free, and Manhattan, where a whopping 76% of households are car-free. Even in boroughs and neighborhoods where car ownership is higher, driving as a primary means of transportation remains quite low; a majority of Queens households own cars, but 52% of workers in the borough still commute via public transit. 

Those automobile-owning, transit-commuting Queens residents know something intuitively: cars and cities are a bad fit. When there are better options — whether it’s the subway, buses or one’s personal bicycle — people will choose them. The challenge, of course, is that not all neighborhoods are served equally by such options, and in a city as big as New York it doesn’t take large percentages of people choosing to get around by car to make life unpleasant for everyone else.

Thankfully, the last ten to twelve years have seen profound changes to the city’s streetscape, from the 2009 installation of the plazas in Times Square to the launch of Citi Bike in 2013. It seems as if each week brings a new bike lane, expanded sidewalk, new bike share station, dedicated bus lane or other improvement that not only benefits the people who already live without a car but makes it easier for others to give up theirs. (Or at least leave the keys at home.)

“Those automobile-owning, transit-commuting Queens residents know something intuitively: cars and cities are a bad fit. ”

The good news is that despite the occasional bout of “bikelash” that can accompany changing streets, the public approves of such changes. Plus, they’re hungry for more. A recent poll commissioned by advocacy organization Transportation Alternatives showed that record percentages of New Yorkers support adding bike lanes and expanding access to safe cycling, even if it means reducing the number of parking spaces. Outdoor dining, something that expanded into thousands of parking spots during the pandemic, is so popular it brings to mind a quip by the legendary New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra: “It’s so crowded, nobody goes there anymore.”

Despite this progress, when I look to London and Paris another saying comes to mind: The grass is always greener on the other side. Reading the news of London’s plan to add more pedestrian space to the Square Mile, or watching the leadership of Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and her effort to add hundreds of kilometers of bike lanes, it’s hard not to think that New York isn’t moving fast enough in the race to go car-free. New York likes to think of itself as the greatest city in the world. Are we really going to let other places beat us at something most New Yorkers have been doing forever?

I’m grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the Car Free Megacities Campaign and hopefully spur the kind of friendly competition that will help my hometown be the best possible version of itself.

Doug Gordon
Car Free Megacities New York Lead | Brooklyn Spoke