At 103rd and Broadway (Google Maps)
In 2020, New York City introduced its “Open Streets” program in response to an increased need for publicly accessible, outdoor space. As 311 describes it, the program “closes streets to vehicle traffic to make it safer and easier for pedestrians and cyclists to stay active and enjoy activities in their community.” Sounds idyllic for some, but a group of Upper West Side residents have recently banded together to prevent such a transformation on their very own block.
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The group, which has adopted the name “UWS4Parking,” has rallied against the City’s recently approved plans to designate West 103rd Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Riverside Drive part of the Open Streets program. Per a city presentation on this proposal, the Department of Transportation’s goals for this stretch are to “prioritize pedestrians + cyclists,” “expand public space and add amenities,” and “slow through traffic.” While this plan will not close the streets entirely to traffic, it will include an expansion of the sidewalks into what is now the street area.
And therein lies the trouble. Representatives for UWS4Parking are concerned that Open Streets will mean a sharp decrease in available parking spots for residents of West 103rd Street and the surrounding area. This is exacerbated by other recent changes in the neighborhood, which include CitiBike racks and outdoor dining structures taking up parking spots, and local garages closing during the pandemic. The group also emphasizes that the area designated for Open Streets is flanked by parks on both sides, and neighborhood residents already have ample access to public green space.
Beyond their issues with the proposal itself, members of UWS4Parking feel that the process by which this designation was made did not involve enough community input. In their experience, many community members did not know how the Open Streets program would impact local parking until they started receiving notices from the DOT that their cars were going to be towed. While a group called ParkToPark103 has been leading information sessions, tabling in public areas, and hosting outreach events for over a year, UWS4Parking members did not find the information available to be explicit or accessible.
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The Open Streets program has been considered yet another part of New York City’s “war on cars.” Those for reducing private vehicle usage point toward the imbalance in publicly available bike lanes versus parking spots, car related deaths, and the effects of car pollution on city residents as just some of the reasons behind their efforts. On the other side of the issue, in the words of Assembly Member David I. Weprin, “There are still parts of New York City where people rely on their cars.” UWS4Parking members also indicated that the public transportation available to them does not meet their needs, so cars, and therefore parking spaces, remain a necessity.
It seems this may be the case for many on West 103rd. UWS4Parking has already gathered over 500 signatures on a petition voicing their objection to Open Streets on their block. The plan, however, has already been approved as of August 2022, and implementation was slated to begin in September, so it is unclear what next steps may be possible.
The folks behind UWS4Parking are working on a Facebook page, but for the time being, if people want to be involved they should email uws4parking@gmail.com.
This publication should not be giving any publicity to this advocacy group. The plan has already been approved and will be implemented shortly. Maybe if they care so much about the community they can think about participating in the process in the future, which in this instance has been ongoing since summer 2020.
BS we were informed. My post is below.
And you don’t have a right to decide what does and does not get published. That seems pretty authoritarian to me.
This “advocacy group” are the real people who live here and value accessibility to public streets and sidewalks which should NOT be controlled by the arrogant few who want to cordon off the public areas for their own pleasures. We live in a city that is serviced by hard-working plumbers, contractors, electricians, fuel deliveries, couriers and many others who need access to vehicular traffic. At the last street closing I asked a DOT employee where he obtains his food and he said the “supermarket” and they don’t need deliveries, their supplies are just “there”? Arrogant people are making ridiculous and uneducated choices for all.
Absolutely absurd that anyone would claim 103rd street lacks adequate public transit. The UWS is one of the most transit dense neighborhoods in New York City, and therefore the world. I understand if a handful of people rely on cars due to disabilities or other factors, but 95% of UWS car owners do not NEED a car. Why should my taxes go to maintain a storage space for their private property? Street space is much better used as by pedestrians, outdoor dining, and bike infrastructure.
New York City should ban private cars in Manhattan. Enough people have been murdered by speeding drivers in our neighborhood. Take the bus or move to the suburbs where you can have a garage or driveway for your precious death machine. These people need to get over themselves.
K:
” but 95% of UWS car owners do not NEED a car. ”
You know this how?
