Eguahé porá*
And welcome to this newsletter.
It's where I (John Surico) share thoughts & writing each month on cities & their contents: streets, people, energy, cultures, food, form, etc. Thanks for being here, and hope you enjoy your time!
In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court ruled (6-3) that New York’s concealed-carry law infringed upon an American’s right to bear arms for self-defense outside of the home, thereby striking down similar laws that restricted where one could bring a gun. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court ruled (6-3) that a woman did not have a constitutional right to an abortion, upending precedence set by Roe v. Wade, just a year before its 50th anniversary. And in West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled (6-3) that Congress must regulate carbon emissions, not the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), even though its name says otherwise.
This month transformed the legal code of America. The administrative, more liberal state built in the 1960s and 1970s—which allowed for agencies like the EPA to be created, and for decisions like Roe (and Griswold, which established the right to contraception, before it) to be passed; both of which set the bar for Western democracies at the time—has now been effectively wiped clean by the most conservative Court the country has seen in decades. (Look at the decisions: 6-3; 6-3; 6-3.) And it comes at a time when gun violence is pervasive, Planet Earth is aflame, and women/LGBTQ+ rights are increasingly under attack.
As tough as this month has been—exhausting, demoralizing, shocking—it’s also a clear sign that we’ve fully entered the age of cities. As power decentralizes, it’ll be up to cities to devise innovative strategies to get guns off the streets; to increase access to abortion services, and ensure safe passage; and to effectively lead on climate policy. Bad news first: these issues are tough to act on without federal or national support. Good news second: cities are no stranger to this work, because let’s be honest—they’ve been going it alone for years. But expect more to come as we continue to navigate this brave new world.
Now, onto the news:
Get on the bus
Each day, New York City’s buses pull off a mini-miracle. They carry more people on more routes than the next few major cities’ bus systems combined. Right now, even with depressed ridership after COVID (they’re back to about 70%), they’re still topping out at ~1.5 million riders—the entire population of cities like San Diego and Dallas. That, to me, is just incredible.
But from 300 feet up, it’s a slightly different picture. I’ve been reporting on the plight of the city’s buses for years; in the 2010s, they lost 14 percent of their annual ridership, or about 100 million riders. Why? Because the buses got slow. The decade of Uber offered relatively cheap rideshare, which, we now know, clogged up our cities even more than they had been. (Amazon did the same thing, just with online deliveries.) That led to what’s known in the transit world as a death spiral: less ridership means less service, which means less ridership, which means less service—a perpetuating cycle. Not great at a time when we need to get more people on public transportation, not less. And then came COVID—the worst crisis for transit agencies in our lifetime.
So the buses have a few hills to climb back from. But there is good news: New York City is making an unprecedented effort to revive its pre-pandemic plans with Better Buses Restart, a multi-pronged, intergovernmental approach that could serve as a model for the rest of the U.S.. Here are the main sticking points advocates are closely watching:
Redesign the network. For the first time in decades, the entire bus network of New York City—every route, every stop—is being overhauled. The new Bronx bus network just launched this month, and Queens is next.
Re-stripe the street. While slow to the uptake, the city is putting in more bus lanes and ‘busways’—or streets where private cars are banned—than ever before. The mayor just announced a slew of new ones this month.
Enforce what you have. Traffic enforcement cameras are a hotly contested issue, as the fight in Albany over letting NYC run them 24/7 recently showed. But as we speak, more drivers are getting hit up for blocking bus lanes than any time before. That’ll continue as more cameras are set to go live—both in bus lanes, and on buses themselves.
Make riding a breeze. Contactless payment was supposed to be a godsend for riding, but now the plan to allow for all-door boarding has been put on hold. In the meantime, both the MTA and DOT are pushing to add countdown clocks (that, we hope, actually work!) to every station.
You can read more about modernizing the nation’s biggest bus system—or, as one advocate called it, “the year of the bus”—in my latest for Bloomberg CityLab.
Where does open space go from here?
