Open streets helped New Yorkers endure the pandemic. Now, some want the changes to be permanent.
The open streets movement boomed during the height of the pandemic, when many wanted to get outside while staying safe. Now, some want to keep expanded access to streets and sidewalks.
In Brooklyn, New York, there’s an effort to give New Yorkers something they covet: more space. In this case, the goal is to extend temporary pedestrian spaces — which helped many endure pandemic lockdowns — into something more permanent.
We started our visit at a bagel shop on Berry street, which is in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. The street is cordoned off from most traffic for a one-mile stretch. Outside that shop, Victoria Maynard was at a table having breakfast.
“I think it’s a lot nicer to sit on the sidewalk of a cafe when there’s not cars zooming by all the time. If it was a bunch of honking, I don’t think I’d be having my bagel here right now,” she said.
Maynard is a remote worker. She moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan during the pandemic, when closing Berry Street — along with a few others — was done as a temporary measure.
The idea came from the so-called Open Streets Project, championed by a Canadian nonprofit and an American urban design and research firm.
“Even when things were closed, I used to meet a friend every morning for a walk, just because we couldn’t really go out anywhere or do anything. But we could always walk,” said Maynard.
Now, after the acute phase of the pandemic, city residents convinced officials to make the Berry Street closure permanent. And that’s been transforming this part of Brooklyn.
At a nearby convenience store, owner Jose Rodriguez says he’s seen a change in his mix of customers. More pedestrians are coming in.
“I like it like this for the pedestrians, you got more people walking around,” he said. “We get people, they happen to be by, they’re walking around, you know, they walk in.
“The pandemic supercharged the open streets movement,” said Solveig Entwistle, a volunteer with the Berry Street project.
She gave us a walking tour, highlighting changes to make the street more friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists.
“This is called epoxy gravel here,” she said pointing down at a crosswalk. “Delineates to someone that this feels different than the regular pavement.”
She also points to a nearby parking garage. “We’re familiar with someone who owns a section of this. He came to the community board; I met him at a community board meeting. And he is converting this parking garage, at least half of it, into storage units because he did not make any money from parking,” Entwistle said.
Not all of this change is welcome. New York City is facing a lawsuit from a group of disabled residents who say closing off streets to vehicles and erecting barriers is hampering their ability to get around. Those suing could not be reached for an interview.
But Entwistle says the open streets experiment is worth trying.
“It’s a unique opportunity to meet your neighbors, which in a place that kind of feels sometimes lonely, it’s kind of curing the loneliness epidemic in that way,” she said, adding that it did for her.
Other cities are also experimenting with similar projects, including Minneapolis, Salt Lake City and Fort Wayne, Indiana.