Take Back 25% Of NYC Streets Space From Cars, Group Says

NEW YORK CITY — A new challenge asks mayoral candidates to commit to transform 25 percent of New York City's streets away from cars and toward people-focused uses.

Transportation Alternatives, along with a coalition of 80 organizations and businesses, unveiled the "NYC 25x25" challenge on Monday.

“It’s time to reimagine our largest public asset — streets — and make them work better for all New Yorkers,” Danny Harris, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said in a statement. “There is a huge inequity in how New York City’s public spaces are allotted and who they serve. A supermajority of New Yorkers walk, take public transit, or ride a bike to work, but most of New York City’s streetspace is still designed for cars."

The challenge is backed up by a study outlining many recent findings by Transportation Alternatives — a group that advocates for better walking, biking and public transit for New Yorkers.

The study argues the city's streets are devoted to the minority of New Yorkers who drive cars rather than 96 percent of people who walk to and from public transit.

And automobiles cost the city in terms of congestion, the price of traffic fatalities and the disproportionate burden that low-income and minority neighborhoods face from longer commutes, pollution and an assortment of health maladies, according to the study.

"A better future will require a new management approach from city officials — one that sees streets as a system of public spaces designed to serve people and breaks from traditional thinking centered on moving and storing cars," the study states, with original emphasis.

One such "vision" outlined by the study calls for — among other things — 500 miles each of new protected bus-only lanes and bike lanes; 38 million square feet of open space such as pedestrian plazas, "parklets" and community gardens; and a one-block-long car-free space for play, student drop-off and pick-up and outdoor learning outside each of New York City’s 1,700 public schools.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, when asked about the challenge on Monday, said he'd yet to read the proposals but he broadly supported efforts to move away from cars, open up public space and build up public transportation.

"This is the way of the future, unquestionably," he said.