As a New Yorker, let me just assure you that it wasn’t really designed with crosstown traffic in mind. If you’re going from West 69th and say, 10th Ave, to East 69th and 2nd, you’re in for a shitshow no matter what you do. This includes walking (try not to be ran over by an Uber walking through Central Park late at night). Taking the subway(what subway line goes from upper east to upper west?? Hahahah you’re fucked!) Or taking a crosstown bus (Takes almost an hour to go from 10th avenue to 2nd avenue cause you’re gonna have to go all the way up/down to the cross park street).
Multiple smaller parks would probably be much better, or just, y’know, having space for trees outside of the designated tree infrastructure.