Eyes on the Street: NYC’s Car-Free Streets Season Gets Started

The scene on Bedford Avenue at North 7th Street this weekend during the Williamsburg Walks car-free event. Photo: Stephen Miller

On Saturday, ten blocks of the Bedford Avenue retail strip were closed to cars and open to people for Williamsburg Walks, one of the first neighborhood car-free events to partner with DOT’s Weekend Walks program. The street was full of people enjoying the sunny weather — at chairs and tables, listening to live music, playing games, lounging on grass, and stopping in at shops and restaurants along the way.

The year’s third and final Williamsburg Walks is scheduled for this Saturday. The calendar for DOT’s Weekend Walks website lists 23 streets in all five boroughs with car-free streets on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays this summer — up from 18 three years ago.

New Yorkers craving something bigger than just their own neighborhood event are looking forward to the sixth annual Summer Streets, which converts Park Avenue and Lafayette Street from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park at 72nd Street into a car-free zone. Summer Streets takes place during three consecutive Saturdays in August. DOT has not yet announced this year’s dates.

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Williamsburg Walks Doubles Foot Traffic on Bedford Avenue

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Transportation Alternatives has been measuring the effect of Williamsburg Walks, the car-free street event on Bedford Avenue, and look what they found: Foot traffic on Bedford Avenue was 96% higher than the average Saturday, based on pedestrian counts. The number of children and seniors using the street also increased. And because so much more space […]

Eyes on the Street: First Weekend of Car-Free Summer Streets

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A reader sends in these shots of weekend car-free street activity. Above, the crowd takes in a performance from the Fourth Arts Block "Meet the Street" series on East 4th Street between the Bowery and Second Avenue in Manhattan; below is a scene from the first Saturday of Williamsburg Walks, taken at North 6th and […]

Summer Streets Coming to Brooklyn This Weekend

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Enjoying car-free Bedford Ave. during Williamsburg Walks 2008. Photo: acsweet/Flickr After today’s rain clears out, it looks to be a beautiful weekend for two Summer Streets events in Brooklyn. Starting tomorrow, Bedford Avenue from North 4th to North 9th Street will be open to pedestrians only on six Saturdays from noon to sunset. This year’s […]

Williamsburg Walks: Opening Up Bedford Avenue

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Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg Brooklyn was de-motorized and opened to the public this Saturday for a new event called Williamsburg Walks. Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson was there and he’s already churned out a nice three-and-a-half minute video to give you a sense of the event. If you want to check out Williamsburg Walks for yourself, you […]

Williamsburg Walks: Volunteer Orientation Tonight

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Brooklyn’s Bedford Avenue will be going car-free for four Saturdays this summer. If you want to be a part of making the event happen, Billburg.com invites you to a "Williamsburg Walks" volunteer orientation session tonight.  Boricua College186 N. 6th St. (bet. Bedford & Driggs Aves.)Brooklyn RSVPs are encouraged, but not mandatory. RSVP to williamsburgwalks [at] […]

Williamsburg Walks in the Rain

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My friend Jonathan and I loaded up our 70 pounds-worth of pre-schoolers into the "Batmobike" on Sunday and headed over to Williamsburg Walks. My brother Abe joined us as well. Ominous looking clouds were rolling in from the west as we left Park Slope around noon. By the time we hit Fort Greene the rain […]