Former Mayor Eric Adams personally ordered city officials to reopen a park drive on Staten Island to motorists last year, according to internal communications obtained by Streetsblog.
Last spring, following a directive straight from the then-mayor, city officials worked at warp speed to reopen the gates to Silver Lake Park Road, according to emails released to safe streets advocates who filed a Freedom of Information Law request.
"Parks will be moving forward with opening Silver Lake Park Road to motor vehicles at the mayor’s directive," Department of Transportation Deputy Borough Commissioner Victoria Carstensen wrote in an email to her colleagues at the Parks Department on April 24.
The then-mayor's intervention came just weeks after the island's conservative politicians held a press conference calling on the city to give the street back to car drivers, who had been evicted in favor of safe, car-free recreation since the dawn of the pandemic. The officials were forced to act within a single day to appease the mayor and his car-driving allies.
"This is an incredibly tight timeline, but since this came from the mayor, I’m hoping that we will be able to assist," Carstensen continued. She did not explain why the mayor was so personally invested in the pro-car effort.
Advocates had tried to stop the move, saying that the roughly three-quarter-mile stretch between Victory Boulevard and Forest Avenue had become a haven for Staten Islanders seeking more outdoor space, and that the political class was merely advocating on behalf of drivers who wanted to save a minute or two with a shortcut through a park.
Supporters of the closure cried foul at the revelation that the mayor had personally intervened in the Silver Lake Park fight.
"It shows how unprepared both Parks and DOT was for this," said Rose Uscianowski, a Staten Island organizer with Transportation Alternatives. "If you’re rolling out a major policy change in a major park in Staten Island then you would think there would be at least some kind of collaboration."
Staten Island politicians, including District Attorney Mike McMahon, Council Member Kamillah Hanks and Borough President Vito Fossella, made their car-first push in March 2025, and rallied for their cause after an attempted rape of a 53-year-old woman jogging in the park in early April. The pols argued, without evidence, that the park had become less safe because car drivers were not allowed inside.
The fear-mongering flew in the face of the fact that less than 2 percent of reported rapes in the borough happened in its parks. The vast majority of reported rapes do not happen in parks, Streetsblog previously reported.
Meanwhile, residents of the Rock face staggering rates of traffic violence, with 4,611 reported crashes in 2025 injuring 2,463 people – nearly seven a day – including 1,936 people in cars, 398 pedestrians and 99 cyclists.
There were 27 reported crash injuries on Silver Lake Park Road pre-closure from 2012-2020, according to NYPD data, and two reported crashes injuring five people last year at the intersection with Victory Boulevard, though it is unclear whether those happened inside the park.
Ever since the city let cars back in, the road and its surrounding park have become more deserted because it's no longer a safe zone from traffic violence, Uscianowski said.
"That used to be a space that a lot of people took advantage, and not only are people losing space, the park itself is much more desolate," Uscianowski said. "People started to change their habits and it’s just not so much a space for the community anymore."
The case played out again in Queens later last year, where conservative lawmakers and community groups got the city to let cars back onto Freedom Drive inside Forest Park for the first time in five years, which Parks officials greenlit in the final days of the Adams administration.
The city has since set up a digital sign at the entrance to Freedom Drive ... in the middle of the sidewalk.
A coalition of open space advocates asked Mayor Mamdani in a letter last week to undo these lame duck-era policies by his predecessor [PDF], and Uscianowski urged Hizzoner to reverse the growing trend.
"Now that this has become a trend, it gives even more pressure on Mayor Mamdani to stop this, not just for Silver Lake Park, but for parks around the city," the advocate said.
A spokesperson for Mamdani previously told Streetsblog the new mayor would make a decision "once we have enough data to do so." When pressed by a reporter on Wednesday, Hizzoner said he would look into it.
"I think that I want to take very seriously both the request from Staten Islanders themselves, and also give you an answer that I can hold myself to," Mamdani said.
A spokesperson for Adams declined to comment, saying the former mayor is traveling "for the next two-three weeks."
"He’s out of government right now, so he’s not talking about city issues," Todd Shapiro told Streetsblog.
