The Unrealized Potential of New York City’s Open Streets
A FOUR-MONTH PROGRESS REPORT ON THE OPEN STREETS PROGRAM IN NEW YORK CITY
Contents
How We Got Here: Timeline of the New York City Open Streets Program
Where We Are: Analysis of the New York City Open Streets Program
What Has Worked: Successes of the New York City Open Streets Program
What Needs Improvement: Shortcomings of the New York City Open Streets Program
Conclusion: How Open Streets Can Aid New York City’s Recovery
In the four months since New York City shut down in response to the coronavirus outbreak, it has become increasingly evident that our recovery will require a paradigm shift. Today, subway ridership is down while use of buses and bicycles surge, retail and cultural institutions remain largely shuttered, indoor dining remains on hold, and the city’s usually-bustling business districts are quiet as many continue to work from home. This new reality indicates a need for public, car-free, outdoor space in every neighborhood — in particular space for pedestrians, bus and bike transportation, for the reopening of dining, retail, schools, and cultural institutions, and for an equitable distribution of public space.
Open Streets, any stretch of roadway that has been “opened” to people by full closure or restricted access to vehicle traffic, remain our best tool to respond to these needs and are integral to New York City’s recovery.
If New York City can reimagine these spaces as connected car-free networks for moving people by bus, bike or on foot; reopening schools, restaurants, and retail; redistributing space in a crowded city in a way that is fair, we can reclaim our future. And, in so doing, we can help address decades of inequitable policies that have disproportionately impacted low income communities of color across New York City.
To date, the City of New York has taken steps towards this ambitious goal, including promising: 100 miles of Open Streets, which represents roughly 1.6 percent of the city’s total street mileage, 20 miles of bus lanes, 18.07 miles of temporary bike lanes, over 9,000 Open Restaurants, and 16 Cool Streets. We commend the City, especially the Department of Transportation, for advancing this important work during a very difficult period, with limited staff and growing budget cuts.
Despite this progress, this report finds that New York City’s current program lacks vision and ambition in using Open Streets as a serious tool to support our city’s recovery and transportation needs. At present, the program remains a disconnected network of public space islands with management challenges. While pocket parks and outdoor restaurants are helpful, they will not solve our transportation crisis or revive our economy. These should be finishing touches on top of a connected system to keep New York moving — not New York City’s small answer to a giant problem.
Consider what awaits us. Subway ridership remains down 77 percent as car traffic grows steadily, already approaching pre-pandemic levels even before New York City fully reopens. This comes with real consequences: speeding tickets are double what they were this time last year, and traffic fatalities for June were up by more than a third.
“I have seen kids learning how to ride their bikes, people pulling their groceries in wagons down the street, people walking dogs, Revel lessons. The street is quieter than I’ve ever known it.”
Given these problematic trends, there are also clear indicators that Open Streets are a solution. While subway ridership fell precipitously, bus ridership rose, surpassing subway ridership for the first time in 50 years. Bicycling is also booming, with a surge in ridership and ownership. Even bike share use is only down 9 percent from this time last year for the most recent week available, despite the drop in number of daily commuters. These transportation choices can support even more New Yorkers and support our recovery if New York City will get serious about the potential of Open Streets, by building car-free bus- and bike-ways.
Consider the ambitious and effective ways that Open Streets are being used to aid recoveries around the world. For example, when Paris closed 60 miles of streets to cars, the city focused its efforts on closing the most traffic-clogged streets, such as Rue de Rivoli, to be opened for cyclists and pedestrians only. Compare this to New York’s disconnected and limited Open Streets segments, which are largely located on some of the least-used streets in the city, and thus are unable to contribute meaningfully to the transportation network. Paris is also using this moment to shift the city’s transportation priorities, and with promises to eliminate a majority of all on-street parking in the city center and make every street bicycle-friendly by 2024. London is also banning cars from large swaths of the central city, again with a focus on how these Open Streets connect for transportation. Even smaller cities are dramatically outshining New York City. In Oakland, California, the location of 75 miles of Open Streets focuses on local transportation as decided by communities, and involved a lengthy public process that began long before the pandemic.
In New York City, we face urgent and interrelated crises of public health, transportation, economics, and inequality that precede the crisis and are exacerbated by it. Consider just the division of open space in New York, which impacts everything from the ability to exercise, to the speed of local through-traffic, to property values, to the ability to safely maintain physical distance. In poor New York City neighborhoods, average park acreage is less than half of what it is in wealthy neighborhoods; white neighborhoods have more than three times the average park acreage.
