NYC Announces $30M for Open Streets Projects

The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) will spend almost $30 million to support open streets programs around the city, with part of the money slated to help neighborhoods with lower capacity and smaller volunteer bases to maintain or create open streets in their communities.

As Kevin Duggan explains in Streetsblog NYC, “This mayor and his successor were criticized for not supporting the legions of volunteers who program the new public spaces and set up and take down barricades every day — work that some said should be done by the city.” Now, “DOT plans to spend $27 million over three years to contract managers and crews to work on one or several sites, depending on their size, helping with basic operations, like sweeping, bagging trash, moving barricades, planting, and providing access for people with disabilities.”

In the early days of the pandemic, open streets became an effective way to support local restaurants and small businesses, help people safely spend more time outdoors, and encourage community-building while adhering to pandemic restrictions. Today, only 25 of Mayor de Blasio’s promised 100 miles of open streets remain, mostly in whiter, wealthier parts of the city. 

For neighborhoods with fewer resources, the daily tasks of managing open streets projects is left up to a small cadre of volunteers, and some open streets face backlash from residents and businesses, despite evidence that open streets and outdoor dining initiatives have boosted economic activity in the city. The new funding could help provide key services to communities lacking deep-pocketed business improvement districts (BIDs) or other funding sources.