Brace for the slowest Manhattan traffic of the year. The UN is in town.

Sept. 23, 2024, 6:01 a.m.

And it's not going to get much better through the 2024 holiday season.

A police traffic officer gestures as traffic is restricted due to the U.N. General Assembly in 2021.

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.