Spotlight
During the 2020 community lockdown, cities around the world were desperate to go outside. As everything slowed down, residents and city government organized several street sections to block cars, giving them instead to pedestrians and leisure activities – Global phenomena of “open”, “slow”, or “shared” streetsdepending on the local terminology.
One of the most admired examples of Open Street’s success was 34th Avenue around Jackson Heights in Queens, New York. Gold Standard What does the first street look like in the open?
Jackson Heights is one of the most diverse wards and one of the most diverse regions in New York City. Over 60% of the population It is made up of people born outside the United States, and like many working-class neighbours whose residents are largely of color, they suffer from a lack of green space.
“Jackson Heights is the last ranked per capita park space across New York City,” said Dawnsif, executive director of Paseo Park, a community-led nonprofit organization that appeared to advocate for 34th Avenue Park. “There’s nowhere where your kids learn to ride a bike,” she said. “My kids and my nie were basically attending two of the seven public schools on top and bottom of 34th Avenue, and still attended. They have no room for a break.”
The Open Street initiative has begun to change that. For the past five years, the 1.3-mile stretch on 34th Avenue, now known as Paseo Park, has been closed to cars during the day. The park has become a beloved fixture in the neighborhood, so now there are plans to make it permanent. New York City Council member Shekal Krishnan represents the districts, including Jackson Heights, and chairs the Committee on Parks and Recreation, which is known as the community’s “lifeline.” “What started as a need during the pandemic has really evolved into an incredible place that brings people together, including families, children, seniors,” Krishnan said.
This month, after more than a year of planning and vision sessions, a group of community members will be Report released It offers an ambitious vision of what a space will look like. and a roadmap for how to transform organically grown temporary structures into organised ways to meet the needs of different communities.
A rendering showing what an improved residential block looks like. Courtesy of Paseo Park/WXY Alliance
Luz Maria Mercado, chairman of the Paseo Park alliance, moved to Jackson Heights with his mother around the age of nine after his parents divorced. “When my parents were together, they had a house. I had a backyard,” she said. “I came to an apartment with no green space at all,” she realized that Jackson Heights had a lovely garden from a young age. Mercado recalls peering through those gates with some degree of vy hope. “You’d think, ‘Wow, this is really good,'” she said. “‘It would be great if we could do this, but this isn’t meant for people like me or my mother.”
Mercado currently lives on 34th Avenue with her husband and her children. It’s a great building – they even have a small terrace. “But what am I going to see outside? The car is zooming,” she said. “It was noisy. The air was stagnant.”
The pandemic and the entire city Open Streets Initiativecreated an opportunity to rethink what the neighborhood looks like. Siff recalled that when Mayor de Blasio at the time opened an application portal for the community to request open streets in their area, several Jackson Heights residents submitted 34th Avenue. Initially, the city was only designated a few blocks before Travers Park. But the community wanted more than that — and they began holding rallies to defend it.
“As our gatherings grew, our open streets have grown,” Schiff said, and in the end 34th Avenue became New York City’s longest open street: 26 blocks. “And as soon as we got that space something magical happened,” Schiff said, even in the middle of an incredibly dark and scary time. “All of a sudden there was this 1.3 miles of park space and people started making it their own.”
Neighbors organized and volunteered to barricade them up in the morning and knock them down in the evening, allowing them to pass through the cars in the evening. People started gardening at the median level. They were the first time they started running. They taught Zumba classes and English lessons and founded a food pantry. The kids learned to ride bikes.
“We have a Paseo Park and the noise levels are lowered, which improves the air quality,” Mercado said. “You can hear kids outside playing soccer, enjoying the space, playing soccer.”
As the pandemic eased and things began to resume, Paseo Park stuck. In 2021, the Alliance for Paseo Park (formerly known as the Friends of 34th Avenue Linear Park) began advocating for more permanent infrastructure, distributing petitions signed by more than 2,600 neighbors. Just as great as the new space, it was still on the street. And daily conversions to the park were managed by smoke-running volunteers.
The city has made several improvements, including designating a “Plaza Block” in front of schools with markings indicating that the space is pedestrian-oriented. But residents still have a bigger vision. And the city has allocated nearly $90 million in capital funds to make the linear park permanent. Last summer, the Alliance began a year-long process of community engagement, hoping to ensure money to achieve what residents care most.
Over the past year, the organization has conducted surveys online and on paper, conducted vision and pop-up table sessions, appointed outreach ambassadors to host conversations, and helped promote research aimed at children. Many core priorities have emerged, including safety, uninterrupted space for pedestrians, and climate resilience.
It’s not that there’s none in the project The detractor – Residents opposed to expel cars from parking lots cite the lack of parking, increased traffic on nearby streets, and for some, the simple desire to live in the streets rather than inside the park. However, the condition is a minority of voices, councillor Krishnan said. “It’s very clear that this is a project loved by this community,” he said. “I’ve run many times on the platform where Paseo Park is a central part of our community’s work.”
The rendering shows how the school block looks with additional improvements. Courtesy of Paseo Park/WXY Alliance
Alliance for Paseo Park has partnered with construction company WXY to bring community dreams to life in design. It showed what the space actually looks like and what kind of infrastructure improvements can achieve the goals that residents have expressed.
Results Report We present two possible designs. One is the other design that prioritizes an expanded “super sidewalk” to give pedestrians plenty of space, and a “ultra-median” that provides more green space between pedestrian lanes. The block focuses on a variety of needs, including recreation, rest, and play areas specifically for school children. Other features such as stormwater gardens and see-through pavement will reduce flooding in the area. The retractable bollards can accommodate essential vehicles when needed, such as ambulances, sanitary trucks, ride access, and urban transport services for disabled residents.
Still another priority residents highlighted was clarity regarding the use of the space. The report notes that Paseo Park is currently tense under all needs for the community. This is probably most embodied by the competition between pedestrians and motorcycle riders. To facilitate some of this tension, the report proposes improvements to parallel streets on Northern Boulevard, creating a protected corridor for bikes, mopeds and scooters.
Although details are detailed, the report is not intended to be normative. “We won’t call any measures specifically, but one of the things we’re telling in this report is that this is possible,” Siff says. Their hope is that cities and communities will think big about how spaces can be transformed and how clever design can meet a variety of needs.
“We are showing our communities, we are showing our cities, we are showing our states, we are showing our world that we can do that,” Mercado said. “We have to have the vision and resources to implement it.”
As far as its implementation is concerned, infrastructure projects often move slowly in New York, Siff said. Needless to say, the city is currently preparing for the mayoral election. It will be held yesterday. “It takes really strong leadership in the city to get this done,” Siff says. But she hopes that the next mayor will see an opportunity to influence the project, and that “New York City is reusing street spaces, parking spaces and returning them to the community in the major cities around the world.”
– Claire Ellie Ze Thompson
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A farewell shot
In December 2022, New York City experimented with the iconic Fifth Avenue temporary open street on Sunday, creating space for holiday shoppers. It was marked First time in half a century The main street was closed by the car. Mayor Eric Adams last year I reduced that Until just one day.