Open Streets are an efficient and cost effective tool to address these crises. But despite a promising start of Open Streets as a tool for mobility and economic recovery, months of lead time, and endless warnings of what challenges await, Mayor de Blasio has failed to take seriously either the potential of Open Streets or the threat of what comes next — a stalled economy, a city of unending gridlock, and a missed opportunity to address a longstanding inequity built into our streets and sidewalks.
As of this writing, Mayor de Blasio has announced locations for 68.74 miles of a promised 100 miles of Open Streets in New York City. In the following report, Transportation Alternatives (TA) conducted an analysis of every active, announced, and eliminated Open Street in New York City by type, length, location, implementation priority, management structure, as well as demographics such as race, income, and level of unemployment. We documented the experiences of New Yorkers who live near Open Streets in every borough, and the leaders of local community groups who are managing their local Open Streets. We found that Open Streets are ripe with potential, but in general, suffer from management challenges, subpar and scant materials used to delineate car-free spaces, inequitable locations scattered without an understanding of need, and lengths far too short to contribute meaningfully to transportation networks. Highlights of this research include:
Scope
Half of citywide Open Streets are 0.16 miles or less in length.
Open Streets average just 0.22 miles in length, excluding “pop-up” bike lanes.
Only 37 percent of New Yorkers live within walking distance of an Open Street.
Only 7.88 miles, or 44 percent, of the proposed 18.07 miles of “pop-up” bike lanes have been implemented.
More than a quarter of Open Streets mileage, excluding promised “pop-up” bike lanes, is located in or adjacent to parks, where open space is least needed.
Equity
Until a wave of Black Lives Matter protests swept across the city in June, Open Streets were largely inequitable and unequal, concentrated in wealthier, majority-white neighborhoods. At the time, of those New Yorkers who lived within walking distance of an Open Street, only 16 percent were Black, while 39 percent were white. Today, 20.5 percent of New Yorkers who live within walking distance of an Open Street are Black.
Prior to mid-June, New York City households with an income of more than $200,000 were 50 percent more likely to live near an Open Street.
Today, Open Streets are more equal, but remain inequitable. The 37 percent of New Yorkers who live within walking distance of an Open Street now reflect the demographics of New York City. However, while the latest round of Open Streets announcements did make access more equitable based on demographics, anecdotal reports continue to point to inequity in the way these Open Streets are managed.
Inequity appears in issues with community relationships in the Bronx where only 1.3% of Open Streets mileage is managed by local partners. Community-managed Open Streets are important for a variety of reasons, including reduced police presence and empowered community control.
The promised Open Street “pop-up” bike lanes remain unequal and inequitable. Manhattan will receive 54 percent of promised Open Street “pop-up” bike lane mileage, despite already being the New York City borough with the most bike lanes (half of all of New York City’s protected bike lanes are in Manhattan). Brooklyn and Queens will receive 21 percent and 25 percent of promised Open Street “pop-up” bike lane mileage, respectively.
Staten Island and the Bronx will receive none of the promised Open Street “pop-up” bike lanes. This is an especially egregious disparity considering that an equal percentage of residents in Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx ride bicycles, and nearly half of cyclist fatalities to date in 2020 occurred in the Bronx.
Melodie Bryant
Management
The average number of hours that Open Streets in Manhattan are in operation is significantly less than other boroughs. Open Streets are in operation for the greatest number of hours, on average, in the Bronx.
Of 243 Open Streets, six have been reduced in length and eleven eliminated entirely without warning. Nearly 2.5 miles of Open Streets have gone missing. The majority of Open Streets that were shrunk or eliminated were under New York Police Department (NYPD) management.
The vast majority of anecdotal reports of “pop-up” bike lanes find these lanes to be poorly marked, blocked by parked cars, or dismantled. Anecdotal reports of Open Streets are more mixed, with mismanagement falling along racial and economic lines.
Open Restaurants differs from the model of New York City’s longstanding Street Seats program, which requires businesses maintain public access to seating in public space.
The majority of Open Restaurants are located in Manhattan, with 2,100 permits. There are a similar number of Open Restaurants in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island combined.
The majority of Open Restaurants utilize both the sidewalk and streets. However, in every borough, at least one-third of restaurants located their seating on the sidewalk alone. In Staten Island and the Bronx, nearly half of Open Restaurants locate their seating on the sidewalk alone.
From these findings, TA concludes that while Open Streets remain a tool for New York City’s recovery ripe with potential, current implementation fails to meet that ambition. This failure appears in construction, management, location, and vision. TA found the Open Streets replicate existing racial and economic disparities, and fail to address New York City’s transportation system or economy.
