Mayor de Blasio announced today (April 27) that his office, along with the NY City Council, is planning to open up to 100 miles of NYC streets as the weather gets warmer.
Though he says they are coming up with a more robust plan for how to manage the summer in NYC, they do have a plan for the next few weeks as the weather starts to warm up and more people are apt to go outdoors.
They will start with a minimum of 40 miles of streets, opened over the course of the next month. And they hope to work their way up to 100 miles throughout the course of the pandemic’s effect on the city.
They don’t have a list of the exact streets yet, but the Mayor said they will first focus on streets located around NYC Parks, to help limit overcrowding there and allow people to spend more spaced-out time outdoors.
They will also expand some sidewalks into streets (like how they did at Rockefeller Center during the holidays), and others that are not necessarily near an “attraction” like a park, but that are “safe enough to be open and enforced.”
He said the streets will be selected by the mayor’s office, the DOT, the NYPD and the City Council. They will first focus “where the need is greatest” and which areas have the “most people”/where it will “be the most effective.”
He also announced Alternate Side Parking will remain suspended through May 12.
In other news: NYC Public Pools Will Officially Remain Closed This Summer
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