The New York City Department of Transportation unveiled plans today to dramatically change traffic patterns in Times Square and Herald Square, two of the city's most congested intersections.

The pilot program is called "Green Light for Midtown" and involves closing a few blocks of southbound traffic on Broadway to create pedestrian malls.

"Despite attempts over several decades to address congestion caused by Broadway, the street has remained significant a significant traffic problem, disrupting the grid of avenues and streets, creating complicated intersections and negatively impacting traffic flow throughout Midtown Manhattan," the department maintained.

At Herald Square, the department said that Broadway "competes for green signal time with 6th Avenue & 34th Street," creating "significant delays on 6th Avenue & 34th Street." Planned traffic modifications, it continued, "will give drivers up to 66 % increase in green lights, faster travel times."

At Times Square, it maintained that Broadway creates a complicated intersection with 7th Avenue and "wide crossings require long red lights while pedestrians clear intersections, causing traffic delay." The proposal for Times Square is shown in a rendering at the right.

The department said that under the plan "bus travel times improve for the over 75,000 daily passengers on local routes and that subway riders get more space near two of the city's busiest stations, which serve 300,000 passengers daily."

Although there are 4.5 times as many people as vehicles, it continued, only 11 percent of the street space is currently allocated for pedestrians.

"Broadway at Times Square averages 137 % more pedestrian crashes than at other avenues in the area" and "after DOT made improvements from 42nd to 35th Street in 2008, traffic-related injuries fell by 50 %."

The department also argued that the project will "help economically underperforming areas of Broadway" because "studies show increased foot traffic improves retail sales and rents" and "former bus stops available for new loading zones."

It said that a fire lane will be maintained at all times down Broadway and that greenery will be added at 24 locations and that the plan will create "over 3 acres of new open space."

It estimated that the cost of the program will be about $1.5 million and the department "will use in-house staff and resources to deliver the project this year."

The traffic changes at Times and Herald Squares are planned to take effect Memorial Day weekend.

The department maintained that currently traffic speeds on Seventh Avenue average 43 percent slower north of Times Square than south of it and that on Sixth Avenue traffic speeds average 23 percent slower south of Herald Square than north of it. It anticipates that Seventh Avenue will witness a 17 percent improvement in travel time under the plan and that Sixth Avenue will experience a 37 percent improvement.

The plan will close Broadway to automobile traffic from 47th to 42nd Streets and slightly widen Seventh Avenue. It will also close Broadway to automobile traffic from 35th to 33rd Streets.

According to an article by William Neuman and Michael Barbaro in today's edition of The New York Times officials "are considering creating a similar promenade from 47th Street north to the vicinity of Columbus Circle" on Broadway like the one it created by narrowing Broadway last year from 42nd to 35th Streets.