Despite these shortcomings, by all accounts Open Streets appear well-attended, essential for a struggling hospitality industry, and appreciated by the grateful New Yorkers who can access them. Their attendance alone makes a strong case for their permanence, expansion, and potential as a recovery aid. Open Streets must be distributed citywide and useful for transportation and economic recovery. This distribution should be equitable, meeting the needs of New Yorkers starting with the most needful. Open Streets must come with protection from traffic violence, safety from police harassment, and assurances to serve their community over any other interests. To that end, TA recommends that Mayor de Blasio:
Scope
Expand and extend the Open Streets program. Add more miles to more neighborhoods. Lengthen existing Open Streets, and refocus them as transportation corridors by converting more major arterial streets into Open Streets.
Connect Open Streets. Develop Open Streets into a network of connected car-free bus- and bike-ways. Create Open Streets along subway lines and on the most congested transportation corridors.
Make Open Streets permanent. Set goals of permanent car-free or restricted car access areas of the city. Permanent Open Streets can address the crises of today and seed a paradigm shift in transportation tomorrow, reducing the harm of traffic crashes, broadening transportation choices, addressing long-standing equity issues, and helping to meet climate goals.
Melodie Bryant
Equity
Correct inequities in Open Streets distribution. Locate Open Streets, including “pop-up” bike lanes, to right historic and modern inequities in infrastructure investment and in partnership with those communities. Reduce Open Streets in proximity to parkland and use Open Streets to correct inequities in open space. Locate new Open Streets in locations where there is the least open space and the fewest transportation choices.
Invest in communities to avoid police-managed Open Streets. Police presence can make Open Streets unsafe for people of color. There is also a long history of government forcing transportation plans on communities of color. Create a system for community participation in Open Streets so neighborhoods can define their own needs for the open space, and empower and finance local community organizations to manage them.
Lift caps on street vendor licenses. Low-income immigrant business owners should benefit from Open Streets, as restaurants have been permitted to, as a recovery model. This starts rolling back restrictions on street vendors license to match rollbacks on sidewalk cafe permit restrictions.
@andrewmartonik
Management
Reinforce Open Streets with immovable materials. In the interim, invest in signage and reinforced materials that clearly delineates and protects Open Streets and “pop-up” bike lanes from vehicle traffic.
Put seating for Open Restaurants in the street not on the sidewalk. If seating for some reason must be located on the sidewalk, create an expanded path for people to walk safely in parking lanes or the street.
Protect Open Restaurants from speeding drivers. Wherever possible, close Open Restaurant streets to all car traffic to eliminate the risk of diners being injured or killed in a traffic crash. Where it is not possible to close the street to cars, lower the speed limit to 10 mph on Open Restaurant streets, employ mobile speed cameras, and daylight intersections adjacent to in-street dining tables to reduce speeding.
What follows is an analysis of all available data on New York City’s Open Streets program. This data is supported by anecdotal evidence. TA’s analysis appears in two sections: “What Has Worked” and “What Needs Improvement.”
All Open Streets
Implementation
All numbers below are based on announced and planned Open Streets as dictated in published accounts from the New York City Department of Transportation and press releases from Mayor Bill de Blasio. However, even these numbers may not accurately reflect the reality on the street. Implementation of these Open Streets has been scattered. Only a fraction of promised “pop-up” bike lanes have been implemented. For example, 1.1 miles of bike lanes were promised for Fort Greene, Brooklyn by May 27. To date, this has not been implemented. Of 243 promised Open Streets, six have been shrunk and 11 eliminated without warning. Nearly 2.5 miles of Open Streets have gone missing. The majority of Open Streets that were shrunk or eliminated were under NYPD management.
Mileage and Location
As of this writing, New York City has announced or created 68.74 miles of Open Streets, including Open Restaurants for dining and “pop-up” bike lanes. The average length of a New York City Open Street is 0.28 miles. If the limited number of promised “pop-up” bike lanes is excluded from this number, the average length of an Open Street in New York City is 0.22 miles. A full 26 percent of Open Streets mileage is promised or already implemented “pop-up” bike lanes. In fact, 84 percent of Open Streets are less than a half mile long.
Some Open Streets are located adjacent to, or inside of, New York City parks. More than a quarter of Open Streets mileage, excluding “pop-up” bike lanes, is located in or adjacent to parks, where open space is least needed. About 18 percent of Open Streets mileage is adjacent to parks, and nine percent of Open Streets mileage is located within parks. "Aside from "pop-up" bike lanes, Open Streets within parks are on average the longest types of Open Streets."
