The park’s main roadway encourages speed; a redesign must slow it all down.
By Justin Davidson
On September 23, Richie O’Brien was walking his bicycle across Central Park’s East Drive at 84th Street, near the Metropolitan Museum, on his way to his job as a steamfitter, when another biker crashed into him. O’Brien died from his injuries. Less than two weeks later, a golden retriever darted out onto East Drive near that exact same spot, prompting a 71-year-old cyclist to slam on the brakes. The rider flew over the handlebars and was killed.
These tragic accidents highlight an ongoing crisis on the asphalt loop that defines Central Park. For anyone who uses the park—whether biking along that stretch, crossing it on foot, or watching a dog sprint off toward traffic—avoiding a collision often feels like a matter of pure luck rather than design.
Just days after the second fatality, critic and observer Justin Davidson found himself at East Drive and 97th Street, the location where Salvador Nico-Garcia was thrown from his e-bike and died in June of last year after colliding with a pedestrian. On this particular visit, a large group of cycling novices led by an instructor paused politely at the crosswalk alongside a stopped police van. Reassured by the momentary pause in traffic, a pedestrian stepped out into the roadway, only to be nearly bowled over twice: first by a speeding cyclist slicing through the crowd on the passenger side of the police van, and immediately after by another rider speeding past the driver’s side. The resulting rush of air from the passing riders served as a stark reminder of the underlying peril.
The six-mile Central Park Drive that loops around the park’s edge was originally engineered as a carriage road. Over the decades, it was requisitioned for cars, temporarily cleansed of motorized vehicles, and has now evolved into a chaotic conduit for a mixed fleet of one- and two-wheeled vehicles, both electrified and traditional.
During early morning hours, flocks of road racers in matching jerseys routinely treat the 20-mile-per-hour speed limit as a challenge while treating slower riders as obstacles to be avoided. E-bike riders gun the throttles of their silent engines, and scooter operators zip through crowds with earphones muffling the protests of pedestrians.
At the same time, the Drive must accommodate far less frantic rhythms. Joggers and power walkers utilize their own wide lanes, while families on holiday—mistakenly viewing the roadway as an entirely safe sanctuary for a leisurely two-wheeled amble—frequently spread out, swerve unpredictably, and stop to rest at the top of hills. Occasionally, diehard inline skaters can be seen moving along in a backward dance.
The fundamental problem is that these two massive, distinct groups—the slow and the fast—collide with bone-crushing regularity. While fatalities remain relatively rare, the specter of severe injury or death is ever-present.
Thus far, the Central Park Conservancy and the New York Police Department have attempted to tackle these threats with an ineffectual combination of verbal appeals, finger-wagging, and a minimal number of weekly tickets. In 2024, the conservancy and the city collaborated on a formal Safety and Circulation Study of the Drive, ultimately implementing the least demanding of its recommendations. These measures included repainting lanes and crosswalks and stenciling "Look!" signs for pedestrians directly onto the asphalt. Unsurprisingly, these steps did not come close to eliminating conflict or confusion.
A proposed reduction of the speed limit from 20 mph to 15 mph was blocked in court, and cyclists continue to travel at the same high speeds as before. Following the latest fatalities, Central Park Conservancy President Betsy Smith endorsed increased enforcement of existing rules, alongside a proposal to introduce new bike lanes on the narrow transverse roads. While an extra lane could theoretically help, there is simply not enough physical space to squeeze them in without creating additional hazards.
Experts note that none of these responses go far enough. Even physically dividing the Drive into express and local lanes, akin to a suburban highway, would only exacerbate the danger for individuals attempting to cross. Ultimately, making the Drive less terrifying requires promoting a concept that many modern commuters loathe: slowness.
Achieving serenity within a heavily trafficked green space is fundamentally a design problem, and a handful of other cities have experimented with solutions to curb speed in similar environments. London installed granite rumble strips at Hyde Park Corner, constructed raised crosswalks across bike lanes near bus stops, and routed snaking, pedestrian-priority paths through the Van Gogh Walk in Brixton. Meanwhile, Amsterdam enacted a ban on fat-tire bikes in Vondelpark, successfully reducing the presence of that specific high-speed vehicle category.
New York’s urban designers will need a comprehensive catalogue of these techniques and a willingness to implement them. However, the most radical move is also the most necessary: altering the physical geometry of the Drive.
Cyclists, much like motorists, accelerate wherever the road design encourages them to pick up the pace. In Central Park, riders receive permissive signals from the Drive’s broad straightaways, such as at East 84th Street, its exciting downslopes near East 97th Street, and curves wide enough to accommodate a speeding bus. All of these features need to be re-engineered. Curves should be made tighter and more winding, lanes should narrow and widen at unpredictable intervals, and physical traffic-calming infrastructure like speed bumps and planters should be deliberately placed in the path of travel.
