Brooklyn's Parklands

Sara McCardle, a woman in her 80’s, has lived on Willoughby Avenue in Brooklyn for over 50 years. When the Open Streets program was sprung on the city during the pandemic her block and all of the blocks down to the entrance to Fort Greene Park were barricaded, making access and egress very difficult. The closure was originally put in place by the city to give people more room to move during the pandemic. This was an interesting but faulted approach to a problem that was exacerbated during the Bloomberg administration dating back to 2008 and then carried through the DeBlasio administration to the Adams administration.

In 2008, Brooklyn’s parkland was well below the city charter requirement of 2.5 acres for every 1,000 residents. The development of Downtown Brooklyn, rezoned in 1992 for a more dense commercial hub was just gathering steam when the financial crisis of 2008 struck, dealing a realistic blow to the over confident and unyielding Bloomberg administration. The development pivoted from the planned majority commercial offices to now majority residential development seemingly overnight without city hall seriously confronting any of the issues or problems that would be inevitable for a change this dramatic. The consequences were stark. Schools were not built, parkland not set aside, garbage pickup, emergency and essential services now all affected and not addressed.

A glut of residential high rises operating 24/7 was a steep contrast to the once bustling business district closed by 8pm. By the time the pandemic hit in 2019 the almost one half mile of Fort Greene Park was so overburdened by the influx of the new tower residents that the park looked more like the college quad at Michigan State on the first sunny day in spring, people everywhere, cheek to jowl. The solution brought by the DeBlasio administration to our desperate health crisis, and lack of parkland, was to close miles of streets to give residents a place to walk. This decision was well intentioned but the lack of consideration or acknowledgement for those New Yorkers who are disabled, elderly or infirm was detrimental to their well being. Those tasked with the well being of the city’s most vulnerable were not seriously looking at the fallout from these policies. This was an emergency and the mayor used his emergency powers like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Barricades were simply dropped off at designated locations. It was a pandemic and people needed space. During the first six months of the pandemic the world was in crisis mode so everything was on the table which was understandable. Once the vaccine was produced there was no public reevaluation of the program outside a vocal, heavily financed lobby pushing to have pandemic measures become permanent. Emergency and essential services response was now very affected buy the closing off of response arteries. Essential workers had no such luxury of staying home and when they did get home from their shifts, they had to stop their cars and pull barricades aside in order to have access to their own block in order to find parking. There was still no proper enforcement of barriers, no monitors present tasked to move barriers when access to the street was needed, and no one to remove them when the sun went down. Barricades did not have any information or any contact numbers for those responsible for them being put out or removed, and no time frame as to when the obstructions should be moved. It was this ad hoc program that was in place to appease New Yorkers that were now homebound with the backing of a well funded lobby which was going to use this opportunity to do all they could to keep streets off the grid. The person put in charge of this untested, undebated, and very impactful program was a brand new graduate of Hunter College’s master degree program in urban planning and not yet 30 years old.

As the restrictions of the pandemic began to lift the hedge-fund financed anti car lobby Transportation Alternatives, through its propaganda machines Streetsblog, Streetsfilms, and Open Plans NYC, as well as the restaurant hospitality lobby went into hyper drive. Pressure was put on news outlets and politicians to extol the virtues of open streets, outdoor dining, and the bold assertion rammed home that bike riding had exploded during the pandemic so the city had no choice but to use this opportunity to repurpose the streets for the coming of a new age, a car free New York City.

There were never any clear statistics or data to justify these assertions or form a well

rounded opinion let alone a fair democratic judgement of how this transformation would affect all New Yorkers, just as the process of street restructuring had been in the Bloomberg administration There were only the most broad statements made, and heavily scripted talking points that were regurgitated to the public. The corporate script on how to remake a city had been written during Bloomberg’s administration and DeBlasio, it would seem, had tucked it neatly under his arm.

Willoughby Avenue was quickly ushered into the now permanent open streets program all through Zoom meetings. The city council passed the legislation without ever holding the proper safety hearings just as the Bloomberg administration had done when installing bike lanes, and pedestrian plazas, it was all a fait accompli. The program continued as it was initiated, no monitors, no management, no identification or contacts on the barriers, let the public sort this out, pitting neighbor against neighbor as people deputized themselves to block streets without any guidance from the DOT. It was total chaos, as it is today. No one ever thought to contact women like Sara McCardle.

Sara McCardle was her husband’s sole care giver and it would be up to her to get her

husband to his doctor’s appointments.. He was 85. Multiple times a week Sara had to grab onto the bannister of her stoop and make her way down the stairs with her arthritic knees paining her the whole way to allow Access-a-Ride into the block. She then had to pull the barricades back in place and hobble back down the street to join her husband in the car, and go through the whole process again upon their return.

Starting with Janette Sadik Khan, (who served as DOT Commissioner under the Bloomberg administration (and is now an employee of Bloomberg Associates, the head of the National Association of Transportation Officials as well as a member of the Regional Planning Commission), the corporate plan to make it extremely difficult to drive in the city was hatched.

