There was no room to exercise. Just dangerous. The noise from cars alone was stressful.
Now, New Yorkers would NEVER allow this to be reversed.
But back then, many people actually opposed banning cars from Central Park 🤦
It took decades of activism to kick these cars out of the park.
I wish op posted a current picture - I missed Central Park the last few times I visited nyc.
I don’t know if we really have similar opportunities here in the Boston areas, but we have a lot of places pedestrianizing downtowns. While we had some for many years, pandemic was a big trigger, but very few became permanent and too many were given back to cars.
I’m especially annoyed at my town. We have a classic “Main Street” with shops and restaurants, right near a train station, commons, museum, etc. they’ve been pushing it for decades as a walkable place …. Businesses got tons of extra traffic when it was pedestrianized. They kept it for summer weekends but just stopped doing that too.
Most residents wanted permanent, town council wanted it permanent …. But we have a strong mayor who didn’t