Can bans: Your city could be next

Manatees, fittingly called “sea cows,” drift languidly through the shallow ocean at 5 mph, munching on plants and fattening up to 1,300 pounds. For much of 2019, the sluggish creatures swam faster than New York City’s 14th Street bus, the M14A. The bus typically inched across car-clogged Manhattan at around 4 mph — so slow that local transit groups crowned M14A the slowest bus in The Big Apple

Yet in early October 2019, the maligned 14th Street buses were bestowed a change of fate. The city banned private vehicles from driving — or, more aptly, sitting in bumper to bumper traffic — on 14th Street, a route striking straight through the heart of Manhattan. For 16 hours a day, essentially only buses and trucks are now allowed on a vital stretch of 14th Street. A sea of polluting, honking automobiles has parted; the municipal buses can taste freedom Read more...