Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Brace for the slowest Manhattan traffic of the year. The UN is in town.
By
Louis C. Hochman
Published Sep 23, 2024
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images
By
Louis C. Hochman
Published Sep 23, 2024
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
And you thought traffic was bad already.
The New York City Department of Transportation says motorists should expect the slowest traffic of the year in Midtown with the United Nations General Assembly in town this week — and it's just the start of a season of “gridlock alert” days.
Average vehicle traffic speeds dip below 4 mph (typical traffic is somewhere between 4 and 6 mph) during the General Assembly, the transportation department said in an alert that pleaded for New Yorkers to instead take mass transit. Every weekday through Friday, Sept. 27 has been designated as one of the city’s 20 coming gridlock days of 2024.
Transportation officials expect to continue providing a temporary bike lane for cyclists and micro-mobility users through a portion of Midtown. Work continues to make the design permanent.
The following streets are closed during the General Assembly, according to an NYPD alert:
- First Avenue from 34th to 51st Streets
- 42nd Street between First and Second avenues until 7 p.m. each day
- 44th, 46th and 48th streets between First and Second avenues
A more exhaustive list of roads affected by the General Assembly and other events is available from the Department of Transportation.
Midtown speeds are, on average, the slowest they’ve been since records have been kept, according to a report released Friday by traffic expert Sam Schwartz — a former city traffic commissioner credited with popularizing the term “gridlock” — and state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, whose district includes much of Manhattan's West Side. Traffic speeds were about 20% higher a decade ago, according to the report. It said as a result, response times for medical, police and fire vehicles have suffered severely.
(Schwartz is a proponent of the off-again, maybe-eventually-on-again congestion pricing plan Gov. Kathy Hochul indefinitely paused earlier this year.)
Don’t expect any improvements during the holiday season. The transportation department says to expect gridlock days on Nov. 20-22 and 26; then again on Dec. 4-6, 10-13 and 17-19.
Tagged
manhattan
transportation
Louis C. Hochman
After about two decades in (mostly) New Jersey-focused commercial print, digital and digital-but-radio-adjacent news, Lou stumbled into member-supported news in early 2021, as the editor and CEO of Montclair Local. There, he (hopes he) expanded enterprise, brought more sophistication to digital storytelling and moved the nonprofit newsroom closer to long-term financial sustainability. He helped lead the Local to its fourth consecutive General Excellence award from the New Jersey Press Association — the NJPA's highest honor with judges noting the paper's work to strip away layers of government opacity, to hold power to account, to make news accessible for more members of the community, to share the stories and concerns of more facets of the community and to tell compelling stories across multiple media. He's excited to continue the same ethic — news as a public service — at NYPR as the New Jersey and suburbs editor, drawing on the extraordinary talents of reporters including Karen Yi and Nancy Solomon. Lou lives in Philly (that commute!) with his partner and their two cats, about whom and about which he speaks incessantly.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Central Park birders, others remember 63-year-old woman killed in park
People who said they knew her described her as an artist and a familiar presence in the Ramble.
By
Charles Lane
Published Sep 28, 2026 at 7:04 p.m. ET
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on 34th Street in Midtown, NYPD says
It's the latest in a string of hit-and-run deaths in the city in recent months.
By
Liam Quigley
News
Dump truck driver hits and kills cyclist on 34th Street in Midtown, NYPD says
It's the latest in a string of hit-and-run deaths in the city in recent months.
By
Liam Quigley
New ingredient mandated for Latin American kitchen, restaurant plates in NJ
By
Arya Sundaram
A Brooklyn jail cell filled with smoke. The emergency button failed, a lawyer said.
By
Samantha Max
Crews launch tunnel machines to dig first new Hudson River rail tunnels since 1910
By
Michael Sol Warren
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .