New York studio Edg has proposed converting some of Manhattan's major roads into public-transit highways for driverless vehicles, in order to reduce travel times and turn the island's central thoroughfares into landscaped parks.

Edg's project, named Loop NYC, envisions swapping existing cross streets and highways for "driverless expressways" that could shuttle people around the city in a fraction of the time.
The West Side Highway and FDR Drive would have one lane in each direction reserved for autonomous public vehicles, which would connect to the bridges and tunnels to help manage the flow of incoming traffic.

Dual-direction cross streets ? 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd, 57th, 86th and 110th ? would also have lanes exclusively reserved for driverless cars or buses, creating a series of loops down the island for them to whizz around. The self-driving vehicles would remain separated from the general road traffic to help avoid accidents, while overpasses and underpasses would be constructed to ensure the safety of pedestrians.

Edg calculated that their system would reduce the journey from Grand Central Station to Lower Manhattan and back from 40 minutes to 11 minutes.
"This could save the average New Yorker an average of 30 minutes on their daily commute, which, over the course of a lifetime, would yield the return of a full year," said the studio.

The team also believe that the driverless-car network would allow them to convert other roads into green public...