De Blasio’s Got No Street Smarts: The Mayor’s Coronavirus Distancing Plan Is All Wrong
Mayor de Blasio, several days late to a deadline imposed by Gov. Cuomo to open up streets to pedestrians for enhanced “social distancing,” has finally announced plans to open up an underwhelming two streets per borough to pedestrians. He’s balancing important priorities — providing space for residents to get outside while maintaining safe distance — but the half measures he’s chosen are mystifying. Either public space is so dangerous that we need a total lockdown, or public space is necessary to sustain morale and get us through this crisis. We don’t have the data to refute either extreme, but they can’t both be true.
Viewed charitably, de Blasio doesn’t face an easy choice. Past street closures in “normal” times have proven tremendously successful, drawing massive crowds to those limited spaces. If we literally copy and paste Summer Streets and its success in drawing massive crowds of happy neighbors, that would indeed be worrisome right now.
The mayor has to weigh the balance of relieving existing crowded sidewalks, parks and playgrounds by providing a larger supply of open space, versus the risk of inducing even more residents desperate for sunshine to venture out into the newly pleasant open street space.
But de Blasio isn’t making this decision in a vacuum. The governor has already weighed the risks and ordered the mayor to begin opening streets to pedestrians. Essential workers are still out and about in force, and the mayor himself has resisted shutting parks and playgrounds on the grounds that they are our only opportunity for exercise and sheer sanity during this difficult time, especially for cooped-up families.
The mayor and governor have already judged the tradeoff to be worth allowing public space, instead of imposing a total mandatory curfew like we’ve seen in parts of Italy and elsewhere.
But under the plan, millions of people per borough will have access to an underwhelming — and possibly dangerous — two streets each. Rather than safely provide additional outdoor space, this will potentially funnel large crowds into tiny limited spaces.
Other cities like Bogota, Columbia, led the way last week with an impressive 47 miles of street closures for cyclists and pedestrians so that essential workers can get around safely with minimal crowding. New York City itself has already implemented some limited emergency bike lanes in Brooklyn and Manhattan — a critical addition, as the Department of Transportation has already reported a 50% increase in cyclists on the East River bridges since the same time last year.
Instead of opening a meager two streets per borough, the mayor should create a shortlist of every block in the city without a bus route, police station or hospital for potential total conversion to “5 MPH shared street” status. This would allow cars to get through if needed, but limit their speed to safely coexist with cyclists, runners and families.
It’s also a no-brainer to extend the temporary bike lane network. Take at least one lane on every Manhattan avenue for bikes and pedestrians and consider “14th St. Busway”-style restrictions on the remaining travel lanes, allowing buses, deliveries, taxis, and emergency vehicles only.
The specifics can be trusted to Polly Trottenberg and her extremely capable staff, but the general rule should be to seize as much public space as possible while leaving major thoroughfares mostly open — all without further slamming the beleaguered MTA’s operations or eliminating emergency vehicle access.
Sometimes compromise means picking the middle course, but this situation is closer to King Solomon’s “splitting the baby” parable — you’ve got to pick one or the other for the compromise to have any value. Partial street openings maximize the risk of overcrowding the limited spaces without actually giving us all the space we would actually need to use it safely.
So, Mayor de Blasio, make a decision: Let people spread out as much as possible in the streets, or lock people completely at home. Packing us all into limited spaces won’t work.
This piece first appeared at the New York Daily News
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Alex Armlovich is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in New York Daily News