How to Make Central Park Safer for Pedestrians

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. We’ll find out about new recommendations for the roads that loop through Central Park. We’ll also look at data showing that one in eight students in the city’s public school system was homeless last year.

There are more than 50 traffic lights in Central Park. The nonprofit group that manages the park wants them gone.

The nonprofit, the Central Park Conservancy, is issuing a report today that says what parkgoers already know: “The vast majority of park users pay little attention” to those lights.

The report reflects findings from a yearlong study of how people use the drives, the six miles of roads that loop through the park. They are the sometimes-contested territory of bicyclists, pedestrians and runners — and horse-drawn carriages that clip-clop along. And pedicabs, too.

“The chaos of the city is encroaching into the park by way of the drive, and the whole purpose of the park is not to be the city,” said Elizabeth Smith, the president and chief executive of the conservancy. She said the study focused on safety and accessibility after a survey found that pedestrians felt that runners and cyclists “were going faster in the park than they previously had been, and that was unnerving.”