Broken down by borough, the vast majority of Open Streets mileage is located in Brooklyn and Manhattan, the two boroughs accounting for 62 percent of all Open Streets mileage. Queens is home to 26 percent of Open Streets mileage. Together, the Bronx and Staten Island make up only 12 percent of Open Streets mileage, with 9 percent and three percent per borough, respectively.
Further broken down by borough, Queens and Staten Island are home to the longest Open Streets, and the Bronx is home to the shortest. 54 percent of Open Streets mileage on Staten Island are adjacent to or within parks. The situation is somewhat better in the Bronx and Queens, where more than a quarter of Open Streets mileage is adjacent to or within parks, at 29 percent and 28 percent respectively.
Looking exclusively at “pop-up” bike lanes, these disparities are far worse. (See “Open Streets for “Pop-Up” Bike Lanes” below.)
Management
The majority of New York City’s Open Streets are managed by the New York Police Department, and a minority by a local Business Improvement District (BID) or community partner. This excludes many Open Restaurants, which are managed by the restaurant and enforced by the Department of Health. All “pop-up” bike lane Open Streets are managed by the NYPD and Department of Transportation (DOT).
When excluding pop-up bike lanes, the NYPD manages 77 percent of Open Streets, BIDs manage 12 percent of Open Streets and local partners manage 10 percent.
Broken down by borough, NYPD management dominates in the Bronx and Brooklyn, where 70 and 61 percent of Open Street mileage is maintained by NYPD officers. Manhattan and Staten Island are home to the most Open Streets managed by BIDs and local partners, but this is still a minority, at 27 and 18 percent combined, respectively.
Hours
Outside of “pop-up” bike lane Open Streets, which are intended to be open 24 hours a day, but appear to rarely remain intact for more than a few hours, Open Streets have limited daily schedules. In general, these Open Streets are intended to be in operation from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week. Not including “pop-up” bike lanes, Open Streets are in operation an average of 73 hours a week. However, these operating hours are not equal borough to borough. The average number of hours that Open Streets in Manhattan are in operation is significantly less than other boroughs, at 66.6 hours per week. Open Streets are in operation for the highest number of hours, on average, in the Bronx, at 80.6 hours per week. Open Streets in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island are in operation for an average of 75.4, 73.8, and 74.4 hours, respectively, per week.
@lizadarwin
Materials
There is no public data on the material used to protect New Yorkers from car-traffic on Open Streets. Anecdotally, it appears that most Open Streets are delineated by a single NYPD wooden sawhorse with no traffic cones and a single 8.5 x 11 inch sign. These signs, which read “local traffic only,” address drivers alone. “Pop-up” bike lane Open Streets appear to be delineated by lightweight orange barrels and the word “bike” spray painted on the asphalt.
Anecdotally, on all Open Streets, barricades dismantled by drivers and vehicles or stopped in the bike lanes appear to be the norm. Barricades were found to be dismantled in Rego Park, makeshift in Midwood, and destroyed by drivers in Kensington, to cite just a few of many examples. One cyclist attended 44 of Brooklyn’s 79 Open Streets in a single day and found that the majority were not even closed to car traffic, and that this problem was significantly worse in Black neighborhoods.
Open Streets for “Pop-Up” Bike Lanes
Of the 68.74 miles of promised Open Streets, 26 percent or 18.07 miles, are “pop-up” bike lanes. The distribution of these bike lanes is inequitable.
Manhattan is home to 54 percent of Open Streets “pop-up” bike lane mileage, despite already being the New York City borough with the most protected bike lanes. Brooklyn and Queens are home to 21 percent and 25 percent of Open Streets “pop-up” bike lane mileage, respectively. Staten Island and the Bronx each received 0 percent of the Open Streets “pop-up” bike lanes. An equal percentage of residents in Queens and the Bronx ride bicycles, and nearly half of cyclist fatalities in 2020 were located in the Bronx.
Open Restaurants
After New York State permitted city restaurant owners to reopen for outdoor dining, and the City of New York rolled back sidewalk cafe restrictions, allowing restaurants to create private seating on public streets and sidewalks, the response from restaurant owners was enthusiastic. As of this writing, more than 9,000 restaurants applied for permits to create outdoor seating and were approved. This number is rising by around 100 permits a day.
The majority of Open Restaurants are located in Manhattan, with 4,300 permits. There are a similar number of Open Streets for Outdoor Dining in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island combined.
