Sounds like a classic case of design telling the story. Times Square is a maze of crosswalks, billboards, and a few pockets of pedestrian priority. If you pull the foot‑traffic data, the geometry of the plaza forces people to bottleneck in the middle, which creates those crowded dance floors in the evenings. I’d dig into the sensor counts, the width of each lane, and how the signage nudges movement—then see if the numbers back the design’s intent or if it’s just chaos dressed as culture. What’s the angle you’re shooting for?

That’s a solid playbook. First step—get the raw sensor feeds and stitch them with the exact crosswalk dimensions. Next, tag each timestamp with the billboard’s lighting state; you’ll see when the screens are bright, dim, or changing. Once you’ve got the overlay, plot the density curves. Look for peaks that align with the intended gathering zones—those should spike during the light’s “highlight” phases. If the spikes are elsewhere, it’s a sign the visual cues aren’t pulling people where they should. Then you can recommend tweaking the sign placement or nudging a lane’s width a couple of inches. The trick is keeping the geometry clear and the flow natural—no unintended crush points. Let me know if you hit any data snags.