Summer Streets: What else you got?

In August of 2011 I wrote a series of posts about Summer Streets. The first one focused on how the program just left me wanting more, and made requests that were mostly about expanding it. The second focused more on "small things" that affect my enjoyment of the program.

Thirteen years later, there's a lot of good news! A lot of other people made the same requests, and the City government has actually addressed a lot of them. There are a few remaining, and I have one more to add. First, the scorecard:

From my August 10 post:

1. Extend the reach. ✔ 2022
2. Widen bottlenecks ❌
3. Extend the hours ✔ 2024
4. Extend the days 🤷🏼‍♀️ 2023
5. Cater to people-watchers ✔ 2020

From my August 23 post:

1. Framing ("open") ❌
2. Practice what you preach ✔
3. Be flexible with space ✔
4. The Park Avenue Tunnel ✔ 2024
5. Brooklyn Bridge conflicts ✔ 2021

A lot of these requests have been fulfilled! In 2020, the City drastically expanded sidewalk and roadway dining. They've cut it back this year, but there are still a lot more places to sit and watch people. In recent years, volunteers seem to be a bit less strict about where in the roadway people are cycling, as long as they're not crowding walkers and runners. I've noticed that recently there seem to be less of the golf carts and full-size cars that invaded the space in past years.

In 2021 the City opened a two-way year-round bike lane on the Brooklyn that allows cyclists to continue over the Brooklyn Bridge without conflicts with crowds of tourists on foot. In 2022 they extended Summer Streets to 109th Street, and in 2023 to 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. This year they extended the end time from 1pm to 3pm, and opened the Park Avenue Tunnel to northbound cyclists!

I didn't ask for this at the time, but Citibike has worked really well with Summer Streets. Last year there were a couple of malfunctioning docks that led to shortages, but overall there have been plenty of bikes and plenty of docks.

And there's still more we could do! Here are three things I still want from Summer Streets, plus two new ones:

1. Really extend the days. It's nice that the City has added two days where there are car-free streets outside Manhattan, but it's hard enough to do one of them in a day. Each borough should have its Summer Streets on its own day.
2. Don't use avenues with bike lanes. I get why they put Summer Streets on the Grand Concourse and Eastern Parkway, but it's kind of a cheat to put them on boulevards that already have bike lanes. One of the things that makes Summer Streets in Manhattan so special is that Park Avenue is such a miserable, dangerous experience any other day of the year. How about Westchester Avenue in the Bronx, Yellowstone Boulevard in Queens, Eighth Avenue in Brooklyn and Victory Boulevard in Staten Island?
3. Widen the bottlenecks. Summer Streets is always crowded between Petrosino Square and Union Square. It should be split between Spring and Fourteenth Streets, with either southbound people on Broadway or northbound people on the Bowery and Third Avenue.
4. Framing. Stop telling me you're going to "open" the streets when it means you're going to allow people to speed through with multi-ton vehicles and make it unsafe for me to be there. Just say, "Cars will be allowed from 3pm on."
5. Train the cops. Cyclists are allowed on every part of the Manhattan route 365 days a year, except the Park Avenue Tunnel and the Grand Central Viaduct. But when the staff is getting ready to allow cars back on the route, the NYPD officers routinely tell cyclists to get off the roads, and even, and I quote, "on the sidewalk." Last week I was walking on Central Park North and had to dodge cyclists directed there by the cops. All they have to say is "We're letting cars back in, be careful!"