“We’re ultimately trying to get equity on our streets. We built the city around the automobile to disastrous results,” said Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Danny Harris. “Our challenge for incoming leaders is to think about the incredible success in minor street transformations and scale that across the entire city.”
The vision, called “NYC 25 by 25,” has the backing of more than 80 organizations, including the 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition, 89th Street Tenants Unidos Association in Jackson Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, Families for Safe Streets, La Colmena, Pakistani-American Youth Society, the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center, Tri-State Transportation Committee, and Bike NY.
And together, they’re asking mayoral candidates to reimagine 25 percent of the space currently allocated for vehicles — including 19,000 miles of travel lanes and three million on-street parking spaces — as public space within four years to create a healthier New York that puts people above cars, especially as the city recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, a health crisis that shined a light on the city’s unequal access to transportation and green space.
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The future is getting closer and closer. Reactionaries are swimming against the tide and will be on the wrong side of history.