Open Restaurants are permitted to be located on sidewalks or in on-street parking spaces. The majority of Open Restaurants utilize both the sidewalk and streets. However, in every borough, at least one-third of restaurants located their seating on the sidewalk alone. In Staten Island and the Bronx, nearly half of Open Restaurants locate their seating on the sidewalk alone.
A note on busways
In addition to the Open Streets and “pop-up” bike lanes, the City recently announced 3.5 miles of car-free busways following the model of the successful and now permanent 14th Street busway. An additional 16.5 miles of bus lanes were also announced. Although these bus lanes are not technically part of the Open Streets program and therefore not included in the analysis, they are welcome and promising additions to the city’s transportation network.
The simple existence of New York City’s Open Streets program is an undoubted success. Launched in a matter of weeks, under pandemic conditions with limited staff, in a city on PAUSE, the program has brought desperately needed open space to many New Yorkers. By all accounts, the people of New York City lucky enough to live near a well-maintained Open Street find great pleasure in the car-free reprieve from the status quo of dangerous traffic and pollution.
“Open Streets helped... as many lost jobs and were confined to home. The children got a chance to step out and get sun as well as ride their bikes. Elderly came to stretch and walk.”
The Open Streets program also successfully worked out early kinks, like the alienating problem of an NYPD presence. Early iterations of the Open Streets program were heavily policed. Responsive to this, the City of New York devised a model of Open Streets where a constant police presence would not be necessary.
It is clear that the Open Restaurants program has been a lifeline for small business owners, who flocked to the opportunity to safely reopen. In an economic downturn, this is a boon for the local economy. Additionally, the rapid deployment of restaurant seating is an indicator of how quickly our street space can be reallocated when the will to action is present. As of this report’s publishing, over 9,000 restaurants in a matter of a few weeks have self-certified as a part of this program and therefore breathing life into restaurants and allowing tens of thousands of staff to return to work. This success has led to calls from other industries for similar programs to use streets as a tool to support small businesses, retail, and cultural institutions.
@evgrieve
The greatest shortcoming of New York City’s Open Streets program is scale. In the midst of a transportation crisis, while traffic levels were at an all-time low, and few enthusiastic about a return to the subway, the City of New York failed to build a surface transportation plan to stop the increase inf traffic congestion. While other cities eliminated parking to build bike- and bus-ways during the lull, New York built instead a smattering of disconnected Open Streets completely unsuited for transportation. By sprinkling Open Streets around the city in short one-off segments, the City of New York failed to show the ambition necessary for this program to fully aid New York City’s recovery.
Historically, the most successful programs to close streets to cars and open them to people focus on traversable lengths for biking and walking. New York City’s beloved Summer Streets program, which runs for seven uninterrupted miles, is one prime example. The car-free 14th Street busway, which stretches river to river, is another. With these successful examples in mind, the average 0.22 mile length of Open Streets hinders their success.
“This initial shortening from 10 blocks to four blocks, and then its complete removal, was done without advance notice. There was confusion after the shortening who was responsible - whether it was the 49th Precinct failing to carry out the full open street, or DOT, or mayor’s orders.”
It appears to have taken widespread Black Lives Matter protests for Open Streets to extend meaningfully beyond wealthy white neighborhoods. This is unfortunate. Considering inequities in infrastructure investment, unequal parkland distribution, the transmission risk of overcrowded housing, and disparate COVID-19 outcomes, equitable distribution of Open Streets should have been a priority from the start. The neighborhoods most affected by coronavirus, most overlooked for infrastructure improvements, and most suffering under crowded conditions should have been the priority for all street redesign and especially for this quick-implementation program. Based on the promised plans for “pop-up” bike lane Open Streets, extensive inequalities remain in the plan. Shockingly, zero miles of “pop-up” bike lanes are planned for the Bronx and Staten Island.
More than half of Open Streets mileage is managed by local police precincts. In general, NYPD management of Open Streets runs the risk of creating unsafe spaces for people of color. Having the NYPD manage Open Streets can signal to communities of color, who face disproportionate police violence and harassment, that they are not welcome there.
Generally and anecdotally, the management of Open Streets could use improvement. This is more than an issue of flimsy barricades being moved. Open Streets have been shrunk and eliminated entirely without warning. Some of these reductions have been politically driven, like on Rhinelander Avenue in the Bronx and Front Street on Staten Island. Any time public space access is subject to political debate, the politically powerful win and the majority of New Yorkers lose.
“The wooden barricades are heavy and wear down from moving. Fortunately without my asking, my precinct dropped by two metal barricades and they work great. Drivers respect them.”
Those Open Streets that have not disappeared in the night often lack oversight or active monitoring. This has led to a recurrence of Open Streets which are set up every morning and dismantled by afternoon. This is especially detrimental because the most successful car-free street closure programs are a success thanks to deep community involvement and organizing, or other partnerships.
The majority of Open Streets are established with a scarcity of materials and appear poorly maintained, putting people at risk. Shortcomings in management and materials appear to be a regular occurrence on Open Streets, with barricades knocked down, driven around, removed, or forgotten. One way to solve this problem is with better materials, which other cities have done by implementing a combination of barrels and sawhorses, signage that indicates the rules and purpose of the Open Street, painting the street itself, and using sandbags to weigh down barriers. But New York City itself has already long-since solved the problem of the hastily-implemented car-free street, as it did when declaring Times Square car-free. The early days of that program were managed with traffic barrels and $12 lawn chairs. The clear success of the program should be a model for Open Streets.
The Open Restaurants program has allowed thousands of restaurants to reopen, however without following the precedent of the DOT’s Street Seats program, which required that restaurant seating in the public right of way remain open to the public. In general, this program is over reliant on sidewalk space. New York City’s streets dedicate over three-quarters of space to moving and parking cars and less than one quarter is dedicated for sidewalks. The city should do more to encourage restaurants to apply for outdoor dining in parking spaces, while requiring that space to remain public.
Notably, when the City of New York rolled back nearly all restrictions on sidewalk cafe permits to create Open Restaurants, the same consideration was not given to street vendors. This population of predominantly low-income, predominantly immigrant owners and operators of small “mobile restaurants” is extremely limited in their access to the economic recovery potential of Open Streets. Since 1980, the number of available permits for streets vendors has remained locked around 5,100. In that time, the population of New York City has grown by 19 percent.
After an analysis of every active, planned, but eliminated, and promised Open Street in New York City, TA continues to believe that Open Streets remain a tool for New York City’s recovery that is ripe with potential. However, evidence suggests that current implementation, in construction, management, scope, and location, fails to take advantage of this potential, replicates existing racial and economic disparities in resource allocation, and sets an unfortunate new precedent for the privatization of public space. For Open Streets to succeed citywide, they must be distributed citywide, not evenly but equitably, and must be useful for transportation first and foremost above leisure. Open Streets must meet New Yorkers needs, starting with the most needful, not the desires of the neighborhoods with the greatest abundance.
“Staten Island needs more open streets, especially in hard-hit areas like Stapleton. As we slowly break free of the grips of COVID-19, a fair share of open streets would allow us to safely recover and rebuild our community.”
As the City of New York invites people to use streets in ways more efficient than car parking and car traffic, such invitations must come with a promise of protection from traffic violence, safety from police harassment, and assurances that the Open Streets will serve their community over any other interests. To that end, TA makes the following recommendation to Mayor de Blasio:
Scope
Expand and extend the Open Streets program. In this moment of need, Open Streets reach only a minority of New Yorkers. This is a problem of scale: Open Streets are simply too small and too few. Beyond the need for these spaces in every neighborhood, the potential of Open Streets to bring about a transportation paradigm shift or aid our economic recovery is dependent on their expansiveness. There is also ample evidence that most successful car-free streets programs have historically been on long street segments that are well-known and accessible to the general public.
Connect Open Streets. Today, Open Streets are piecemeal and scattered, and thus cannot meaningfully address the transportation crisis ahead. The City of New York must add more miles of Open Streets to more neighborhoods, and these additions must be added with connectivity in mind. New York City’s economic recovery will hinge on our ability to move from place to place safely. To that end, Mayor de Blasio should add Open Streets and lengthen existing Open Streets to develop a network of connected car-free bus- and bike-ways. These Open Streets should follow the most congested transportation corridors and subway lines.
Make Open Streets permanent. With New York’s future largely unknown and less secure than at any time in the last decade, it is critical that the city take this time to prepare for the worst based on what we do know. If nothing changes, we know that climate change will threaten New York, that children will continue to be killed in traffic crashes, and that disparate public health outcomes will remain. Permanently closing streets to cars and opening them to people is one thing we can do to affect all these futures. Permanent Open Streets can address the crises of today and seed a paradigm shift in transportation tomorrow, reducing the harm of traffic crashes, broadening transportation choices, and helping meeting climate goals.
