Car-Free Streets

Streetfilms newcomer Robin Urban Smith brings us this romp through a new play street in Jackson Heights. Located in a neighborhood with little access to park space, the 78th Street Play Street effectively extends Travers Park out past the curb every Sunday for 20 weeks.

Here's a modest proposal for evaluating the success of a Summer Streets event: Measure the amount of time kids are able to run and play without their parents having to worry about them being hit by a car, the number of friends you bump into and new people you meet, the pounds of automobile exhaust and carbon that aren't being spewed into the hot summer air, the amount of horn-honking, engine-revving and boom stereos you're not hearing, and whether your local merchants are happy about the event and making more money than they usually do on a slow summer weekend.

Brooklyn's Bedford Avenue will be going car-free for four Saturdays this summer. If you want to be a part of making the event happen, Billburg.com invites you to a "Williamsburg Walks" volunteer orientation session tonight. 

In these shots from tipster Jeff Prant (more after the jump), Brooklyn Heights residents take advantage a car-free Montague Street this past weekend. Though the July 4th holiday, overcast skies, and inadequate publicity are all suspected to have affected turnout on its first week, those who missed out can enjoy Montague "Summer Space" events on Sundays through the rest of the month.

Brooklynites fretting that their borough would be excluded from this summer's car-free fun can rest easy. For four consecutive Saturdays beginning on July 19, Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg will be closed to cars from Metropolitan Avenue to North Ninth Street from noon to 7 p.m.

In New York, "Summer Streets" is set to debut this August. In Portland, they just held "Sunday Parkways" for the first time. Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson, in town for the Carfree Cities conference, captured the action and picked up a few pointers for other cities planning to launch car-free events: