I saw this article posted in the NYC running subreddit but didn't see it here.

In addition to the article, the Central Park Conservancy put out a survey to help inform the future design of the park available here.

Fwiw, here are my thoughts on the matter:

As someone who is in the park four or five days a week either as a pedestrian or as a runner on the loop, the biggest issues in my mind are (1) bicyclists who treat the loop like it's the tour de France, (2) pedestrians (particularly tourists) crossing in front of runners/cyclists to get across the loop, (3) cyclists going into the running lane and runners going into the cycling lane, (4) horse carriages and pedicabs parking in the running lane so tourists can stop and take photos.

The problems with speeding and with pedestrians crossing the street are significantly exacerbated on the southern end of the park, particularly during times of the year when tourism is high. So often I'll be running, only to see a group of four casually walking shoulder to shoulder in the running lane. Even worse is having someone, without looking, leave the sidewalk and step out in front of a runner or worse a cyclist.

In my perfect world, where money was no object, they would do the following:

• Install a barrier between the running lanes and the bicycle lanes.
• Widen the running lanes by a couple of feet. Add more clear directional arrows on the ground or signs saying "Keep Right."
• Paint the running lane a different color, like orange. Pedestrians often stand in the running lane at crossings because they treat it like it's just a wide curb to the road.
• Post signs at every pedestrian crossing to inform pedestrians to look both ways.
• Install motion sensors at every pedestrian crossing that alert pedestrians to oncoming cyclists, pedicabs, runners, etc.
• Signs or campaigns to remind pedestrians that the running lane is for exercise and to keep casual leisurely strolls to the sidewalk—especially since the sidewalk is parallel to the loop for 90% of the time.
• Ban horse drawn carriages. Full stop. Invest in and allow electric horseless carriages as a replacement.
• Create specific parking spaces for pedicabs.
• On the south loop, or everything below 77th street, install speed limit signs and speed radar cameras.
• Enforcement. Tickets for speeding cyclists, tickets for cyclists in the running lane, tickets for pedicabs who park randomly—straight to jail for the very limited number of cars that are allowed on the loop if they speed.

The transverse issue is tricky. Ideally there would be a reconfiguration of at least two of the transverses to allow for a fully separated two-way bicycle lane that is protected by a concrete divider. That is probably more of a fantasy than anything else on my wishlist though.

>Elizabeth Smith went into Central Park at East 72nd Street expecting to find chaos. It did not take long, even on a chilly morning when the promising sky was clouding over.

>There is chaos — as defined by Smith, the president of the nonprofit Central Park Conservancy — on the drives, the six miles of road inside the park that have been off limits to most cars since 2018. Within 500 feet of where she started, where Terrace Drive branches off from East Drive, she sounded almost like a traffic reporter describing the B.Q.E. in Industry City or the Belt Parkway near J.F.K.

>“All these people come flying down — bicycles, pedestrians, runners,” she said, adding that it was a place where horse-drawn carriages clip-clop along at a far slower pace, shambling in front of the bicyclists and runners, and where pedicabs pass on the right before swinging left. “And there are no traffic signals that anyone is really obeying,” she said.

>Smith called the drives “the most heavily used resource in Central Park” and said they had become more heavily trafficked during the pandemic. She also said they are “extremely complex spaces with competing uses,” and soon they will be extremely well studied. The Conservancy, in partnership with the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation and the Department of Transportation, is beginning a look at who uses the drives, and how.

>They have enlisted the consulting firm run by Sam Schwartz, a former first deputy transportation commissioner who is known as “Gridlock Sam.” Smith said the study would lead to “a community-driven process” that would include presentations to community boards in areas adjacent to the park and other local organizations. She said the feedback would help shape “design interventions” to make coexistence on the drives more peaceful.

>As they are now, she said, “they impinge on the reason people come to Central Park, which is to get away from the city. The city is creeping into the park through the drives.” How different that is from the purpose envisioned by the 19th-century planners who, she said, saw the park as “a place where people could get away from the city and commune with nature and have a respite from urban life.”

>On a drive around the drives, Smith continued her play-by-play with help from Erica Sopha, the conservancy’s vice president for park use and stewardship. They stopped on East Drive with the North Meadow softball fields on the left and the Mount Sinai Hospital complex in the distance on the right, a spot where pedestrians and cyclists could get in each other’s way.

>“You’ve got people who think ‘Oh, it’s not busy here, so I’m oh, going to cross the drive,’” Sopha said. “And you have bikers who think ‘It’s not busy here and this is one straight path that I can just pick up my speed.’ It’s a recipe for conflict.”

>Smith said the potential for conflict would increase as tourism bounced back and visitors joined New Yorkers in the park. “There is a tremendous amount of competition for the use of those drives,” she said. “It’s pedicabs, it’s horse carriages, it’s runners, it’s e-bikes, it’s speed bikes, it’s recreational bikers, it’s pedestrians.”

