Bummer Streets? Annual Car-Free Program Remains Pretty Much The Same Under Mayor Mamdani
It’s back, but it’s not better than ever.
Amid years of calls from livable streets activists to expand and connect “Summer Streets,” the Department of Transportation will limit the program to the same five Saturdays, roughly the same 22 miles of car-free streets and the same number of hours in the Mamdani administration’s first year overseeing the annual party.
First, the bad news: Last year’s Summer Streets comprised “more than 22 miles” of car-free streets, according to the DOT. This year, it’s 21.8 miles, the agency said. It’s still a nice bunch of miles, but it’s certainly not getting bigger.
The meh news: The program, which has comprised five Saturdays in three boroughs for several years, remains at five Saturdays in three boroughs and remains entirely unconnected. Here’s the full schedule:
- Saturday, July 25
- Queens: Vernon Boulevard between 44th and 30th drives.
- Staten Island: Broadway from Richmond Terrace to Harvest Avenue. (Note: That is different from last year’s route on Forest Avenue.)
- Saturday, Aug. 1, 8 and 15
- Manhattan (foot of the Brooklyn Bridge to Broadway and Dyckman Street in Inwood)
- Saturday, Aug. 22
- Brooklyn (Eastern Parkway from Grand Army Plaza to Buffalo Avenue)
- The Bronx (Grand Concourse from East Tremont Avenue to Mosholu Parkway)
The good news: The program remains eight hours for all of those five Saturdays, and the hours for the non-Manhattan Saturdays will shift two hours later, to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., a change made on behalf of residents who didn’t want to have to rush out of the house at 7 a.m. or risk having losing those car-free streets before finishing that run or bike ride.
“This year, we’re adjusting the hours of Summer Streets in the outer boroughs to help more New Yorkers enjoy these events later in the day,” said DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn.
One livable streets advocate wanted DOT to do more to connect and expand what the agency calls “New York’s biggest block party.”
“We’re excited to see the return of Summer Streets — but this program can be so much more than it is today,” said Ben Furnas, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives. “It’s clear that New Yorkers love car-free spaces to run, walk, bike, gather, dance, or just play — and it’s past time to extend this beloved program to more streets and more weekends year-round. If other global cities like Bogotá can close dozens of miles of streets every week, New York City can, too.”
Transportation Alternatives even started a petition drive, timed to DOT’s announcement:
In a statement, DOT spokesperson Mona Bruno pushed back on the suggestion that New York was failing in some way, especially given that Summer Streets comprised just 6.9 miles on three days for just six hours, or 124.2 mile-hours, when it started in 2008. This year, it will be 872 mile-hours.
“DOT has vastly expanded Summer Streets to all five boroughs and from the Brooklyn Bridge all the way to Inwood, and this administration is sustaining that historic growth in its first year,” Bruno said. “We are developing an exciting vision for the future of the program.”
It’s unclear what that vision could be, given that thus far, the Mamdani administration has not allocated enough money for any kind of expansion, as Streetsblog reported earlier this year.
And Furnas was one of many advocates and elected officials who began agitating for better Summer Streets earlier this year just after Mayor Mamdani took over, with a group of 29 local electeds sending a letter to the new administration to demand that the city “build on [the Summer Streets] momentum by expanding the program’s frequency and connectivity.”
Mayor Mamdani has said said repeatedly that he wants to make New York City’s streets “the envy of the world,” but residents of foreign lands don’t covet New York’s Summer Streets because they have far-more-expansive public space. The Paris Plage annually transforms an expressway for cars along the Seine into an urban beach. And the aforementioned Colombian capital is famous for its Ciclovía, which bars cars from more than 75 miles of streets every Sunday all year.
That’s every Sunday, not five Saturdays. And nearly four times the mileage.
It’s worth noting that several signers of the March letter demanding a better Summer Streets program offered gushing praise for DOT in this year’s press release. Those electeds are: Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson; Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal; state Sens. Kristen Gonzalez and Robert Jackson; Assembly Members Grace Lee and Keith Powers; and Council Members Shaun Abreu and Tiffany Caban.
For more info about Summer Streets, check out the DOT website.
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