New York City Department of Transportation staff presented a concept to Community Board 2’s Traffic & Transportation Committee on Dec. 7 proposing corridor-wide changes to Canal Street, including painted “super sidewalks,” intersection simplification, and connected bike facilities. DOT staff said the project is large in scope and would be phased, with a revised proposal expected in early 2026 and initial implementation beginning in 2026 (with the possibility of additional seasons in 2027).

The presentation framed Canal Street as a high-pedestrian “global corridor” under the city’s Pedestrian Mobility Plan and said current sidewalks fall short of guidance. “Global corridors are ideally supposed to have…25-foot plus sidewalks and a 15-foot clear path,” a DOT planner said, and the agency proposed temporary painted sidewalk extensions and delineators to shorten crossing distances and relieve crowding. DOT said the painted extensions would generally add about 10 to 11 feet of painted sidewalk area block-by-block and that the agency is testing robust edge objects to prevent vehicle encroachment.

Why it matters: Canal Street carries heavy pedestrian flows, transit transfers and through traffic (including truck routes to the Holland Tunnel and Manhattan Bridge). Residents and merchants said they welcome safety work but argued the plan, as presented, risks undermining local deliveries, emergency access and small-business operations if curb parking and loading space are removed without concrete delivery-carveouts and enforcement commitments.

Merchants and medical providers pressed DOT on practical impacts. Eleanor Wong of the Chinatown Core Block Association said DOT’s plan to remove commercial parking on parts of Canal Street would make deliveries and customer drop-offs harder for local bakeries, grocery stores and medical offices. “If you are the owners at the low parking on Canal Street, how would you deliver your goods?” she asked. Doctor Thomas Chan, who said he has practiced medicine on Canal Street for more than 32 years, warned of ambulance and patient-access problems if curb space disappears and told the committee that “we have more than 350 medical providers and two large radiologist facilities and three labs along Canal Street.”

DOT’s response and data: Agency staff said outreach has included a 2022 merchant survey (109 businesses visited, 79 respondents), five on-street outreach events in 2023 and a still-open public survey that had several hundred responses as of late November. DOT said its traffic modeling—developed to protect vehicle capacity where needed for tunnel access—found it could maintain two travel lanes in many places while reallocating adjacent rush-hour curb space to painted sidewalk treatments and bike connections on nearby streets (the agency proposed a two-way protected bike link beginning near Watts Street and connecting to Grand Street).

Vendors and enforcement: Multiple residents and business representatives said sidewalk crowding is exacerbated by legal and illegal sidewalk vending and storefront encroachments, and urged DOT to coordinate with enforcement agencies before or alongside infrastructure changes. DOT acknowledged vendors exacerbate crowding but said even in the absence of vending the sidewalks are narrower than plan guidance and that a combined “yes-and” approach—enforcement plus changes to curb and sidewalk geometry—is needed.

Loading, parking and truck routing: Businesses repeatedly asked how deliveries would be handled if curb parking is removed. DOT said it has done curb-use analysis and merchant interviews to understand loading needs and is running automated counts and cameras that distinguish vehicle types; staff reported about 17% of corridor traffic in their counts was through trips between bridges and the tunnel. DOT also signaled it will analyze routing diagrams and alternative turn/route options as the proposal is revised.

Evaluation, maintenance and funding: DOT said the proposed super sidewalks would be installed with temporary materials (paint, flex posts, planters or granite blocks) and evaluated over time; the agency intends to monitor use and traffic performance at intervals (DOT staff suggested six months to a year is typical for monitoring). If parts of the project are later built as capital work, the city would need separate funding and different maintenance arrangements; DOT said painted extensions would be maintained under a maintenance partner while permanent build-outs could shift maintenance obligations under capital program rules.

Committee action and next steps: Committee chair Janine Kiley said CB2 will draft a resolution collecting the committee’s feedback and send recommendations to DOT; the committee voted by voice to move into business session and prepare that resolution, which the full CB2 board will consider at its Dec. 18 meeting. DOT told the committee it will return after revising plans based on feedback and that staff are continuing outreach to merchants, precincts and other agencies.

What remains unresolved: Community members pressed DOT for clearer, block-level delivery and parking solutions, explicit routing diagrams showing how left-turn bans or lane changes will be handled, and firm multi-agency enforcement commitments to address illegal vending. DOT committed to returning with more detailed curb-regulation proposals, counts and routing diagrams in the next round of outreach.

The committee’s next formal step is a resolution that will summarize the board’s concerns and requests for additional analysis; DOT will respond in a follow-up presentation early next year.