Such interventions will inevitably infuriate those who value the Drive’s historical openness and fluidity, particularly road racers who view the loop as their personal preserve. While that perspective is understandable, Central Park can no longer grant the privilege of moving at high speeds unimpeded. Horse racing, dog racing, and unauthorized vehicular racing are rightly prohibited from taking over public parks and streets, and high-speed cycling demands a similar re-evaluation.
So far, neither city leadership nor the conservancy has been willing to view speed itself as the primary enemy, though the mounting toll of severe accidents continues to force policy shifts. Following an incident where a runaway horse killed 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan on June 17, the City Council finally took the decisive step of banning horse-drawn carriages—a measure that had been debated for years.
Urban planners argue that New York must move beyond a purely reactive stance and reinforce Central Park’s historical role as a laboratory for urban living. As Smith noted in a recent policy essay, friction over the use of roadways and paths is hardly unique to Central Park; rather, it is a frustrating byproduct of broader efforts to make the city safer and easier to navigate.
When the city began aggressively building out bike lanes, deploying Citi Bike stations, and implementing measures to curb automobile traffic, many advocates and transit observers hoped that a diverse new population of commuters, children, seniors, and tourists on two wheels would naturally crowd out speed demons. The expectation was that e-scooters would provide a valuable mobility option for individuals lacking the leg strength for traditional cycling, creating a civil street culture where New Yorkers of varying speeds and abilities could share public asphalt on equal terms.
Instead, the reality has devolved into a free-for-all. Sidewalks, footbridges, crosswalks, parks, esplanades, and car-free plazas have experienced increased friction as a swarm of electrified and non-electrified vehicles vie for space. Vision Zero, the comprehensive traffic-calming initiative shared by successive mayoral administrations over the past two decades, was designed to grant pedestrians a greater sense of ownership over the public realm through wider sidewalks, improved intersection markings, and rationalized traffic patterns. In practice, however, many pedestrians feel the public realm has grown increasingly hostile.
A significant gap persists between the daily fear experienced by many New Yorkers and the policy response from leaders who have frequently treated the proliferation of e-bikes as a minor annoyance. During a City Council hearing, lawmakers discussed Priscilla’s Law, a legislative proposal that would require registration and license plates for e-bikes. While the bill remains stalled at both the state and municipal levels, supporters argue it represents a reasonable method to introduce accountability for anonymous riders. Officials have frequently deflected such proposals by noting that automobiles remain statistically more dangerous than bicycles—a true statement, but one that offers little comfort to pedestrians navigating park paths.
A major contributor to the current friction has been the explosive growth of app-based delivery services. Delivery workers, many of whom are undocumented immigrants operating under precarious economic conditions, often prioritize invisibility and speed, navigating the city along unpredictable paths with minimal lighting until a collision occurs. While regulations require delivery personnel to wear high-visibility clothing, use proper lighting, stay off sidewalks, and obey one-way street designations, enforcement remains sparse, and the likelihood of receiving a ticket for infractions is low.
City administrations have increasingly pointed to the underlying economics of delivery platforms and the fear of deportation, suggesting that enforcement should target corporate employers rather than vulnerable workers. Yet, negotiating policy changes with major technology corporations takes considerable time, and e-bike operators continue to travel at high speeds. Proposals to establish dedicated bureaucratic oversight, such as a Department of Sustainable Delivery, have faced delays and scaling back, leaving enforcement mechanisms sluggish.
Municipal leaders face mounting pressure to recognize that the perceived vulnerability of pedestrians is a critical quality-of-life issue. The severity of the crisis cannot be measured solely by the tally of fatalities and severe injuries, nor can it be dismissed as a perception unsupported by data. Even as overall crime rates and automobile-related traffic deaths have declined, New York’s streets and parks have grown challenging for populations that are frail, slow, disabled, or small. Seniors, who accounted for less than 15 percent of the city’s population as of recent demographic data, represent a disproportionate share of pedestrian fatalities. Furthermore, parents and guardians find themselves having to keep children close at hand to protect them from high-speed conveyances utilizing pedestrian pathways.
Because Central Park largely excludes standard automobile traffic, its loop roadway serves as a testing ground for potential solutions to calm the current traffic anarchy through a combination of physical design, consistent enforcement, and sensible regulation. Techniques developed and refined within the park can eventually be translated to standard city streets where cars still dominate. Having spent years developing infrastructure designed to accelerate bicycle transit, urban planners and safety advocates are now facing an urgent call to apply that same level of ingenuity toward slowing traffic down, ensuring that public spaces remain genuinely welcoming to all.