It was clumsily put under the guise of creating alternate means of travel, i.e. bike lanes, and it too seemed to rollout, for the most part, without any real consideration for the democratic process. Once again emergency and essential services were ignored. In one instance, Keith Bray the DOT Commissioner of Brooklyn, blatantly admitted at a community meeting that there were no safety studies done, and reports of delayed emergency response ignored.

The ultimate goal was, and still is, the elimination of private vehicles in the city and nothing was going to get in the way of that. This despite the fact that those ramming this theory down the throats of taxpayers, Michael Bloomberg, Janette Khan, and later Bill DeBlasio, Polly Trottenberg and other appointed and elected officials are all transported in SUV’s and for hire vehicles to this day.

It would appear Ms Khan knew that bike lanes and pedestrian plazas, like the Times Square Plaza (planned under the speakership of Council Speaker Gifford Miller) was a way to justify eliminating travel lanes in the long term without "tipping off” the public, so the thought went.

They are cheap and with enough of a public propaganda campaign and a complete dismissal of proper government process and procedure, or any expert opinions or meaningful engagement with the taxpayers who fund this city, the war on cars began.

Ms. Khan and her minions at the DOT dismissed any concerns or statistics to the contrary. She gathered data that proved her thesis while seemingly ignoring anything to the contrary. (A good question to ask is how many older or disabled people are represented in any of the organizations she belongs to, or in today’s DOT). She forged ahead with the backing of a billionaire mayor determined to make his mark on this city and to rebrand himself as the climate mayor, creator of the luxury corporate park. A billionaire who owns a mega mansion on the upper east side, multiple mansions in and out of this country, travels in a private jet and helicopter and has, after his third term in office, a third term which was granted him by the city council after the citizens of this city voted twice for term limits, has since dedicated himself to the spreading of corporate ecology, just a hint of ecology with a large heaping of corporate interests.

Through the DeBlasio Administration and now In the Adams administration, Dan

Doctoroff, Deputy Mayor for Mike Bloomberg and presently head of StreetsLab, a think tank whose goal is to rethink how a city operates and who supports the fringe group,“war on cars,” has been cited supplying statistics to the DOT. It along with Bloomberg Associates released their findings on the effects of the Open Streets initiative. The success of Open Streets is measured using restaurant revenue as the metric. There are no numbers on how traffic is being snarled, how city services are affected or delayed or how city residents are

inconvenienced, or their lives put in jeopardy. The essential data is ignored so a microcosm of the population can eat in the street. The question begs to be asked how does a former mayor and his company, a mayor who initiated the “repurposing of streets” now allowed to provide the present administration with “facts” that affect once again bolster his initiatives? Where are the reports from city services and the effects on infrastructure? How is this not a conflict of interest?

The spin used by the past two administrations to get rid of privately owned vehicles in the city comes from the premise that a minority of people in the city own vehicles, and therefore they are infringing on the majority of the population. There are many holes in that theory. One of the more popular talking points constantly sighted is that only forty-five percent of households own cars in NYC. First and foremost 45% is just shy of half the households in this city, not something to be ignored. Is the DOT counting any cars registered in another state by NYC residents, a practice that is well known due in part to the unfair and exorbitant cost of insurance in this city, and yes, these vehicles matter because they are on the streets, and those that own them reside here. That would surely increase the already high percentage of vehicles owned by residents and skew the statistic. Has the influx of vehicles within the city limits during the week by people from the tristate area been factored in? Let us not forget too, New York City is part of the I-95 corridor, a major transportation hub for the entire east coast. How is the supply chain for the entire east coast going to be affected by all automobile traffic now funneled onto highways? Has anyone factored in the capacity of public transit to be able to move that population in a timely fashion if all private cars were eliminated from the city? Does the MTA have the capacity for this now?

How can the premise of eliminating private car ownership be justified by saying it is only a minority of the population therefore a luxury and should not be allowed in the city, while in the same breath extolling the virtues and entitling a micro minority of the population to take over streets to eat and play thereby inconveniencing the majority of the citizens of this city and the city’s day to day functioning?

The right to own a vehicle in this city is granted by the state. How does the city

government, a government that benefits heavily from the taxes and fees collected by car owners, have the right to make driving that vehicle so difficult that it costs taxpayers time and money just to commute to work while at the same time justifying the overindulgence of a micro minority to block off miles of streets so they can frolic and create a carnival environment in front of peoples homes 24/7?

There is a growing movement in this country and in the world, the rise of the corporate city. This idea has sprung from the minds of neo-liberals, silicon valley technocrats, bored billionaires and the like. The new and improved city will be, according to those proposing the venture, an eden. A city just like this is planned for Solano California, and it is nothing short of a technocrat’s fantasy. The lack of reality in its presentation is astounding. Dan Doctoroff’s company StreetsLab, a sister company of Google, attempted this in a 12 acre parcel of land in Toronto Canada’s waterfront area and failed. His perfect city never got off the ground. It was reportedly mired in all those messy day to day details of city living.

