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A Round and a Roundy: The Mayor’s Choice on Open Streets

Given a chance to create great open streets, the mayor may instead choose to please no one.
A Round and a Roundy: The Mayor’s Choice on Open Streets
Cartoon: Bill Roundy
Editorial cartoon of Bill Roundy by editorial cartoonist Bill Roundy.
Editorial cartoon of Bill Roundy by editorial cartoonist Bill Roundy.

You gotta hand it to Mayor de Blasio. Even though people are praising him to the hilt for the city’s best open streets, Hizzoner just will not commit to sharing his vision for how he plans to keep those car-free idylls going (let’s start with the car-free part).

Every time we ask him or the former intellectual property lawyer he brought in to run the Department of Transportation, all we get are vague promises that the “permanent” open streets program will be great. Trust us, just great.

Well, our cartoonist Bill Roundy is tired of empty promises. Spring has sprung, and volunteers from Jackson Heights to Lower Manhattan want to know if all the work they’ve done keeping their open streets safe from cars and programmed with yoga and Zumba will get the support from City Hall that they need.

That presents this mayor with a choice. We hope he makes the right one.

All of Bill Roundy’s cartoons are archived here.

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