By: KCP Staff
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio discussed opening up 40 miles of protected streets for pedestrian socially-distant walkways, a larger scaled version of a program that failed a month ago.
De Blasio had tried a very similar program, dubbed the open streets pilot, in which the city closed off one main thoroughfare in four boroughs for people to take socially distant walks in from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The streets included in this program were Park Ave between 28th and 34th in Manhattan, Bushwick Ave from Johnson to Flushing in Brooklyn, 34th Ave from 73rd St to 80th St in Queens and Grand Concourse between E. Burnside and 184th in the Bronx.
Now, it looks like the mayor is ready to try again, explaining in his daily press briefing yesterday that this program will open up 40 miles of open streets sooner, and a 100 miles in total later on.
Despite the program’s failure the first time around — it was scrapped after only a couple weeks because not enough people were utilizing the open streets for walks and it was using up a lot of police officers — de Blasio is determined to bring it back full force and better.
“The way we will do it is we are going to focus first on streets in and around our parks. [We are] very concerned about the streets around parks. Often times we are seeing that immediate area getting very crowded,” de Blasio said. “Those streets adjacent to parks are an obvious opportunity to open up more space. We are going to work together to figure out how we are going to do that.”
“We’re telling people, still you need to shelter in place and yes, of course keep your social distancing. But we knew in the warm weather there would be some impulse to get out more,” the mayor told New York 1.
“The notion of opening up more space around the parks, opening up those streets made a lot of sense logistically and in terms of safety … It’s not to open up a space and ignore it. It is to open up a space and have enforcement to make sure that people handle it properly, but there is more space for everyone.”
The plan is to open up streets that are next to parks, since that is where the city has observed crowding occurring. The program will also allow for some sidewalk expansions, where barricades will be placed partway into the street to almost create a wider sidewalk.
(Kings County Politics)
