It CAN Be Done: Shore Blvd. in Astoria Has Been Opened Up for People — And Without Cops!

This is how good life can be without cars in our parks. (Note the car skid marks in the bike lane!) Photo: Clarence Eckerson Jr.
This is how good life can be without cars in our parks. (Note the car skid marks in the bike lane!) Photo: Clarence Eckerson Jr.

Who said New Yorkers need their open space to be filled with cops enforcing social distancing rules (oh, right, that was the mayor)?

In any event, a short stretch of a waterfront roadway inside a city park in Queens has been finally closed to cars, creating more than a half-mile of space for residents to recreate while observing social-distancing rules.

Streetfilms has the exclusive footage here from Shore Boulevard:

According to the local State Senator, the NYPD opened up the street for residents.

The lack of cops on the scene suggested that the Parks Department or the Department of Transportation were behind the project, but the DOT confirmed that the open street was indeed the work of the police department.

In that case, the open roadway is so different from the mayor’s prior open-streets pilot program, which was scrubbed after only 11 days because the mayor deployed at least two cops per intersection, then said it required too many police resources.

In any event, people love it:

Here’s the area in question:

An earlier version of this story referred to Mike Gianaris as an Assembly Member when he is in fact a Senator. Streetsblog knows that (and regrets the error)!

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