It was 2020 and Hayden Andersen was suffering from the pandemic within the pandemic: boredom. Cooped up in his apartment, a local story that had become a theme nationally caught the attention of the University of California-Davis postdoctoral researcher. An “open streets” program that limited vehicle access downtown was being enacted to free up the space to merchants and the community, buoying businesses while offering residents a safe option to shop and socialize. However, some in Davis argued the loss of the road and parking would cause traffic problems and harm commerce.

With ample time on his hands, Andersen decided to settle the debate as his thesis project. He expected that the insights he gained could be useful when the unique circumstances of the pandemic passed and communities considered ways to improve streets for the long term.

He identified 97 municipalities across the country that were trying open streets, digitized their routes, and sent surveys about the experience to more than 10,000 businesses in the zones. They ranged from small towns where the idea was a major departure to cities where vibrant street life was part of their DNA. The results were equally mixed.

“I was dreaming of, ‘Wow, this guy figured out that businesses had a 20-percent increase in sales when the streets were shut down and it was going to be this big thing,” Andersen mused. “In the end, the statistical difference in terms of revenue wasn’t significant, which is a finding in and of itself.”

Of course, many cities and businesses credit open streets initiatives as economic saviors at a precarious moment, and those voices are represented in Andersen’s study, published in The Journal of Transport and Land Use. While the economic impacts of open streets have been discussed and reported widely, Andersen’s research also captured feedback on an aspect which has not: their safety implications.

On the surface, it seems simple – close a street to cars and crashes will disappear – but there’s more to it, and several lessons have begun to emerge. American transportation planners have long admired Europe’s great cities for their rich traditions of bicycle and pedestrian friendliness and wondered what it would be like if their approaches were applied to U.S. downtowns. The pandemic thrust them upon us in the form of open streets.

“The pedestrian streets were created quickly in places where people were so used to driving all the time,” said Andersen, now a transportation analyst for Kittleson & Associates in Washington, D.C. “They work so well in Europe because of the context. In the European pedestrian streets, there are no big parking lots nearby; people live close by and walk to them, and it’s delightful. Here, you have to drive to the pedestrian street, park and walk to it.”

Andersen’s data revealed what he termed “a perceived lack of accessibility” and safety by certain groups. Food and beverage businesses were thrilled overall with the additional space; retailers that sold bulky carryout items or depended on older clientele were more sensitive to losing parking in front of their stores. Many merchants appreciated the peace of mind offered to customers who no longer had to worry about their kids running into traffic; others reported that allowing alcohol to be consumed in the street led to a rowdiness that threatened safety and the commercial environment.

“Certain segments of the population don’t feel safe parking two blocks away and walking at night on an empty street,” said Andersen. “Some described the environment as ‘less busy.’ You could call that ‘peaceful,’ or you could call that ‘a ghost town,’ ‘deserted’ or ‘eerie.’”

Despite what was perceived, hard data in some cities shows that safety gains were achieved. In its Open Streets Forever report, the nonprofit Transportation Alternatives (TA) contrasted safety for all of New York City’s open streets from the year before to the year after their launch. TA found that while cyclist injuries increased 20 percent citywide, they decreased 17 percent on open streets. Motorist injuries fell by 25 percent citywide, but by 50 percent on open streets, even though none of them operated 24/7.

A before/after analysis by Streetsblog of the 34^th Avenue open street in Queens found that crashes and injuries dropped 55 and 72 percent outside of its 7 a.m.-8 p.m. hours of operation. The finding suggests that the street’s status as a safe space for all users cued drivers to exercise extra caution there even during off hours.

Making Them Safe, Successful

A major factor behind the success of the 34^th Avenue open street is the commitment that was shown to non-drivers, according to Mike Lydon, co-founder of the Open Streets Project and a principal at Street Plans. The open street evolved based on community needs and restricted traffic to emergency responders and those with an important reason for being there.