>Adding to the need to study the drives, she said, is the fact that deliverers often use them because the four transverses “don’t really accommodate bikers,” she said. The push for better crosstown bike routes surged after the death of Daniel Cammerman, who was hit by a school bus as he rode along the 96th Street transverse in 2019.

>The study follows a safety study of the drives in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which had not been reconfigured since traffic was banned in 2018. The nonprofit Prospect Park Alliance says it is preparing to release the results soon.

>The Central Park survey, in English and Spanish, asks respondents how they reach the park — on foot or on a bicycle, an e-bike, an e-scooter, a moped or some other way. It also asks if they ever feel unsafe there.

>“We’ve always thought of the park as sort of a barometer about the way people feel about the city,” Smith said, “and you know when it’s clean and well managed and beautiful, people think New York is going to be OK.”

Just let people bike as fast as they want before 10am, and ban horses before then.

I mean this very sincerely, and wanted to make sure I understood your comments: are you calling the walking lane the running lane? In your mind the bidirectional lane to the left marked with little people is a running lane?

It's helpful to hear from different perspectives.

I am referring to that lane as a running lane, because it it primarily used by people who are running. However, I fully endorse people using it for walking. Plenty of people cannot run, plenty use that lane for power walking, and plenty use it for leisurely walks but stay to one side alone. That's fine.

What is not fine are groups of people walking across both directions of the lane or people standing in the lane while they wait for cyclists/horse cabs to pass—thereby forcing others to step into the bicycle lanes to continue on their path.

Particularly because there is typically a sidewalk next to the lane.

I see. Thanks

Some proposals I've seen is to shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians. I think the idea is to use little pedestrian islands similar to what they have in streets. I assume they'd place it at crosswalks between the bike and pedestrian (aka running) lane.

I would add to the list of problems:

• delivery guys biking against traffic (mostly in the evenings)
• mopeds (it’s rare but really piss me off)
• runner clubs who take up the whole lane so you have to endanger yourself and move to the bike path

Before 10am are some of the busiest hours. To hell with all those speed cyclists.

Ban the people cosplaying as “Lance Armstrong Jrs” who think they own the park.

Ooh, I like that.

Agreed fully.

Didn't mention things that are just plain illegal (delivery bikes against traffic are one thing but I've nearly been hit by citibikes in the running lane going the opposite direction of the bike lane).

The running groups particularly bother me as a novice runner who runs along. Makes me feel like a huge outsider or non-runner when a group of 20-30 people are running at me and no one is adjusting to accommodate people going the other direction (me) so I'm forced into the bike lane.

You're hired! Implement everything please!

As someone whose logged thousands of miles in the park the delivery bikes riding at high-speeds in the pedestrian lanes and pedicabs blocking the pedestrian lanes remain a constant threat. I’ve gotten good at navigating around tourists, both on foot and bike, but those delivery bikes force you to rapidly change course creating further dangers.

• Change the stop lights to something that warns of oncoming or crossing traffic, like flashing lights and signs. Traditional STOP/GO systems don’t work well for intermittent traffic (is any cyclist or ped really gonna wait on a red while there’s no immediate cross traffic?). Instead, go for visibility and awareness, and people’s desire to not collide with one another will prevail.

• Increase the amount of two-way lanes for non-ped traffic. It’s crazy that the 72nd St transverse is the only place with bike lanes going in both directions, though I understand this is probably a holdover from when cars were on the Drive. Maybe some kind of flex lane in certain areas, where one direction of traffic has priority.

• Create a system that uses the language of speed and direction, rather than means of locomotion. In other worlds, group like with like according to where and how fast they’re going.

They don't mention motor vehicles. There's too many goddamn motor vehicles for a place that has banned them.

Police and park employees can walk or ride a bike (from what I see, most of them could use the exercise).

These dudes be more geared up than cyclists participating in the Tour de France.

Every time I have walked in that park nobody on a bike or running obeys the traffic light so you can cross and the douches who think it's the tour de France are the worst

The cyclists aren't that bad most of the time. If i'm in riding the park I'm just trying to get home after work, quickly, like anyone else does. You just gotta also carry a bit of consideration for everyone else in the park, as we all should. You know, just pay a bit of attention if you're on the drives.

You must have one them fancy office jobs they keep talking about. You done stated the problems you are witnessing AND you provided solutions to your complaints. 🤯 /s (kinda)

👀

I feel like you’re giving these people and their desires too much credit for actually being aware of what’s going on around them.

But like, do u evn Byke bruh?

so even in a place where there are no cars

people are miserable about walking biking and running ....

maybe the problem isnt cars .....

Seriously. Bikers have taken over the city. We need to ban bike riders between 86th-4th street.

If we banned cars instead there would be more room for bikes.

