Comptroller Stringer and Senator Ramos Call for Year-Round Open Streets Program that Includes Retail Businesses

(New York, NY) – Today, New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer and State Senator Jessica Ramos called on the City to extend the Open Streets year-round for pedestrians, cyclists, and restaurants and expand the program to allow the City’s small business and retail community to offer more goods and services outside. Stringer and Ramos spotlighted the success of the program, which is offering a crucial mechanism for exercise, recreation, revenue-generation and safe outdoor dining amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The joint letter emphasized the need to continue the program at least through the duration of the pandemic and to repurpose street space for community and business use, not just automobiles.

According to data provided by the City, Open Streets: Restaurants has succeeded in saving 90,000 jobs and allowed more than 10,000 restaurants to open. The joint letter noted that it makes little sense to lose vital public spaces by the end of October amid the pandemic and a continued need for social distancing.

“The  Open Streets program helped revive our City after the darkest days of the pandemic, and this is exactly the kind of creativity and smart urban planning we need now to jumpstart our economic recovery,” said Comptroller Stringer. “Why end an initiative that generates critical income for restaurants, keeps workers employed and allows New Yorkers to spend time safely outdoors? Instead, we should extend the Open Streets Program year-round, provide guidance around heat lamps and other ways to adapt for cooler weather, and expand the program so that more small businesses and retail establishments can participate. We need to do everything we can to get our businesses back on their feet, get New Yorkers back to work and encourage everyone to eat and shop locally, especially as we head into the holiday season. Expanding the Open Streets program is a no-brainer and I urge the City to double down on its success.”

“Streets are for people, not cars,” said State Senator Jessica Ramos. “The Open Streets program has been a lifeline during the pandemic, creating safe havens for our neighbors to enjoy fresh air and support restaurants. As we work to help small businesses recover and strengthen our economy the right way, we’ll need more Open Streets, not fewer. The City should extend and expand the program to spur growth for our small businesses and help our communities thrive.”

Comptroller Stringer and Senator Ramos’ joint letter also pointed to the fact that closing the successful program at the end of October will not only deprive New Yorkers of safe, outdoor spaces to dine and enjoy the outdoors, but also directly hurt small businesses and marginalized communities of color that rely on this program to survive. New York has lost more than 2,800 small businesses to the pandemic and could risk losing tens of thousands more with the cessation of the program. Additionally, 62 percent of small businesses are immigrant-owned, and 73 percent of small business employees are Black, indigenous, and people of color.

To read Comptroller Stringer and Senator Ramos’ joint letter to the City on preserving and expanding the Open Streets program, click here.

Dear Mayor de Blasio,

We are writing to convey our disappointment that your Open Streets Program – which has provided indispensable outlets for exercise, recreation, and safe outdoor dining during the pandemic – is already being scaled back without warning in some areas and is scheduled to be closed down entirely by the end of October. It makes no sense to forfeit these vital public spaces, especially as the pandemic and the need for social distancing continues. Open Streets and Open Streets: Restaurants should continue not just for the duration of the pandemic, but permanently, in consultation with neighborhood stakeholders across the five boroughs. Beyond facilitating social distancing, Open Streets have served as a case study in how we can add vibrancy to our neighborhoods and transform our streetscapes from throughways for cars into lively civic spaces. Indeed, we urge your administration to instead double down on the program by opening up larger swaths of City streets, reopening streets that have been returned to automobile use, and allowing for more kinds of small business, including retail, to participate in the program.

Open Streets have been a lifeline to New Yorkers and our small business community. Following our City’s lockdown, New Yorkers turned to Open Streets as safe spaces to run, walk, bike, play, and dine outdoors. According to your Administration, Open Streets: Restaurants has succeeded in saving 90,000 jobs and allowed more than 10,000 restaurants to open and provide a semblance of normal life.

However, despite the clear success of the program, it seems that DOT has begun to systematically return streets to automobile usage. Removing segments of Open Streets — such as Margaret Corbin Drive in Fort Tryon Park, 50th Avenue in Sunnyside, and the miles of others like them which have been either explicitly pulled from the program or are not functional due to improper and inconsistent set up — leaves neighborhoods stranded. In some cases, these reversions of street space have been undertaken without warning to the community, leaving families unprepared for the sudden influx of dangerous automobile traffic in places previously limited to bikers and  pedestrians. These actions send the wrong message to communities and deprive New Yorkers of the accessible outdoor space that they crave now more than ever.

Further, your plans to close the Open Streets: Restaurants program at the end of October will needlessly imperil struggling restaurants and deprive New Yorkers of safe outdoor dining experiences. New York has already lost more than 2,800 small businesses to the pandemic and could risk losing tens of thousands more. With foot traffic in New York City still down by a third,1 it is crucial that our City think creatively about how to support our small businesses– 62% of which are immigrant-owned and 73 percent of Small Business employees being Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). That conversation should include how to make outdoor dining safe during the winter months, with clear guidance issued around heat lamps and other ways to extend the program indefinitely for restaurants.

More broadly, the benefits of Open Streets should be extended to other small retail and personal services businesses — including clothing stores, bodegas, and nail salons — by allowing them to provide some products and services along the sidewalk, the adjacent curb lane, or in the “open street.” There are simply no good reasons why small businesses across the five boroughs could not be afforded the same benefits as our restaurants when it comes to leveraging outdoor space in a way that is safe and effective for customers and business owners alike.

Now is not the time to retreat from the necessary goal of equitably providing every neighborhood with outdoor space. Instead, we should be seizing every opportunity to radically reimagine our streetscape for the benefit of all communities. Existing Open Streets have served as places where small businesses and restaurants could drastically rethink their offerings outdoors, children could freely and safely play, bicycle riders could comfortably travel, and people could finally come together after months apart. They have offered opportunities for new volunteer groups, like the Loisaida Open Streets Community Coalition and the North Brooklyn Open Streets Community Coalition, to form with the sole mission of providing neighbors with open space. We are heartened that so many restaurants and civic groups have taken up responsibility for Open Streets, but believe they deserve the full support of the City. Open Streets should not be considered a temporary response to the ongoing pandemic but should be embraced as permanent re-designs for New Yorkers to enjoy.

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