What are streets for?

The New York Times reports that Mayor Bloomberg is planning to close sections of Broadway to vehicle traffic as early as May this year.  Last year Bloomberg proposed levying a daily use tax, like London has, to deal with increasing auto congestion, but he didn't have support from legislators.  

Quoted in Newsweek,  Sam Schwartz, the city's former traffic commissioner says "Bloomberg is taking the position that as long as it's within the two curbs, it's [city] property and he can decide how to use it."

For many decades the theory has been that auto congestion is caused by supply and demand. There is a certain supply of space on streets and highways and there is a constant or rising demand for this space.  The new planning theory is that sometimes you can take away a street and you also take away the demand.  (Or: If you don't build it, they won't come.)

In the Broadway case, Mayor Bloomberg is arguing something less: he's just saying that Broadway is an inconvenient diagonal that adds to long wait times at intersections.  But the result will be that pedestrians are given more public space which is especially desirable in Times Square.

I am glad to hear NY is going to give the Times Square pedestrians more space.  Sometimes cities only put pedestrian malls in places that need revitalizing and no one goes there and they are dreary places.  It makes more sense to add them where the people already are.