The idea seems to cut against the very grain of New York: to transform much of the city’s most storied avenue, Broadway, from a river of blaring cars, trucks and taxis into a planter-lined oasis for pedestrians, bicyclists and picnickers.
But on Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled a plan to do just that: Vehicles would be barred entirely from Broadway at public plazas in Times Square and Herald Square, and would share the thoroughfare with a bike lane and a promenade along the rest of the stretch from 59th Street to a new plaza at 23rd Street.
The city plans to start making the changes in late May, and more alterations are possible in the future.
Mr. Bloomberg said the plan would relieve traffic congestion and make more room for pedestrians, enhancing some of the city’s most popular public spaces. But it could also change the very nature of some of Manhattan’s busiest and most famous areas, including the theater district, Times Square, the fashion district and Macy’s front stoop.
“People avoid Times Square because the traffic is so terrible and people are getting pushed out into the streets — the sidewalks can’t handle it,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference in a restaurant at the Marriott Marquis, a hotel overlooking Times Square, where a giant image of the rock star Ozzy Osbourne flashed behind him on an electronic billboard.
“People don’t come to look at cars stuck in traffic,” the mayor said. “They come to look at the lights, the buildings and the excitement, and this is going to have a lot more of it.”
Just as happens with all proposals to change the fabric of the city, this one aroused a range of passionate reactions, many of them driven, not surprisingly, by self-interest: from cabbies, pedestrians, drivers, tourists, business executives and office workers.
“I like the happy hubbub,” said Melissa Gasparis, of Upper Saddle River, N.J., who was strolling through Times Square on Thursday. She said she was afraid the mayor’s plan would make the place less vibrant, because the sidewalks would be less crowded and the streets more free-flowing.
“I like to drive through Times Square,” Ms. Gasparis said. “It cheers me up. It’s big, bright and fun.”
Her mother, Aphrodite Kalonturos, of Delaware, said: “It’s the craziest place in the world. Why change it?”
Joanne Patrick, 62, a high school teacher, vacationing from Seattle, also was concerned that Times Square’s bustle could be diminished, but added that having more space to walk would make pedestrians’ life easier.
“I think it would be safer, especially for people in New York for their first time,” Ms. Patrick said. “They’re so awestruck by what they’re seeing that they don’t pay attention to what’s going on.”
The centerpiece of the mayor’s plan calls for shutting down Broadway to vehicles from 47th Street to 42nd Street in Times Square and from 35th Street to 33rd Street at Herald Square. In those blocks, large new plazas would be created, with a gravelly surface and movable chairs and tables with umbrellas. Crosstown traffic would continue to cross Broadway in both areas, as it does now.
City officials said the arrangement would make traffic move more freely, eliminating the backups that often occur where Broadway intersects with avenues. In Times Square, all downtown vehicular traffic would run on Seventh Avenue.
Officials said traffic would improve the most at Avenue of the Americas, where it intersects with Broadway at 34th Street. At that spot, officials said, the green light for traffic on the avenue, which heads uptown, would be lengthened to 53 seconds from 32 seconds. The duration of green lights on 34th Street at the intersection would also be lengthened slightly.
At Seventh Avenue in Times Square, the green light will last 54 seconds under the new plan, an increase from 45 seconds.
“We expect both travel times and safety on these avenues and streets to improve — and in some cases substantially — as a result of these changes,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
He said that the traffic patterns on Broadway would be changed on Memorial Day weekend in late May. Work to create the plazas would be finished over the summer. If the completed project is considered successful at the end of the year, it is to be retained.
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