Rome and New York City appear to be on parallel courses for horses that provide tourist rides on city streets. Both cities are considering rules that will limit the horse-drawn carriages to parks and other off-street venues—but the issue is far from settled.
Rome may be closer to completing action with its Capitoline Assembly due to vote next week after approval by Italy’s Mobility Commission and the city’s Environmental Commission. The rules would also ban trips when temperatures exceed 30C, and ban rides between 11 am and 6 pm in the hot summer months. Carriage drivers are angry and claim it is aimed at them, and not at protecting animals.
In New York, where the issue became a hot focus of the 2013 election campaign, and has generated huge amounts of angry rhetoric and screaming headlines on both sides ever since, Mayor Bill Di Blasio last month offered a new plan to restrict the industry to five areas in Central Park, and the war has resumed. Two previous plans were rejected by the City Council.
In New York, the carriages are mostly to be found along 59th Street, also known as Central Park South, the street along the southern edge of the park, and they mostly provide rides on the now car-free park roads.
In my teens, 60-ish years ago, they often ranged farther afield, and could sometimes be seen in traffic blocks away from the park. At that time, they could legally take passengers anywhere in the city—if any were so foolish.
The industry is strongly resisting any plan to park them inside the park. They don’t really want to operate out in the streets, but being there makes them visible and better able to attract passengers who want to ride in the park.
I had never realised that there were horse-drawn carriages in New York. I still cannot square that with my mental image of sky-scrapers and streets full of yellow taxis. Seems a little surreal on the face of it.