Open Streets on Vanderbilt Ave. was packed just one minute after the official opening time on Saturday. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
While walking back from Prospect Park on Saturday morning, I took a stroll down Vanderbilt Avenue shortly before noon. The street was bustling with volunteers dragging metal barricades into the intersections to set up the popular Open Streets program, and by 12:01 p.m., Brooklynites grabbing lunch from Ye Olde Bagel Shoppe had taken over the median between Prospect Place and St. Marks Avenue. It was a glorious sunny afternoon, and the street was alive not with the drone of traffic but with the sounds of people enjoying being outside with their friends and family.
Amidst the tragedy of the past 14 months — the millions of deaths and the economic destruction that have changed the city and country and world — New Yorkers have changed the way they interact with space in the city. To keep as many of the city’s hundreds of thousands of restaurants afloat, after significant public pressure last summer, the mayor launched an outdoor dining program that allowed tables to take over parking spots, and over the winter, these spaces became semi-enclosed structures, some fancier than others.
A few busy corridors have gotten the temporary car-free treatment as Vanderbilt Ave. has. For a few hours from Friday-Sunday, cars are prohibited from driving on a handful of streets in the city, and these streets become vibrant spots for people, with picnics in the road, tables in the street, music in the air, and the vibrancy of city life of replacing traffic. These business-oriented Open Streets aren’t the only one though, and certain other streets throughout the city have been turned over to volunteer networks to run as limited access shared spaces, giving New Yorkers more space to run, walk, bike and simply sit. Each day, volunteers drag barriers into the streets that are intended to be closed to through traffic and cars limited to speeds of just 5 miles per hours. (I volunteer for one of them – the Underhill Ave. Open Street during the week.)
The program is great and, based on recent polling, very popular, but it’s also very tenuous. Despite 3 million free parking spaces and thousands of miles of roads, drivers in the city act with intense anger when told they do not have unfettered rights to every inch of paved asphalt in New York. A recent Streetsblog post summarized the response and charged the mayor with abandoning what could have been a signature program. The problem is worse than that: Open Streets was supposed to be a way for New Yorkers to have space during the pandemic. Instead, it has become yet another symbol of the way the mayor treats pedestrian-first policies: neglected and left to rot, waiting only for tensions to boil over, as city support dries up and fiscal support never materializes. It doesn’t have to be this way.
When Bill de Blasio thought he could run for president a few years, I wrote a piece for Curbed New York exploring the shortcomings in his transit and transportation policies. These words were from before the days of COVID and our need to have space outdoors for safe socialization:
For de Blasio, the failure to act quickly and decisively in the face of multiple crises is one of perspective. He sees the city as a driver, and thus, he does not act to limit the free rein drivers have over city streets. His refusal to consider limiting space for drivers and the giveaway of on-street parking results in a subpar Vision Zero that is reactive instead of proactive, poorly designed bike and pedestrian safety infrastructure, slow bus service, and rampant placard abuse… Every decision over space allocation on public streets should prioritize safety for pedestrians and cyclists, and speed for high-capacity buses. But the mayor views the city through his daily car rides, so we’re still stuck in traffic—literally and figuratively.
How I wish I were not so prescient. This assessment of de Blasio’s transportation legacy held true last spring when the mayor undelivered on bus lanes, failed to have a plan, and failed to show any urgency in the face of the coronavirus crisis. As we begin a second pandemic spring, with significantly increased knowledge about the virus and what works for international cities, and as we face a summer of New Yorkers spending as much time as possible outside, Bill de Blasio’s failures — this time as they negatively impact the popular Open Streets program — are once again in the spotlight.
The mayor’s problem is that he thinks doing something is the same as doing something right. Open Streets was initially supposed to be a partnership between neighborhood volunteer groups and local police precincts, but that partnership never materialized. Last year, they dropped off flimsy sawhorses and accrued overtime at protests rather than at open streets. This year, NYC DOT provided metal barriers and no police presence. Why? Because the NYPD doesn’t care to undercut the privilege that allows them to park everywhere with impunity, and the mayor doesn’t care to create even the bare minimum of an enforcement regime.
Of course, as with Vision Zero, Open Streets doesn’t rely on enforcement to succeed, and a good Open Streets program will be more about design than enforcement. So long as the program relies on unempowered volunteers and flimsy barriers rather than permanently redesigned streets that do not create conditions for cars to take over, each Open Streets segment will be only as good as the neighbors in charge and as vulnerable as those in Greenpoint currently under fire by a loud but small minority of car owners. In each case, the mayor has done nothing to step in and defend Open Streets. He keeps saying there is more to come, but so far, more hasn’t come, even as volunteers ask for governmental support and funding.
