The Public Verdict: How 17 Plans to Improve NYC Fared with NY Times Readers

By: Jerome Brookshire

When The New York Times invited its readers to help chart a civic roadmap for newly inaugurated Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the response was swift, emphatic, and unmistakably revealing. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers weighed in, offering a collective referendum on what they believe the city most urgently needs in the years ahead. The results, published last week, form a vivid portrait of a metropolis simultaneously hopeful, impatient, pragmatic, and deeply protective of the public institutions that define its character.

The New York Times framed the exercise as an experiment in participatory urbanism: 17 proposals, culled from urban planners, policy experts, and civic thinkers, were presented to readers with a simple instruction—vote up or down. The goal was not to craft an official policy platform but to ignite a citywide conversation at a moment of political transition. With a new mayor settling into City Hall and facing an imposing array of challenges, The New York Times sought to determine what, exactly, ordinary New Yorkers want fixed first.

The verdict was resounding. The top vote-getter, by a significant margin, was a proposal to devote greater resources to parks and libraries. Roughly 35,000 readers cast votes in favor of increasing funding for these two bedrock institutions—an overwhelming endorsement of spaces that many New Yorkers regard as the emotional and cultural anchors of urban life.

The New York Times noted that parks and libraries currently receive only about 2 percent of the city budget, a figure that struck many voters as glaringly inadequate for facilities that serve millions of residents daily. In a city where budget debates often revolve around abstract billions, the call for greener parks and better-funded libraries might appear modest. Yet the scale of the support suggests something deeper: a yearning to preserve the civic soul of New York at a time when the city’s pace and pressures can feel overwhelming.

Libraries, after all, are more than repositories of books. They are after-school sanctuaries, digital lifelines, community centers, and, for many immigrants and low-income families, gateways to opportunity. Parks are not merely pleasant amenities but essential refuges in a dense urban landscape. That these institutions triumphed so decisively in The New York Times poll speaks volumes about how residents define quality of life.

If the first-place finisher represented New Yorkers’ affection for community staples, the runner-up revealed their frustration with the city’s aging infrastructure. Repairing the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway—a crumbling relic of the Robert Moses era—came in second. For decades, the BQE has been a source of daily anxiety for drivers, commuters, and nearby residents alike. The New York Times has frequently chronicled its deterioration, highlighting the precarious condition of a highway that carries tens of thousands of vehicles every day.

Voters clearly recognized the expressway as a ticking time bomb. The proposal to overhaul it drew massive support, reflecting a broader impatience with the city’s habit of postponing essential repairs until crisis strikes. In their votes, readers appeared to echo what transportation experts have long warned: New York can no longer afford to gamble with infrastructure that sustains its economic lifeblood.

Closely following the BQE in the rankings was a call to build more mental health crisis centers. The New York Times has reported extensively on the city’s intertwined crises of homelessness, addiction, and untreated mental illness, and readers responded by placing this proposal third overall. The result underscored a growing consensus that policing alone cannot address the visible distress on New York’s streets. Instead, voters signaled a desire for humane, practical solutions that treat mental health as a public priority rather than a marginal concern.

Together, the top three choices formed a telling trio: preserve beloved civic spaces, fix broken infrastructure, and care for society’s most vulnerable members. It was a pragmatic wish list, rooted less in ideology than in daily experience.

Yet the exercise also illuminated the limits of civic dreaming. The New York Times deliberately omitted detailed budgets and timelines from most of the proposals, explaining that specificity can sometimes stifle imagination. “Dreams crash when actual dollar amounts enter the picture,” the paper wryly observed. The decision freed readers to vote based on values rather than fiscal constraints.

One suggestion, however, arrived with a price tag attached—and paid dearly for it. The former Adams administration’s plan to spend $400 million redesigning Fifth Avenue finished dead last. The New York Times reported that the proposal, first floated during the de Blasio years and championed by local business interests, envisioned transforming several dozen blocks of Manhattan’s most famous boulevard.

Even with private partners pledging to share the cost, readers were unimpressed. Whether it was skepticism about the need for a Fifth Avenue facelift or lingering distaste for the outgoing mayor’s priorities, voters decisively rejected the idea. The episode served as a reminder that big-ticket projects, however glamorous, must compete with more immediate and tangible needs.

The New York Times survey also generated hundreds of reader comments, many of which zeroed in on issues that did not make the final list. Chief among them was the perennial scourge of sidewalk scaffolding. New Yorkers have long complained about the endless metal sheds that darken sidewalks and linger for years with little visible progress. Although recent City Council legislation aims to address the problem, readers made clear they have yet to see meaningful improvement.

Noise pollution emerged as another recurring grievance. Helicopters clattering overhead, car horns blaring at all hours, subway brakes screeching—such irritants may seem minor compared with housing shortages or transit delays, but for many residents they constitute a daily assault on mental well-being. The New York Times noted that one proposal suggested enlisting corporate sponsors to tackle subway noise, but readers ranked it near the bottom, wary of privatized fixes to public problems.

Interestingly, the survey revealed that New Yorkers are capable of holding multiple, even contradictory, desires at once. Voters expressed concern for the homeless while demanding cleaner streets. They called for more public plazas and greener coastlines while also urging cuts to City Hall bureaucracy. They wanted elevators installed in inaccessible subway stations but balked at the slow timetable offered by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which does not expect to reach 95 percent accessibility until mid-century.

In fourth through seventh places, the rankings clustered around a mix of environmental resilience, administrative reform, and basic amenities. Proposals to create “spongy coastlines” to combat climate change, streamline city bureaucracy, expand pedestrian plazas, and install clean public pay toilets all drew substantial support. The diversity of these preferences reflected a city grappling simultaneously with global threats and mundane inconveniences.

Indeed, the issue of public restrooms—long a punchline in New York politics—received particular attention. The New York Times noted that Mayor Mamdani, responding swiftly to public sentiment, announced over the weekend a plan to allocate $4 million for 20 to 30 modular toilets across the five boroughs. “In a city that has everything,” he quipped, “the one thing that is often impossible to find is a public bathroom.”

The announcement was a small but symbolic victory for the kind of practical governance voters seemed to be demanding. It also demonstrated how quickly an engaged public conversation can translate into policy action.

Beyond the specific rankings, the initiative launched by The New York Times accomplished something more fundamental: it offered a snapshot of a city talking to itself. In an era of polarized politics and algorithmic echo chambers, tens of thousands of residents paused to consider what they share in common—clean parks, safe roads, functional libraries, humane services.

The exercise also underscored the formidable challenge awaiting Mayor Mamdani. The wish list compiled by readers is expansive, ambitious, and often expensive. Fixing the BQE alone could cost billions; expanding mental health services requires long-term investment; improving libraries and parks demands steady, reliable funding streams. As The New York Times wisely acknowledged, imagination must eventually yield to arithmetic.

Still, the poll suggested that New Yorkers are less interested in grand ideological battles than in competent stewardship of the basics. They want a city that works: trains that run, streets that are safe, public spaces that are welcoming, and institutions that nurture rather than neglect.

Whether Mayor Mamdani can deliver on that vision remains to be seen. The New York Times, having given readers a voice, will undoubtedly continue to chronicle his successes and missteps with its customary scrutiny.

For now, however, one thing is clear. In the bustling democracy of New York, where millions of individual stories collide each day, the collective message from The New York Times survey was remarkably coherent. New Yorkers may disagree about politics, but they agree about what makes a city worth loving—and they are not shy about saying so.