Brooklyn Has Been Closing Streets to Traffic Every Summer. That Might End.
People enjoy an Open Street on Tompkins Avenue in New York City. (Source: NYC DOT.)
Closing down streets to motorized traffic on summer weekends predates the pandemic, but all across the country, the crisis ended up formalizing the street closures, opening up city blocks to uses other than a thoroughfare for vehicles. In New York City, this practice became known as Open Streets.
Yet, earlier in March, news broke that several of New York City’s Open Streets might not return this summer. Streetsblog reported that Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue Open Street, one of Brooklyn’s most popular, lost its sponsor and, without a new one, would have to forfeit operations this year. Another on nearby Vanderbilt Avenue announced it will be cutting its hours by 40 percent, reducing its season by two months (from May to September instead of April to October), and ending five hours earlier on Sundays, according to Curbed.
The city’s department of transportation covers the basics of an Open Street, Curbed reported, but expenses related to staffing, programming, and additional needs as identified by the community are shared by volunteers, businesses, and other local groups. For the last few years, many of those partners tapped into pandemic-necessitated grant programs to help fund programing, artwork, and so on. As those sources dry up, so does the ability to provide a “thriving Open Street.” Now, partners like the Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District are bowing out, citing the unsustainability of footing a $40,000 bill.
While many New Yorkers believe that the city should step in and subsidize the cost, it’s worth asking why closing down a street to traffic for 48 hours during the summer is so expensive, in the first place.
Getting the Priorities Straight
“In scenario A, we have a street that supports people moving in cars and on foot, with potential conflict between them. In scenario B, we have the same people, maybe even more, but without the cars. Why should that even cost more, in the first place?” Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn asked.
There are costs and expectations baked into programs like Open Streets across the country that Marohn feels distract from the bottom line: “You’re basically extending the sidewalk for a few hours every week, why do you need toilets and security and staff?” Communicating street closures likewise doesn’t require a lot of effort in a grid like Brooklyn, where alternative routes are obvious. “It’s the same as if you temporarily closed down the street for emergency work,” Strong Towns Director of Community Action Edward Erfurt added. “You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars communicating that.”
Naturally, the more ambitious Open Streets become, the higher their costs will run. Park Slope’s success allowed it to evolve into the must-see experience it is, and so scaling it down to save money could understandably be seen as a loss to the community.
However, with core sponsors withdrawing their support on account of rising costs, perhaps community members should ask what the greatest benefit of an Open Street is, in the first place. Is the priority to host a recurring festival-like atmosphere with curated programming and bespoke retail, or an ability to reclaim streets from the constant whir of traffic? If Park Slope’s Open Street doesn’t find a new sponsor, it’ll get neither.
Asia (pronounced “ah-sha”) Mieleszko serves as a Staff Writer for Strong Towns. A dilettante urbanist since adolescence, she's excited to convert a lifetime of ad-hoc volunteerism into a career. Her unconventional background includes directing a Ukrainian folk choir, pioneering synaesthetic performances, photographing festivals, designing websites, teaching, and ghostwriting. She can be found wherever Wi-Fi is reliable, typically along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.