And therein lies yet another rub. A successful and permanent Open Streets relies on design changes and streets that are not simply car funnels, but the current iteration needs funding to succeed before design can be upgraded. The city has delivered no funding whatsoever. In Prospect Heights and Park Slope, community groups raised $25,000 and $50,000, respectively, through GoFundMe and similar crowd-sourced fundraising platforms. Further south, in the less well-off neighborhood of Sunset Park, a similar effort is still $30,000 shy of its goal. This is a tall fundraising order for a crowdsourced streets campaign but barely a blip for a city with a budget in excess of $92 billion. In short, New York City should be able to scrounge up the money each of these groups need for their open streets, especially as those in business districts will realize the benefits in increased economic activity (and increased tax revenue) nearly immediately. That the city cannot design, enforce or even fund any real Open Streets program is yet another indictment of the way the mayor fails to understand how New Yorkers want their city to be.
All hope is not quite lost though, as sub-par Open Streets implementations have become an issue in the mayoral campaign. Shaun Donovan recently took the mayor to task for failing to lead, and current polling front-runner Andrew Yang has talked about a permanent program with city funding. But advocates are sounding a more immediate alarm, noting that 22 miles are off the list this year and calling for quick and permanent physical upgrades.
As life returns to normal over the next few months, though, this summer could be a make-or-break moment for many of the city’s open streets, both those with business and those without. The space will become a luxury rather than a mid-pandemic need, and life will move on with only those Open Streets that have a willing neighborhood partner and a strong volunteer group surviving. Sure, businesses will push for their weekend takeovers, but a networked citywide program in all neighborhoods of space given back to people from cars won’t be at the forefront of the minds of anyone but the usual slate of activists. If that reality comes to pass — and I hope it doesn’t — that will be the final transportation failure of the Bill de Blasio Administration. A better city, with slightly more space for people and slightly less space for cars, with shared streets and true slow zones, with active street life and neighbors and neighborhoods outdoors, is within our grasp. All it takes is a political push from the one person in the city who doesn’t realize he needs to give it.
7 comments
It’s one thing to close off a street where there are alternatives. It’s quite another to close off a major arterial where buses operate and there are no alternatives. Now I know why Washington Avenue was gridlocked as far north as DeKalb Avenue last Saturday destroying the B45 as well as the B69, not to mention increased air pollution and making travel in the area impossible. Why don’t you mention that? What hair brained scheme is next? Closing of Flatbush Avenue? I am sick of the media telling only half of a story.
The Vanderbilt Open Streets has been implemented every weekend since August (other than for a few months over the winter). There are plenty of other alternatives, and it’s not a major arterial. Residents love it and more important the businesses all love and support it as it’s a lifeline to keeping them open. I know it pains you to hear that even businesses now support removing cars from some streets 24-7. If you think having businesses open in the city is a hare-brained scheme, that’s on you. Feel free to tell your own story if you’d rather have no businesses and a city that’s simply a playground for cars.
To respond to your wrong point about Saturday traffic this weekend, that was due to the DMX memorial at Barclays which led to closed streets throughout the neighborhood and traffic everywhere. The city should have planned better and urged people not to drive through the area. It is generally fine on weekends, and the gridlock was gone on Sunday.
It’s not a major arterial anymore because the city has turned every arterial into a local street, one of the latest being Woodhaven Blvd where the speed limit will be reduced to 25 mph.
You seem to forget that slower speeds for cars include buses as well. When the speed limit was 35 mph on Woodhaven, buses would often travel at that speed during non-rush hours without any bus lanes. Zero vision installed bus lanes and lowered speed limits by a third. So after spending several hundred thousand dollars on SBS on that street to speed buses that promised to reduce trip time by up to 30 percent, but only actually sped buses by 3 percent, the latest speed limit reduction will mean that SBS buses will now travel slower and trips take longer than before SBS.
Lowering speed limits and other measures taken have increased the number of traffic fatalities. So why would the correct solution include more bike lanes, fewer parking spaces, slower speeds, and closing more streets? We are obviously on the wrong path. Drivers are getting more careless because they are becoming increasingly frustrated with de Blasio’s ineffective and ridiculous policies. Only anti-car activists such as yourself cannot see this.
And please don’t come back with the solution is to get people out of their cars and into mass transit, because there is absolutely no intention to improve mass transit frequencies or rationalize the fare structure which keeps many from using the system.
The bus network Redesign studies are done for the sole intention of reducing costs, not to help riders. You just have to look at the Brooklyn Existing Conditions Report to see that. Downtown Brooklyn is the fastest developing area in the borough, yet the report hints at reducing the number of bus lines that provide direct access to it without any subway improvements. That means more transfers and longer trips, and more of a reason to use a car.