Many people who live in Manhattan, have jobs, second homes, and family in, by way of example, Connecticut and/or NJ nowhere near public transit. Also public transit, where it exists, doesn’t always run late.
Until 1950, over night parking on Manhattan streets was illegal. Something to consider again. Also the City has approved far to many large apartment buildings without the ostensibly required garage space; that’s garage space for non-tenants too. This means garages were there are now Targets, Trader Joe’s, and Wholefoods. All of those businesses and others can rent ground floor retail spaces.
People have all sorts of legitimate reasons for owning/parking private cars in Manhattan, you are not to decide that someone is to take a 3 hour long public transit ride in place of an hour long drive in a personal car. That’s up to the traveler.
Go ask the owner of your local independent pizza place how he/she stocks the place with 50 pound bags of flour. Go ask a restaurant owner, who only owns 1 or 2 places, how he/she stocks vegetables. In both cases, the owners almost always use private cars/SUVs.
whatever their reasons, they are no one else’s problem but their own.
street parking should be eliminated.
if personal driving and parking were minimized, the commercial situations would be much easier on the neighborhood.
if you want to own a private vehicle and live in the city, then you should have a private place to store it.
That’s absurd. Just absurd.
why should i subsidize your parking?
Drivers pay taxes.
And EVERYBODY pays some taxes for things they don’t use but others do. Everybody. It’s like asking why I should pay school tax when I’m not in school. Or why should tolls fund the subway. It doesn’t work like that.
please tell me where being a tax paying citizen entitles you to free public space to store your private property.
In the pandemic we learned that if you get rid of most cars the ones that remain become more dangerous. Why? Because the ones that remain are commercially driven cars and trucks and their drivers have one thing in common: the faster they can go the more money they make.
Read the details of the fatal crashes. Most deaths in our neighborhood are caused by commercial drivers, and getting your neighbors’ cars out of their way will not make you safer.
wow. so then we need better enforcement and better infrastructure?
“Many people who live in Manhattan, have jobs, second homes, and family in, by way of example, Connecticut and/or NJ nowhere near public transit.”
I’m sorry, but no city can base its street space management plans on providing free or cheap parking to people with second homes. It can and should help people with disabilities, but under no circumstances should tax dollars or city resources be used to help people drive to and from completely discretionary destinations.
If you can afford a second home, you can afford to pay for parking.
Why should “a handful” of car owners be afforded 25%+ of public space reserved for the storage of their personal property?
If they want a car in a dense urban space then PAY for a reserved storage place in a private car park.
Yes, they call it “Open Streets” when they CLOSED the street.
Some of them are stupid. They closed two blocks of W 103rd St. That’s not even SLIGHTLY crowded. There’s almost nobody on it, and the people who are there are using the perfectly good sidewalk, even when the streets closed. It looks buffoonish to have a sign that says “Room to Move” when there are two people on the block. All that does is inconvenience drivers, and not help pedestrians at all.
Or the several blocks they close every Sunday on Amsterdam below 110th. That’s a bus route. All the people using public transportation are inconvenienced. Some people are waiting for a bus that will never come because it’s been rerouted. And again – very few people are walking on the road, because there’s no need. Of course, those motorized bikes, which are a threat to life and limb, just go zooming on the closed street and through traffic lights.
What, actually, is this supposed to accomplish?
wont someone please think of the car owners who destroy the neighborhood.
I’m not a car owner, but I had one when I worked outside of New York and needed it to get to work. It lasted 22 years and cost less than $10,000. Everyone should have such cheap transportation.
And you didn’t address my point: What is accomplished by closing the street in an area where there are few pedestrians, and the ones there are use the sidewalk even when the street is closed?
peace of space and mind. freedom to access open space. what is gained by non-car owners having the street lined with car storage?
“UWS 4 Using Public Space To Store My Stuff”
Their complaints are so pedestrian too.
So a bunch of rich assholes ruin a good thing for the proletariat..shocking.
Why does 103rd street need a bike path or extra amenities?
There is barely anyone on this street most of the time and plenty of room on the sidewalk. There is minimal through traffic, so biking on the street is not an issue.
If you want an open space to enjoy the outdoors there are 2 beautiful parks very close.