If you’re a regular Streetbeat reader, then you’ve likely heard me proselytize about how this pandemic followed their historical tendency of redefining space in our cities. We flocked to parks, to streets, to waterfronts, to public plazas, to anywhere where we could breathe a little easier. In doing so, we placed new societal value on what this space means for our urban livability. (And I don’t think any of us will ever forget that.)
But just as that was happening, the public and private dollars we dedicate to those spaces dried up. So in New York, over 65 groups who hold some stake in the public realm—groups representing major parks, environmental justice causes, open space equity, etc.—began to talk regularly, many for the first time. They shared best practices for staving off the crisis, strategies for engaging policymakers, and plans to upend the systemic inequities to open space access that COVID laid fatally bare. That work was convened, and then funded, by City Parks Foundation, and it later became known as the New Parks Era.
Over the past several months, my crew at the Institute for Urban Parks within Central Park Conservancy (special shout-outs to Grey Elam, Maura Lout and Steven Thomson) took on the role of synthesizing everything that was discussed in those meetings. The result is an action agenda—for elected officials, for funders, for advocates, and for the public—entitled “New Parks Era: A Collective Vision for Open Space in NYC.” While the city’s new budget has the largest allocation for parks in history (over $600 million), there is still a long way to go in ensuring that everyone has quality open space in their neighborhood.
That’s what this report is for. Here are the five key priorities:
Improve budgeting and funding for the public realm. The way the public realm in New York City is planned, funded, developed, and managed is in desperate need of change.
Develop engagement and regulatory systems that support the public realm. The public realm of New York City is notoriously fragmented.
Engage the new administration. With a budget of almost $100 billion, City Hall holds an immense influence over how the public realm is shaped in New York City.
Advance equitable open space place planning. Numerous neighborhoods in New York City do not yet have adequate open space.
Improve workforce development—and enhance operational support—for open space operators. Open spaces provided for the green jobs of the future long before they dominated national headlines.
For specific recommendations and action items in each area, you can read the full report here. (Shameless self-promo: this is my first official publication as the Institute’s scholar-in-residence, and I’m very proud of it!)
Idle Warriors
And finally, I was delighted to go on-air with Bloomberg Quicktake alongside the legendary George Pakenham. For those of you who don’t know his work, George began confronting drivers in New York City back in the late aughts about their addiction to idling. His mission led to a documentary, countless media articles, a spotlight from then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and eventually, a first-of-its-kind law that doles out bounties to people who film engine abusers. I first met George when I wrote about idling for CityLab last year, and we’ve been in touch ever since. He’s grown quite a following—all of whom are getting paid.
Watch the full video here.
OSA: Sharing Best Practices
There was no spring in New York, so 31st Ave went from chilly to hot practically overnight. You can tell when people move the public tables and chairs towards the tree canopy. The hottest item at our recent vendor fair with the Astoria Food Pantry, which saw hundreds of people on the Open Street? A tent! We’ve even received requests for a kiddie pool. (Ay, we’re working on it.)
As the season to be outside ramps up, one thing we’ve come to appreciate is the network. You have to remember that most Open Streets, if they’re not run by business improvement districts (BIDs), are maintained by volunteer groups. Unpaid citizens who dedicate their time and energy to building a pop-up public plaza in their own backyard. It’s by no means a sustainable system—and could only work with city support, which, thankfully, has trickled in—but typically those same people have some sort of urbanist bent. They like streets. They like open space. They like walking and cycling. They like where they live.
And from that a knowledge exchange amongst Open Street groups is starting to emerge. We see each other on Instagram. Some take part in a biweekly call put on by Transportation Alternatives. Others visit each other, or invite ‘em over. There are forums, conversations, and tours—some formal; others informal. Veterans help newcomers, and programmers hop from one to the next. And many are leaned on for expertise by architects, designers and advocates. (To make clear: most volunteers didn’t enter the pandemic as experts.)