Great article! I live in Astroia and here the Ditmars Blvd open street, while better than nothing, is a great example of why we can’t depend on local restaurants to run them. If there is any chance of rain the open street may not happen (with no notice to the public) as the restaurant in charge may not want to have employees take the time to set up the open streets if their customers don’t want to eat outside in the rain. Which is unfair to the public since plenty of people want to hang outside even with a little rain, and the open streets shouldn’t depend on a restaurant’s potential profits for the day. Even without any weather issues sometimes the restaurants don’t set up the open streets, again with no explanation or notice. And one day the restaurants in charge may just conclude the cost isn’t worth it for them to continue running the streets, and there doesn’t appear to be any system for public volunteers to step in.
And all of this makes it impossible for the community to get involved and improve them.
I’d like to sponsor musicians to play in the open streets on Ditmars but without any advance warning as to whether the open streets are going to actually happen or not it’s hard for community members to get involved. And when open streets are over each weekend the restaurant staff often leaves the barriers in crosswalks and the sidewalk, blocking pedestrian access. Complaints to the DOT about crosswalks being blocked from their own equipment are ignored, I just get a form letter in response. Am I even legally allowed to move these barriers to their proper place if they are left in the crosswalks or sidewalk, or could a police officer cite me for interfering with government property? No guidance at all is provided about this.
There is also the issue with bus routes having to be altered. I’m fine with that happening, but the signs that the DOT put up at bus stops alerting everyone of the change are nearly all gone, and again the public doesn’t get any notice from the DOT about when the routes will be changed due to open streets. Last winter the open streets were not happening for months and yet the busses would sometimes go through Ditmars on the weekend, other times it would use the alternate route. No rhyme or reason to this, and if you went to the DOT website there was no explanation as to when buses would or would not be running on Ditmars during the weekend. It’s one thing when different city agencies can’t coordinate, but it’s absurd that the DOT can’t coordinate its own open streets program with its own bus system.
I was fine with the haphazard start to this last year, but it’s pathetic that the city didn’t do a single thing to improve the program this year. If anything it’s gotten worse.
I love the stretch of Christopher Street that is closed off on the weekends! Such a fun vibe.
If “Open” Streets was so popular, you wouldn’t have to trojan-horse it under the guise of a pandemic response measure. Same thing with the 14th St busway, pitched as a temporary measure to replace the L train, now permanent all of a sudden.
Neither of them are as popular as you think.
You know I have to say I love some of the articles on your blog a great deal, especially the posts about the history of the city’s infrastructure.
Open Streets is something of a joke really. If you want to live a quiet life without car, bus and truck traffic then move to the suburbs. Better still, the best way to cut down on automobile traffic is to first have city residents with the five boroughs give up their personal vehicles. New York City residents have more and better access to public transportation than resident in any other the other surrounding municipalities in the greater New York metropolitan area. So simply put, why do they have cars?
This idea that it’s the car that is the problem should really start with the residents of the city themselves. Vision Zero and Open Streets are all fluff. Let’s first talk about licensing bicycles and forcing bicycles riders to have insurance and follow traffic laws as opposed to them riding wherever they feel like and ignoring the rules to conserve their own momentum. Enforce pedestrian laws the way California does and start ticketing people for jaywalking.
The discussion doesn’t begin and end with cars though and that’s somewhat disingenuous every time we discuss the automobile’s impact on the city.
New York City geographically is a choke point for all vehicular traffic along the Eastern seaboard of the United States. There is no way to bypass it, there is no workaround and that traffic adds to the congestion overall. We don’t hear any discussion about building bridges further out on Long Island across the Sound to Connecticut. We don’t have discussions about a tunnel from the Rockaway Peninsula
to Sandy Hook environs. We don’t even have discussions about expanding the subway into Nassau, Westchester, Hudson and Bergen.
This idea that closing roads is the be all and end all solution is foolish. Public Transportation is not a solution for everyone ESPECIALLY for people who live outside the five boroughs but who have to travel into the city for work or other reasons especially when the times don’t conform to a schedule where public transportation is an option.
Even now, there is this idea of congestion pricing, the people this will impact most are the people who can least afford it.
Thing is you keep making it harder and harder for vehicles to travel around the city and ultimately city dwellers will pay a price because an abundance of the goods city dwellers consume are transported by truck.
You know, we could always go back to horses… just get rid of cars altogether but I’m sure animal rights activists ire and the resultant smell will be bothersome and not much of move in the right direction.