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NYC Adding 12 More Miles Of Open Streets This Week & 9 Miles Of Protected Bike Lanes In May
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 13, 2020
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David 'Dee' Delgado/Gothamist
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 13, 2020
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Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this morning that the city will introduce 12 more miles of open streets starting this Thursday, as well as over nine more miles of protected bike lanes in the month of May, as part of the city's ambitious open streets initiative to give pedestrians and cyclists room to maintain proper social distancing while getting fresh air during the pandemic. Nine miles of NYC streets have been largely off-limits to drivers (with the exceptions for local residents driving less than 5 mph and emergency vehicles) since the program began in early May.
"To date, we announced several waves of open streets opening up, a total of over nine miles. By tomorrow we will double that total," de Blasio said on Wednesday. "And this will be different types of open streets: it'll be streets managed by local partners like Business Improvement Districts, streets supported by local precincts—where the precincts will figure out a plan with community members to make sure the open streets are protected and that there's presence to make sure people are safe—and then protected bike lanes."
Click the map for large version
Starting Thursday, there will be 1.3 miles of additional open streets managed by local partners including BID groups in neighborhoods including Sunnyside, Hudson Yards, Park Slope, Flatbush, Meatpacking District, and East Harlem. There will be 7.6 more miles of open streets managed by local precincts throughout the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, also starting tomorrow. And there will be 2.8 miles of open streets added adjacent to parks in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island opening Thursday as well, which de Blasio said was particularly important because "as the weather gets warmer, people are gravitating to parks, [we] want to make sure there's space so there isn't crowding."
You can see the exact locations of each of those open streets below.
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In addition to all that, the city will also increase the amount of protected bike lanes in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn by 9.2 miles. That will start with Broadway in the Financial District tomorrow, then the rest will be phased in later in the month. You can see those locations below.
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At least three of the bike lanes announced today were previously planed by the city. In February, the DOT announced that "Green Wave" plan had "built 104 miles of protected bike lanes (PBLs) since 2014, including 21.4 miles completed in 2019." Ten new miles of protected bike lanes are planned for Manhattan this year.
NYC DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg noted that these are all temporary bike lanes as of now, because they have to give the City Council a "90 day notice period before we can make any bike lane permanent." However, in a press release, the city adds that those lanes "may be phased into permanent lanes as city resources come back online and as DOT gathers additional feedback from affected community boards and elected officials."
An initial pilot program with a handful of open streets at the end of March was canceled after less than two weeks because of the city's concerns about NYPD resources being diverted to policing the spaces. Safe street activists pointed to other major cities which had launched their own open streets programs as examples of why and how NYC could do it as well. The City Council then introduced a bill that would open up to 75 miles of streets for recreation; the NYPD and DOT argued it wasn't safe or feasible.
A week after that, de Blasio changed his mind, announcing that the city would open at least 40 miles of streets as we enter the summer, with the goal of opening 100 miles total. For the first wave of the program, seven miles of streets opened on May 2nd, with the majority located inside city parks. Last week for the second wave, another two miles were opened in downtown Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens.
Tagged
social distancing
COVID-19
open streets
coronavirus
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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