NYC car-free streets plan includes three Queens parks
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Mayor Bill de Blasio announced street closures Friday. Mayoral Photography Office/Flickr
By David Brand
12:05 p.m.: This story has been updated with additional information on specific street closures.
8:30 p.m.: And this story has been updated again because the streets are opening Saturday (not Monday).
Roadways in and around three Queens parks will soon close to cars as the city implements the first phase of a plan to open 40 miles of streets for social distancing strolls and bike rides citywide.
In total, the plan will ban cars from 7 miles of streets located in and around city parks between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. every day starting Saturday.
The city will close specific roadways in Flushing Meadows Corona Park and Forest Park, a large wooded region of Central Queens. Three busy streets that bisect the park —Woodhaven Boulevard, Metropolitan Avenue and Myrtle Avenue — will remain open to cars.
A 0.01-mile stretch of street near Court Square will also close, according to the plan.
“Open streets are going to be another way we promote social distancing,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a press conference Friday morning. “We know warmer weather is going to draw out more people. That’s obvious.”
De Blasio and Speaker Corey Johnson first announced the basics of the Open Streets plan on April 27, marking a reversal for a city slow to close streets to cars to allow residents more freedom of movement amid coronavirus isolation orders.
“Our parks have played a critical role in maintaining public health during this crisis,” de Blasio said in a statement Friday. “But we cannot afford to have a high demand for open space create unhealthy situations.”
The city briefly opened a short stretch of 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights to pedestrians last month.
An early draft of the Open Streets Plan was shared with the Eagle by a person familiar with the planning. That draft included a plan to close nearly 10 miles of streets citywide, including a roadway near Astoria Park that did not make it into the final announced plan.
The Mayor’s Office declined to discuss why certain streets were removed from the final plan.
The specific Queens streets are:
1.5 miles of Meadow Lake Drive between Model Airplane Field and Meadow Lake Bridge Parking Lot in Flushing Meadows Corona Park
1.1 miles in Forest Park:
Freedom Drive between Park Lane South and Myrtle Avenue in Forest Park
West Main Drive between Band Shell Lot and Golf Course Lot
East Main Drive between Metropolitan Avenue and Overlook Parking Lot
0.1 miles of Court Square West between Jackson Avenue and a dead end at Court Square
The Bronx streets:
0.2 miles of Grant Avenue between 169th Street and 170th Street in Grant Park
0.6 miles of Reservoir Oval in Williamsbridge Oval;
Brooklyn streets:
0.05 miles of Sackman Place between Truxton Street and Fulton Street in Callahan-Kelly Park
Prospect Park
0.15 miles of Prospect Park West between 4th Street and Montgomery Place/Union Street
0.56 miles of Parkside Avenue between Park Circle and Ocean Avenue
Manhattan streets:
0.88 miles of Margaret Corbin Drive between Fort Washington Avenue and Cabrini Boulevard in Fort Tryon Park
0.05 miles of Dyckman Avenue between Broadway and Seaman Avenue in the Lt. William Tighe Triangle
0.41 miles of Laurel Hill Terrace in Highbridge Park between Amsterdam Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue
Staten Island streets
0.72 miles of Silver Lake Park Road between Forest Avenue and Victory Boulevard in Silver Lake Park
0.51 miles of Front Street between Prospect Street and Edgewater Street in Stapleton Waterfront Park
Note: An earlier version of this story reported on streets included in an initial draft of a plan shared with some stakeholders by the city. The Eagle has revised the story to exclude that street information because those streets did not make it into the final plan announced Friday morning.
