Sustainable Flatbush reports that Mayor Bloomberg, Lance Armstrong and David Byrne were on hand at the news conference to announce Summer Streets NYC. Here’s the press release via Streetsblog:
“We anticipate that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and visitors will take advantage of streets temporarily opened for recreation,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “We hope the Summer Streets experiment will become as much a part of the New York experience as strolling the Coney Island boardwalk, participating in the 5-borough bike tour, or listening to the Philharmonic in the park.” (NYC press release, via Streetsblog)
Emulating similar experiments in Paris, London, and Bogotá, Colombia, New York City will close off to traffic a 6.9-mile route from the Brooklyn Bridge to East 72nd Street on three consecutive Saturdays, giving New Yorkers to a chance to explore and enjoy “car-free recreation corridors” — well, for six hours a stretch, at least. (NY Times)
What about Brooklyn? I know there was an attempt to close off Seventh Avenue to traffic for a few weekends this summer. Not sure if anything came of that yet. Sure sounds like a great idea to me.