Good afternoon Chair Abreu, and thank you for holding this hearing today. I am here representing Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. We are presenting testimony today on Intros 655 and 628 regarding outdoor dining, and on the coming NYC Streets Plan update.
Outdoor Dining
As a member of the City Council, Borough President Reynoso was the lead sponsor of two bills: one that created the emergency Open Restaurants program, and a precursor to the bill that the Council ultimately passed in 2023 to make that program permanent.
This program has been a lifeline for small restaurants. During the pandemic, it saved approximately 100,000 jobs, allowed for people to interact socially in a safe setting, and generated tax revenue for the city. It has also helped New Yorkers re-imagine what our streets can be, which is why so many New Yorkers share our desire to see the program succeed. Yet due to the seasonal rules that the Council adopted, we’ve seen the number of open restaurants drop from about 8,000 at the program’s peak, to about 2,500 last year, to zero in the winter months.
The seasonal program simply creates too many burdens on small businesses. The cost of purchasing an outdoor dining setup and paying to construct it, only to have to pay again to take it down, and then pay again to store it for the off season is too burdensome for many businesses and is the most-cited reason why they are choosing not to participate. Intro 655 addresses this by allowing open restaurants to operate all year, as was originally intended. This will encourage more creative designs, create more year-round jobs, and encourage the vibrant street life that New Yorkers enjoy.
Intro 655 also addresses other important issues with the program. It ensures expedited approvals by preventing community boards from requiring extra application materials, acknowledging that agency-level requirements are sufficient to ensure safety, appropriateness, cleanliness, and accessibility. It also expands the number of businesses that can participate by opening the option for a sidewalk cafe to grocery and specialty food stores, and by creating an option for businesses that are too small to have their own setup to coordinate with adjacent businesses to expand their space.
Removing these barriers is in line with the program’s original intent to make it as easy as possible for small and immigrant-run businesses outside Manhattan to participate without a major cost burden or too much red tape. The proposals in Intro 628 to expand access to application information and make applications easier to submit are also in line with this goal.
Streets Plan
The current NYC Streets Plan covers five years through the end of this year. As DOT prepares for the next five years, they should focus on creating a network of protected bike and bus lanes. This should go beyond “bus priority infrastructure” and identify Bus Rapid Transit corridors, where buses would be fully separated from vehicle traffic. A comprehensive approach to route planning will help ensure that projects are not pursued in isolation, making them less vulnerable to being modified or even halted by local interests.
The agency also needs to build internal capacity, both in terms of personnel and equipment. DOT vacancies should be backfilled and new staff added to reduce reliance on costly outside contractors to design, engineer, and build projects. These projects are not one-off tasks to be farmed out; the Streets Plan is a commitment that DOT will be doing this work consistently. DOT should also expand its capability to produce concrete and asphalt to speed up the in-house delivery of hardening projects.
Finally, the new Streets Plan should include a Low Traffic Neighborhoods (LTN) pilot in concert with implementing any new slow zones enabled by Sammy’s Law. LTNs use street design elements to facilitate neighborhood-wide traffic management plans that aim to reduce cut-through traffic on local streets while maintaining access for local residents, emergency vehicles, and other services. LTNs have been shown to decrease traffic by almost 50% and dramatically reduce crashes and associated injury and death. LTNs could be planned in coordination with ongoing DOT initiatives and priorities such as School Streets, the Curb Management Action Plan, and the NYC Plaza Program.
Thank you again for holding this hearing today. Borough President Reynoso looks forward to continuing to work with the Council on these efforts.
