Redesign Central Park Drives to Improve Safety and Undertake New Paving

The repaving schedule for the southern section of the Central Park drives, weather permitting. Credit: NYC DOT

Repaving Will Begin in Southern Section of Central Park on March 17

The next step in a redesign of Central Park’s Drives was announced today. The milling and repaving of the drives will begin Monday, March 17, as part of the planned redesign of the park’s six-mile loop road to improve safety and more clearly designate space for pedestrians and cyclists. This work is based on a study undertaken by the Conservancy in collaboration with NYC DOT and NYC Parks published last fall.

NYC DOT will first focus on milling and repaving the middle and southern portion of the park’s loop this year, from 96^th Street on the West Drive to 90^th Street on the East Drive, with the repaving of the northern section of the park loop to take place next year after the Davis Center at the Harlem Meer opens this spring.

NYC DOT will take advantage of the repaving to redesign the Park loop this spring to: 

• Allocate space consistently across the drives for different user groups to more clearly delineate an inner pedestrian lane.
• Better separate pedestrians from cyclists and other higher-speed users.
• Modify signals to clearly designate them for cyclists to improve compliance
• Better direct pedestrians to the historic archways to reduce conflicts on the drives.

NYC DOT will work with Parks and the Conservancy to expand walking and running space along most segments of the drives while repurposing the outdated, dedicated vehicle lane as a “flex lane” dedicated to faster cyclists and essential vehicle access. The redesign will more clearly define where each park user belongs on the drives and will better separate pedestrians from other park users while also improving each crossing including the complicated crossings at 72^nd Street and Center Drive.

Following repaving and during the next stage of the project, at crosswalks along the drives, NYC DOT will reconfigure every traffic light to replace the standard traffic lights with lights featuring bicycle symbols. At low-volume crosswalks, traffic lights may be removed and replaced with ‘pedestrian crossing’ and ‘active bike lane’ warning signage. Final signal designs for medium and high volume crossings will vary by location.

NYC Parks will work closely with NYC DOT and the Conservancy to improve in-park cycling connections by adjusting existing Central Parks bike paths, adding new bike paths along the 86^th Street Bridle Path, and better connecting cycling paths to the street grid. 

Repaving Schedule

The agency expects to complete milling and paving over roughly six weeks, weather permitting, during weeknights beginning at 9 p.m. and finishing as late as 4 a.m. Work will take place in segments, with milling planned for Monday through Wednesday nights and paving to follow on Thursday and Friday nights so that there are no unpaved roadway segments on weekends. Variable Message Signs (VMS) along the park will alert users of the construction.

The drives will not be closed during construction, but bikers and pedestrians should use caution when traversing the milled sections. Restriping of the road and all crosswalks will happen following the repaving.