“I would say the best practice is that you would limit traffic altogether, or if you do allow traffic, it’s hyperlocal,” Lydon said. “Just to call something an open street or put up a sign that calls it an open street, that doesn’t typically work.”

Indeed, the term “open street” has meant different things in different places. Throughout the pandemic, open streets were miles long or just a block or two; they were in effect daily, on weekends, or just on designated dates; they were simple, wide open areas, or they buzzed with programming like yoga classes, farmer’s markets and concerts. They were even called different things, like “healthy streets” and “slow streets.” Lydon has been studying the many examples with an interest in which pre-pandemic open streets ideas endured.

Whatever their form, Lydon said those which allowed even modest levels of car access were less effective. He and volunteer observers monitored three open streets in Brooklyn at the height of the pandemic and saw the difference.

“As soon as you cross the threshold of 4 to 5 percent of users on the streets being cars, it sort of pushed everyone to the margins of the sidewalks and off the street,” Lydon said. “It didn’t have the same level of openness, where a parent like myself would feel like my 3-year-old can scoot in the middle of the street.”

Communication is another key to ensuring an open street’s safety and buy-in, Lydon said. Whether through a community app or outreach through prominent local news sources, organizers must share the intent of the program, its hours, routes, parking instructions, and any other information that can help make it work.

A cautionary tale about communication breakdown could be seen in complaints in Andersen’s survey about GPS navigation systems that were not aware of the closures and did not have the ability to re-route customers to available parking lots. The report found that poor outreach and information sharing by cities often resulted in “a poor attitude toward the program from the beginning that didn’t get better over time.”

Any barriers used should make it clear that the street is off limits and should not be easy to move or circumvent. The TA report found that five times as many cars intruded on open streets where drivers could maneuver around barricades than those where they had to be moved. TA’s surveyors also observed at least one car entering the open streets within the first five minutes at 81 percent of the sites where the barriers could be driven around.

Unsightly barriers also influenced satisfaction levels with the programs. Respondents to Andersen’s survey complained that the use of objects like “road closed” signs, orange barrels, and concrete barricades made the open street seem “sketchy,” “tacky” and look like a construction site. Lydon praised New York City for its solution of using planters and enlisting the Horticultural Society of New York to maintain them and remove snow and ice around them.
 

The Future of Open Streets

As the pandemic waned, so did the momentum behind open streets in the U.S. On average, the open street programs studied by Andersen lasted eight months; of the examples that were active during the peak summer of 2020, less than a third were still in place by the fall of 2021.

Yet on the strength of open streets’ economic, safety and bicycle/pedestrian travel gains, some cities have opted to retain them to at least some degree. Advocates view them as one of the few silver linings of the pandemic, though funding is a threat to their long-term survival.

“We’re seeing time and time again that open streets are not free to create or manage,” said Transportation Alternatives Director of Communications Alexa Sledge. “We need to make sure cars aren’t going into the streets, we need to have all of the programming, and people need to move the barriers constantly, unless they’re permanent open streets. Getting that funding and getting actual reimbursement from the city has been pretty difficult.”

One recent growth area for open streets has been the movement to enact them on blocks surrounding schools as a safety measure, Sledge said. Data has shown that injuries and fatalities suffered by school children in New York City are highest during drop-off and pickup hours, she said. They also provide expanded recess areas for buildings that lack the space.

The claw-back of open streets initiatives nationwide has been a disappointment, Sledge said, especially for places like New York, where fewer than half of households own a car and small apartment sizes make open space all the more valuable. In her view, maintaining open streets is an equity issue.

“The people who it’s benefitting are busy, they have children, they have multiple jobs, long commutes,” Sledge said. “And the people that tend to complain might not be in the workforce, or they might own a vehicle, so they’re much more likely to be wealthy and have time to go to meetings. Their voices are overrepresented in this conversation and who elected officials are listening to.”

Karl Vilacoba is Communications Director for the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute.