Recently, I’ve been doing a bit of driving in midtown New York City, where many of the crosstown streets are marked as NO TURNS – not even a right turn on green! I’m not complaining; I understand that even a right turn slows down the traffic and that these rules do help cars get across town faster.
But I’m finding that I need to go quite a bit out of my way until I can finally turn around and head home. If I could plan my trip in advance, it would help a lot.
Google Maps and Yahoo Maps and such do a very good job of showing one-way streets, but I need one which will also show me where I can turn and where I can’t turn. Surely there must be such a site somewhere. Can someone point it out to me? Thanks!
(PS: A lot of these intersections are No Turns only at certain times of the day, or certain days of the week. Ideally, such a map would contain this info too.)
Those streets are the “thru streets,” part of a NYC program to handle traffic. From the NYC.gov website, they are:
36th Street and 37th Street,
45th Street and 46th Street,
49th Street and 50th Street,
53rd Street and 54th Street
60th Street (Turns from 59th Street are permitted.)
Searching on “Thru Streets”, I found this page, which might be the one that WoodenTaco referred to. In any case, it seems very clear that 42nd Street is NOT part of the “Thru Streets” program. This merely serves to highlight the need for some sort of map which has ALL this information, whether part of the Thru Streets program or not.
The idea of driving across town on 42nd St. is pretty insane, especially during the holiday season when tourists are mobbing the Times Square area. Even normally, a pedestrian will walk faster than a city bus and likely any other motor vehicle at rush hour. Why are you doing it and when?
When: Around 10-11 PM, with hardly any traffic at all. (Well, compared to what that area is like during the daytime.)
Why: A friend spends some time with me in NJ. I drop him off at the F train so that he can continue home to Brooklyn in about the same amount of time that it would take me to drive him there. After dropping him off, I want to just turn around and get back to the Lincoln Tunnel ASAP. I figure I could save at least 10 minutes if I didn’t have to go all the way to Park Avenue. Maybe that’s not much, but if I can, I’d like to.
Going from the west, towards the east, I did expect to be able to turn right onto a one-way southbound street such as Broadway. (Think about it. Picture it.) It was only the “No Turns except buses” sign which prevented me.
If you’re willing to experiment, once you exit the Lincoln Tunnel you can go south (right instead of left to 42nd) on Dyer, then make a left on 36th, go over to 7th, drop off your friend (he’ll have to walk a block over to Herald Square at 34th to get the train), go down 7th to 31st, make a right and pick up the tunnel off of that little doohickey from 31st past the post office. Or you could probably make a right on Broadway at that hour down there if door to door service is required.
I live in NJ and go to the City quite often and I always do this, even if I’m heading uptown. It beats waiting to get on 42nd and dealing with the traffic. Just make sure to get in the far right hand lane of the far right tunnel. Just don’t let anyone else in on this.
If I’m going uptown out of the tunnel I’ll usually make a left on 41st, go to the end of the block, then go up 10th. It goes around 42nd and isn’t too bad most of the time.