Equity
Correct inequities in Open Streets distribution. Today, Open Streets are inequitably distributed across the city. While, as of recently, the 37 percent of New Yorkers who live within one mile of an Open Street accurately reflect the demographics of New York City, those Open Streets are not geographically equitable or responsive to need. The City of New York must locate Open Streets, including “pop-up” bike lanes, to right historic and modern inequities in infrastructure investment and with the permission of those communities. Open Streets locations should be decided in conversation with communities and based on multifactorial metrics of need. This must begin by engaging community groups on location, education, and stewardship, and reducing Open Streets in proximity to parkland and instead using Open Streets to correct inequities in open space. Locate new Open Streets in locations where there is the least open space, the narrowest sidewalks, and the fewest transportation choices.
Invest in communities to avoid police-managed Open Streets. Today, more than half of Open Streets are managed by the NYPD. Knowing that police presence makes Open Streets unsafe for people of color, the City of New York must reduce these numbers and determine a better model for managing Open Streets that both engages the community and threatens no harm to the community. At the same time, in the Bronx, just one percent of Open Streets are managed by community partners. This appears to be evidence of a lack of community-government relations. To expand community-managed Open Streets, invest in communities. Expand on the limited number of community-run Open Streets. Including small business owners like Pine Box Rock Shop in Bushwick, community groups like Thai Community USA in Jackson Heights, and nonprofit organizations like Concrete Safaris in Harlem — all of which are managing their local Open Streets — is the ideal way to manage an Open Street. Create a system for community participation in Open Streets by recruiting local non-profits, community organizations, and activists to participate, and pay those individuals and organizations to steward Open Streets. This will help neighborhoods define their own needs for the open space, and self-manage these spaces in the ways most beneficial to their community.
Lift caps on street vendor licenses. When the City of New York rolled back nearly all restrictions on sidewalk cafe permits to create Open Streets for Outdoor Dining, the same consideration was not given to street vendors. This population of predominantly low-income, predominantly immigrant owners and operators of small “mobile restaurants” is extremely limited in their access to the economic recovery potential of Open Streets because the number of available permits has remained locked since the 1980s. Low-income immigrant business owners should benefit from Open Streets, as restaurants have been permitted to, as a recovery model.
@eaterny
Management
Reinforce Open Streets with immovable materials. Today, Open Streets are regularly invaded by drivers, and many Open Streets set up in the morning disappear before the afternoon. This failure to delineate safe space is a direct result of the materials used. In the long term, all Open Streets should be made permanent and delineated with immovable material. In the interim the City of New York must invest a small amount of funding in materials to delineate Open Streets. As evidenced by the early days of car-free Times Square, which was built with traffic barrels and $15 lawn chairs, this investment does not need to be large. Taking cues from other cities and New York’s own successful example, New York City needs signage and reinforced materials that clearly delineates Open Streets and “pop-up” bike lanes. This should include painting on the street itself, sandbags to weigh down barriers, signage that explain who is and is not permitted to use the street and that is universal citywide, and multiple layers of barriers that would require drivers to make switchback turns to move beyond them.
Put seating for Open Restaurants in the street, not on the sidewalk. Today, Open Streets are largely located on both sidewalks and streets. However, in every borough, at least one-third of restaurants located their seating on the sidewalk alone, a challenge in a city of narrow walking spaces during an airborne pandemic. The City of New York must discourage sidewalk seating wherever possible. This is especially important in light of the fact that New York City’s streets already dedicate over three-quarters of space to moving and parking cars and less than one quarter is dedicated for sidewalks. If seating for some reason must be located on the sidewalk, requirements should be made for an expanded on-street path for people to walk.
Protect Open Restaurants from traffic. In a few terrifying recent incidents, Open Streets for Outdoor Dining have been struck by reckless drivers. The City of New York must do everything in its power to mitigate this risk. To that end, wherever possible, Open Streets for Outdoor Dining should be entirely closed to all car traffic to eliminate the risk of a diner being injured or killed in a traffic crash. Where it is not possible to close the street to cars, lower the speed limit to 10 mph on Open Streets for Outdoor Dining, employ mobile speed cameras, and daylight intersections adjacent to in-street dining tables to reduce speeding.
The coronavirus pandemic has left New York City in dire straits. Budget shortfalls are steep. Residents are reluctant to ride the subway. Restaurant, retail, cultural institutions and tourism industries remain in trouble. Unemployment is widespread and an eviction crisis looms. Months into the pandemic, Manhattan’s Central Business District still feels like a ghost town. It is clear that a paradigm shift is needed.
Undoubtedly, New York will rise again. TA believes in New York City’s recovery, and sees the advent of Open Streets as a lifeline in that direction. Used strategically, Open Streets can aid New York City’s recovery in a number of ways.