They should change the bridle path near 86th where all the cops park their cars into a paved transverse for bikes.

Ban both. Cities are made for people. Not cars or bikes.

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With Issue (2) are you implying that pedestrians shouldn’t be able to cross the loop at all?

You know there are cycling clubs, races to train for, and simply cycling for fitness/to get faster, right? Or do you think anyone who puts effort into something is cosplaying?

Should we ban subways and buildings? Cities are made for people not buildings.

No, and I should have been more clear on that issue list. I didn't expect this post to get much attention and honestly these are just my opinions that I came up with off the top of my head.

What I was trying to get at, is that runners and bicyclists do not stop for traffic lights. I think that's perfectly reasonable at certain parts of the park (north end) where there are few pedestrians crossing. On the south loop, however, there needs to be better mechanisms to control the flow of traffic—both the actual traffic on the loop and the traffic of pedestrians crossing the loop.

The problem I come across often, is that especially during tourist seasons, large groups of pedestrians will stand in the running lanes waiting for the light to change, forcing runners into the cyclist lane. I've seen pedestrians step out in front of runners multiple times, because the pedestrians did not look both ways, and I've seen clueless groups of people walk out into the bicyclist lane in front of traffic, nearly causing damaging accidents with oncoming cyclists.

And this doesn't just happen at the designated crossings. People jump the barriers all the time to get across the park more quickly, but they're now an obstacle that needs to be navigated.

Pedestrian safety certainly requires better control of traffic on the loop, but it also requires that (a subset of certain) pedestrians recognize that the loop is an actively used road with mixed forms of travel.

Crash mapper

I wonder what the reason for the big blank space in the middle there is.

They’re still annoying as shit.

Get rid of the smelly horses shitting and pissing all over the place everywhere they go

I’m not going to mess up my mile time because of slow walkers.

well the subject ISNT crashes - the issue as detailed in this article is peoples behavior... and the fact that even in a place that has no cars people cant seem to regulate their interactions between biking walking running or just standing still.

Make the loop two-way so us normies can use it to go places

Add gates at the crosswalks like railroads to stop the lance armstrong types from running the lights

You must understand, it is ANNOYING for pedestrians to look before crossing the drive. The cyclists should NOT be using the only loop of road in the borough that is possible to train on with clearly demarcated bike lanes. The cyclists should NOT be wearing cycling clothing - jorts are the preferred attire otherwise they are LOSERS

They can do whatever they want for whatever reason they want as long as they also understand they are sharing the space and it isn't their personal training facility.

Executive Question: No Clip-Nonsense

The Tour de France bikers are so annoying. It’s one reason I generally avoid Central Park since it feels like a highway rather than a park in places.

I’ve had similar experiences in Prospect Park as well.

They don’t and aren’t understanding of that tho. They’ll literally scream at and berate you.

What's the problem then? I figure it's that despite the size of the loop we outside of vehicles are still given a paltry amount of actual car free space to be active in, so we're getting these unfortunate interactions due to mixing modes. Partially mixed use paths can be notoriously tense due to mixing different usages and the sheer demand we have here in the park for the space.

Actually the lights are only mandatory for cars not bike (In the park only)

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For an organization that prides itself in caring for nature and it’s natural inhabitants, I find it appalling that they are seemingly okay with the abusive treatment of horses within the park. The carriages create a dangerous situation for both cyclists and pedestrians alike while making the lower loop absolutely disgusting during the summer.

Lmao “the runners lane” and “ban these Tour de France wannabes” tell me you’re entitled without telling me you’re entitled

Everyone sucks here but centra park could be a lot worse, and I really can’t see how much of these proposals would make it better.

Except banning peticabs and horses. Fuck them!

I kindof like the idea of painting the pedestrian lane. Maybe better demarcating the fast bike lane from the slow bike lane in some way.

As a cyclist I truly don’t understand the hate for speeding cyclists (most cyclists are going 15-16mph). I swear it’s because people just don’t like the spandex (since it’s what they always call out).

There will always be someone making dick moves from all the groups that use the park. Off leash dogs cause accidents, runners run off lane without looking, walkers go the wrong way taking up the entire lane. It’s not just cyclists where.

There are assholes cyclists that get too close to pedestrians but it’s crazy how OK we are just wanting to remove an entire group of people and sport from the park that has plenty of space.

IMO the lights need to go, the green lights give cyclists a fake sense of “go” but pedestrians will cross anyway. The red lights give pedestrians the way but most cyclists won’t actually stop because most of the time they are red for now reason.

For the lights specifically, we should get rid of them and put pedestrians crossing buttons that flash brightly so everyone knows they are crossing. This works very well in many cities with cars and pedestrians and it could work here.

I’m sure this will be downvoted to hell though since I’m trying to be reasonable without lumping everyone on a bike into one group.