NYC Adding 13 More Miles Of Open Streets This Weekend To Increase Total To 45 Miles

Mayor Bill de Blasio has continued to send some mixed signals about what New Yorkers can and cannot do outdoors during the pandemic (most recently, with beaches), but in an effort to allow locals to get some fresh air while social distancing, he has continued to open up space throughout the city. He announced a "huge expansion" this morning of 13 new miles of open streets that will open across several boroughs on Saturday, May 23rd, bringing the total amount of open streets in the city right now to 45 miles.

With the NYPD almost back to full personnel levels after being decimated by the virus, de Blasio said that we have reached "the sweet spot where we can do the open streets, keep them safe, make sure there's enforcement where it's needed, and allow people to enjoy it, especially in strategic locations where it's gonna help avoid crowding in parks and other areas where it's important to have them."

Starting Saturday, 8.8 more miles of streets supported by local precincts will open in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, including in Williamsburg, Prospect Heights, Fort Greene, Crown Heights, Boerum Hill, Brownsville, Bay Ridge, Manhattan Valley, Gramercy, Chelsea, Sunnyside, Forest Hills, Jamaica and more. Here's the list of locations:

Also starting tomorrow, 1.8 miles managed by local partners will open in parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan, including Red Hook, Bed-Stuy, Hudson Square, Downtown New York, Kips Bay, Times Square and more. Note: while the streets operated by local precincts are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the most part, the streets managed by local BID groups sometimes are only open at certain times or days. Check the websites of the local groups named in the photo below for more information on that.

And to top it off, there will be 2.7 additional miles of park-adjacent streets opening up in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, including Hunters Point Park, Plaut's Triangle, Gorman Playground, McGolrick Park, Green Central Knoll Park, Morningside Park, Charles Young Playground and more.

De Blasio added that with the city now reaching over 40 miles of open streets, we have "more miles of operational open streets organized, protected and enforced than any place in this nation, because we have found a model that works. And it's very, very gratifying to see how everyone's worked together, it's something that people can enjoy, and it's something we're going to keep building on through this crisis."

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 New York 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. For the second wave, another two miles were opened in downtown Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. And for the third wave, the amount of streets was more than doubled, with 12 miles of open streets and 9 miles of protected bike lanes added.

At Friday's press conference, de Blasio also brought up the social distancing circles which were unveiled in Domino Park last weekend in response to overcrowding there on warm weather days—and he said they may be installed in other parks in the city (they popped up already in Madison Square Park this week). "The idea of showing people what it's like if you're going to spend some time in the park, how to do it so it creates safety and the right kind of distance...that worked," he said. "That's a good idea, and we're going to see if there's other places where we can apply that idea."