Open Streets can allow retail and cultural institutions to reopen, just as they have done for dining. Open Streets can provide a safe and novel reason for tourism to return to the city. But the true potential of Open Streets is even greater. Consider the economic case for Open Streets. By opening streets to people citywide, public health will improve as pollution declines, public space can be equitably distributed, countless lives will be saved by the reduction in traffic crashes, which cost the City $4 billion annually. Further, Open Streets can aid New York City economic recovery. Just as reducing car access to streets has been shown to increase compliance with traffic laws and reduce traffic crashes, Open Streets are also good for business. One car-free plaza in Brooklyn, for example, came with a 172 percent increase in retail sales.
“[Jackson Heights] was devastated by COVID19 with one of the highest infection rates in the United States. Many of our neighbors hadn’t left their apartments in over 60 days. 34th Avenue enabled us to safely practice physical distance and once again socialize and come together as a community.”
Open Streets can also help protect against the growing transportation crisis. With concerns about subway transmission risk and a massive subway budget shortfall, New York City needs new answers to how we get around, and car-free Open Streets are a proven model. By opening streets to people, New Yorkers will be able to travel safely and with confidence by bus, bike, or on foot. Even without a network of Open Streets to travel on, today, New Yorkers are already flocking to buses and bikes as a safe way to get around. Open Streets can be the network that New York City needs to make these modes work. There is undeniable evidence that Open Streets can aid New York City’s recovery. At the same time, analysis of Mayor de Blasio’s Open Streets program as it stands shows that this outcome is currently unlikely. Perhaps nowhere is the lack of a holistic vision for Open Streets more clear than in the Open Street “pop-up” bike lane program. These lanes — a piece of critical transportation infrastructure in a moment when bicycle use is soaring to unprecedented rates — are inequitably distributed and poorly constructed and maintained. Open Streets must be community-invested, safely managed, equitably-located tools for transportation and economic recovery. Today, Open Streets exist primarily as a disconnected series of public space islands with management challenges that fail to serve New York City’s coming transportation crisis. We must do better.
“It’s a delight to see children laughing and playing in our neighborhood streets ... Unfortunately speeding traffic is creeping back in as temporary barricades have gotten damaged and haven’t been repaired.”
Still, today’s Open Streets program was created quickly in the midst of a pandemic, and with limited staff. This shows us that the City of New York can try new things, and execute big ideas. But there is a lot of work to do to ensure that Open Streets are a tool to equitably serve all New Yorkers. We are grateful for the work of the City, especially the Department of Transportation, in advancing this critical program and believe that they can help the program reach its potential with proper support and vision..
At present, we have the opportunity to prepare our city for a near-future of recurrent outbreaks and seed the ground of New York’s long-term recovery by expanding the scope of Open Streets. Now, we need the political leadership to make this a reality for all New Yorkers.
TA analyzed publicly available data for this report. We did not visit all Open Streets to document their operation and maintenance, and relied on anecdotal evidence to understand these issues.
Demographic data on which New Yorkers live near Open Streets was pulled from the New York City Department of City Planning’s Population Factfinder, which is based on 2014-2018 American Community Survey (Census Bureau) results. All census tracts fully and partially located within a 0.25 radius from all points of an Open Street (including promised “pop-up” bike lanes) were included in the analysis as “walking distance.” Although this method includes New Yorkers outside the .25 mile radius of an Open Street, nearly all parts of every Census Tract fall within .75 miles of the Open Street. An analysis was then conducted on race, ethnicity, national origin, income, overcrowded housing, and other data points to compare those who live within walking distance of an Open Street versus citywide American Community Survey demographic data. The comparative length of an Open Street as it relates to the surrounding population and its density was not considered, so in some cases, it goes unmentioned in this report that a very large population has been given very limited Open Street mileage.
The location, length, management type, and operational days and hours of Open Streets were collected from both Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press releases on Open Streets and from the city of New York’s Open Data portal. These analyses were completed based on the available data from the mayor’s press releases and NYC Open Data. Although every effort was made to ensure the administration’s data was correct, what the data shows may be different than on the ground realities. For example, the 6th Avenue Manhattan pop-up bike lane was announced in a press statement and is in the Open Streets NYC Open Data portal but is neither not on the Open Streets DOT map nor has it been implemented yet. All Open Street lengths were used “as promised” despite Open Streets which have been eliminated or shrunk without announcement, so actual numbers may be smaller than what is listed here. Information on whether an Open Street is managed by a BID partner was executed by comparing the “Local Partner Management” sections of the administration’s press releases and the NYC BID Directory. The Mayor’s press releases were also compared to the Open Data portal list of current Open Streets to find which promised Open Streets were either never implemented or have since been eliminated.