All of this has become incredibly useful, especially as more streets come online. It feels like true organic organizing. The city isn’t hosting us, although they’ll fund activities that jump from street to street. (Like the Oonee Mini, which just made its début on 31st Ave after leaving Vanderbilt Ave Open Street in Brooklyn.) But it mostly comes out of a need for guidance, which many might not feel like the city can always offer. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything else like it—perhaps nonprofits or institutions in similar spaces connect the same way, but this feels unique. Like a tight-knit accidental community that is not only chugging along two years after March 2020, but also growing in size. It’s been a sight to see.
Bright Side: Walk & Cycle, The Game!
This month’s shout-out goes to our old borough of Lambeth in London, which recently introduced ‘Beat the Street’: a six-week contest that invites people of all ages to move around on two wheels or feet. Kids are given a key card in school, as well as one for their parent or guardian. They then tap said cards on terminals placed around the borough, which earns them points that they can exchange for prizes. There are even time-based challenges, too.
The idea is to make mobility fun, much like Waze or Pokémon Go. If you’re in London, you’ve got about a month left to join. Hurry!
City in Spotlight: Rio de Janeiro
Outside of New York City, Rio de Janeiro is my second-favorite city in the world. (Sorry, Fargo!) As my partner likes to say, great cities have an energy to them—you can feel culture pulsating in the streets, in shops, in restaurants, in bars and clubs, and in everyday life. If that’s the case, Rio is a maestro. It’s the kind of city where it feels like bossa nova is playing in the background everywhere you go. Like it should be in black and white sometimes, and then full Technicolor at others. Its natural and urban features—rainforest, beach, hills, city—create this cataclysm of activity that I had never seen before, or since.
Anyway, that’s the preamble for this: Rio just announced the first low-emissions ‘district’ in the country. Over the next two years, 2.25 square kilometers in Centro, or Rio’s bustling downtown, will see more cycling lanes, street trees, EVs, and car access restriction, in an effort to cut emissions and boost livability. But most interestingly, it’s part of ‘Reviver Centro,’ or Revive Centro—an initiative to rezone and rethink the downtown. Like cities elsewhere, Rio’s downtown could use people, and the idea is that if you build it (to be able to breathe better), they will come. (I wrote about the city’s path to zero transport emissions in 2020.)
LEZs are quite rare outside of Europe, so this is a big deal. It’s also another case of cities leading—you may remember that Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president, has been described as the world’s most dangerous climate denier, given his proximity to the Amazon. But Eduardo Paes, Rio’s centrist mayor who’s serving a second time, thinks differently: he’s successfully pushed for cycling infrastructure, a walking network (that is amazing), a fourth metro line, and bus rapid transit. Local elections matter, folks.
Parklet of the Month, June 2022 Edition
Name: Manuel Plaza (East Village, Manhattan)
What: A newly refurbished parklet.
FKA: A water testing site. (Still is!)
For the last 8 months, my office at the NYU Journalism Institute has offered me a front-row seat to a tiny green transformation. 35 East 4th Street has been home to an empty gravel lot for as long as I’ve hung around Greenwich Village (now over a decade). Aside from two silver towers, which the city’s Department of Environmental Protection used to test the water supply. But a few years ago, the city decided two things: a) it didn’t need all that space; and b) the neighborhood around it did. (More of these conversions are popping up elsewhere.)
So bit by bit, that lot has turned into Manuel Plaza. First came the tiling. Then, the benches and bean bag-rocks. And finally, the people.
Want me to feature a parklet where you live? Submit yours here.
Streetbeat Gig Board
Falling into the ‘dream job’ category, NYCDOT is hiring people to ride around on bikes and make sure bike lanes are clear, especially near construction sites.
Queens Botanical Garden is looking for a director of programs, which means you get to work with my western Queens fairy godmother, Evie Hantzopoulos.
The new NYC Comptroller needs a senior policy analyst for transportation, sanitation, and public space—sounds neat!
Lyft is hiring writers for a new project on the future of transportation. From the posting: “Please send cover letter, resume, and clips to jasontanz@lyft.com.”
Have a job to post? Submit it here.
Kita Monthly