This new corporate city, this shining beacon on the hill is known by many names: the 15 minute city, the car free city, the progressive city. it all adds up to the same thing, a corporate luxury park devoid of democracy, serving a branded population. A population that can afford to shop for food, or any household items using only a bicycle. Will no one need to pick up sheetrock from Home Depot? Will everyone have the finances to get everything delivered to the door, or live in close proximity to everything they need because those resources are close by, or be healthy enough to not need emergency care? Will there be no fires, floods, terrorist attacks, large or small scale emergencies? It is the suburbs 2.0 and good luck being able to afford it in a country where housing is a premium commodity for hedge funds. This “perfect” city will be sold and maintained by those who created it and will profit from it. Privatization of services will be the order of the day. It is bourgeois phantasmagoria and it is nothing more than a sales pitch to get investors, clients, and corporate interests to make money and it is unfolding is a city near you.

Corporate cities can only exist when they are attached onto an already working city

government. Like any business they make money in the short term while obliterating the pillars of government that hold a city together and keep its day to day functioning working. The corporate city exploits the tried and true methods of government and when the corporate model begins to crumble, because it is based sold on profit, the corporate interests scatter to something, new leaving the hollowed out shell of a once working city.

The trouble with some of todays celebrity billionaires is that they seem to believe that they are able to tackle any endeavor regardless of their lack of experience or expertise on the subject. That their good financial fortune and heavy tax abatements that provide them with unfathomable wealth gives them the ability to dip their toe in any issue that is of interest to them and to control the variables so that the outcome enhances their portfolio. This latest venture into creating the perfect city reminds me of Stockton Rush and the doomed submersible dive to the Titanic. Mr. Rush according to reports, ignored safety specs, and people with far more education and experience in submersible travel and construction and forged ahead because he had the money to do so, and the belief that he was right. The result was not only his own death but the death of four other people including a 19 year old boy. The 15 minute city is just another venture with those leading the way having no experience or expertise at the helm and a deep disregard of the lives of the citizens that will inhabit those cities. Profit trumps democracy every day and twice on Sunday no matter what the propaganda of monied interests serves up.

Democracy is messy and imperfect but it strives to serve all, not just the branded few who have already been groomed for from the start by being raised in a closed and selective environment. You take the children who were the product of the suburbs, the new branded population, sell them city living as a better more all encompassing experience, sprinkle a little environmentalism on the top of the pitch, just for show, keep them uninformed of proper government procedure and what you have is the beginning of the end of democratic government, and the end of the city as we know it. A power vacuum opens when government is compromised and that vacuum is filled by private interests looking to capitalize on new investment possibilities. You need only look at Vanderbilt Avenue, and Pacific Park in Brooklyn to see the future and it soon will be imported to Gowanus. Many people have come here seeking a life from all over this country and the world. At no time did this city cater to any one population. You arrived here with dreams and you became one of the millions trying to make it. City government operated for all, it did not pit neighbor against neighbor.

How can any of this be addressed? Instead of signing on to congestion pricing, a money grab for the MTA, sold as a way to better our public transit infrastructure, we should study the problem in context. Let’s not give another revenue source to the MTA which has so many revenue sources at this point there should be a complete audit done by a nonpartisan not for profit government watch group to see exactly where all of these pots of money are going to before they are allowed to impose another one on working New Yorkers.

Now more than ever many of New Yorkers can schedule our appointments and even work schedule so that we are not chained to the 9 to 5, 40 hour work schedule of yore. Odd and even plate days for private vehicles in the major business districts in every borough. It would take a lot of work but city government can sell this concept to the public by appealing to drivers by offering less congested streets if drivers adhere to a schedule, something that is good for everyone. Odd plates can enter business districts on Monday and Wednesday, even plates on Tuesday and Thursday, fines for those who refuse to comply. Odd and even plate days worked for gas rationing in this city more than once. Capping Uber and Lyft vehicle licenses and only allowing a percentage of those ride shares into congested areas.

Creating underground passageways on larger “street highways” such as Atlantic Avenue, and Queens Boulevard, where the infrastructure allows, so that pedestrians do not have to cross multiple traffic lanes, or install pedestrian bridges. Bike lanes on tertiary streets where bicycle drivers are visible and there are far fewer distractions and far fewer large vehicles, for both car and bicycle drivers concerned. When considering the transport of goods, building weigh stations for 18 wheelers just outside the city so they can be off loaded into smaller box trucks. We must create livable transportation solutions for all modes of transport for a major transportation hub responsible to the entire east coast of the country. There are a myriad of ideas that can be worked on before the city acquiesces to the lobby vision of an idyllic suburban type car free city devoid of reality. It takes vision and experience to become a leader in mega city transportation, copying what is in vogue in Europe is not what New York should be striving for.

We are a leader in innovation let’s stop taking the easy way out, let’s stop playing follow the leader, and most importantly lets stop ignoring reality. This will be hard but it is necessary.

Sara McCardle’s husband passed away just after the pandemic. He too spent most of his life on Willoughby Avenue. He watched many changes in his lifetime as has his wife but none as destructive as a city government simply ignoring his basic need to survive so that heavily financed lobbyists could be satisfied. This has to change. New York City is better than this.

This site will attempt to offer a more three dimensional view of city issues and government responses in the hope of creating real dialogue so the whole community is heard and respected as the city moves forward.