Squeezed by Bikes and Walkers, Central Park Gets Traffic Revamp

When Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux presented their design for New York City’s Central Park — then called Greensward — in 1858, they designated spaces by speed. The park’s traverses could handle crosstown carriages. Bridle paths were for foot traffic. And the drives would be treated as a promenade for all, split first between pedestrians, soon bicycles, and, later, cars.

“There should be separation of ways, as in parks and parkways, for efficiency and amenity of movement,” Olmsted wrote, “and to avoid collision or the apprehension of collision, between different kinds of traffic.”

A detail from Vaux and Olmstead’s 1868 map of Central Park.

Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

More than 150 years later, the same principles apply. ...