I would understand this on Amsterdam or Columbus or a street with cafes or restaurants.
Park to park sounds like a bunch of old people with too much time on their hands.
Maybe use those tax dollars to do something about the rat problem!
Totally agree. I think the issue is less about parking spots – and I’m a car owner who lives around the corner on 102nd and Riverside – than that it’s just a dumb idea to shut these not busy at all streets with great parks on either end. I’m sure “open streets” make sense in some other places, but not here. And a question-work was to be done on “opening” the streets last September but nothing’s happened. What’s going on?
i live next to CP and want my street free of cars. we just need less parking, less driving all around in the neighborhood. why should the street be for free storage of private property? it should be for everyone to use. the best days of the year on my block are the marathon and thanksgiving and movie film days when parking is removed. its a beautiful thing.
So it serves no purpose but to feed your hostility, and benefits nobody at all. Thanks for admitting it.
Why is free car storage the primary use of this space? It should be turned into an amenity that the entire public can use instead of being a place for people to store their vehicles. I’m tired of these fossil fuel subsidies in our current climate emergency – they need to be eliminated.
I completely disagree with your assertion that there’s plenty of room on the sidewalk. The sidewalks on W 103 are too narrow, particularly between Broadway and West End Avenue. On trash days, closer to Broadway, there’s often not enough room for two people to pass by the mounds of garbage bags, requiring people to walk in the street or take turns on the sidewalk. The open streets initiative has helped by slowing traffic down, making it safer to walk in the street. I’m looking forward to the more permanent solution. I own a car, but I recognize that’s a privilege and I don’t expect parking in Manhattan to be cheap or easy. I do expect walking in Manhattan to be easy and safe and I support all efforts to reduce and/or slow traffic down and make this city more pedestrian-friendly.
I bike my 3 kids all over Manhattan and open streets are always a joy to go through because they are free of cars, but also calm traffic around the area as well. Not every crevice of NYC should be a car sewer. And if you want a car in NYC, go pay for parking like an adult.
About 20% of households on the UWS own cars. So if ILTUWS is giving free ad space to this “i want free parking everywhere” group [which apparently is anonymous since not a single name is mentioned?], I do hope they follow up with 5 articles about the different reasons for the space, the families that find respite, the children who can cross the street without fearing drivers…
I live nearby and bike my 3 kids all over Manhattan. Open streets are the best. The only problem is they aren’t ambitious enough.
Every other street should be car free.
Free street parking should be replaced with metered parking 24/7
These groups are a waste of everyone’s time and energy – don’t give them free ad space.
It’s absurd to make this a debate about “open space” versus cars.
The open street program either makes sense on specific streets or it doesn’t.
Two plus years on 103 makes it obvious that this “open street” is not a “better” use.
Why?
-it’s right next to a large park
-it’s hilly, uphill B’way to WEA then downhill WEA to Riverside. Such a street can’t be used for play, because balls roll downhill, and you don’t want kids chasing them onto B’way and Riverside,
-nobody uses it, probably because of the first two reasons I gave.
The answer isn’t to make the street “more open,” because the hills will still be there and the park will still be a block away. The “open street” isn’t a better use.
And doing such as put a “sitting area” under anyone’s window? Seriously? Who takes ownership of clearing it out after 10 PM or Midnight or whenever? Who takes ownership of cleaning it up and keeping the vermin away?
Forget the parking, it’s not the issue.
I am a resident of the area in question. I LIVE here and PAY TAXES HERE! I get that people want no car traffic and no parking zones for certain high traffic areas like Midtown, but here it makes no sense. West 103rd between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive is not a high traffic area. Taking away parking on my block means the city jeopardizes the mobility access for the handicapped and elderly on this block – of which there are MANY. Also, I am a resident and I should have a right to park on my street as long as I adhere to the parking rules. I am not rich, I do not own pied a terres – this is my home. I run an arts org. that is philanthropic and work part time for an NGO, so I am not loaded with money. I cannot afford the $$$ it takes to rent a parking garage and my work takes me in and out of the city frequently. So for my part I drive a hybrid car to keep it all ecological and not contributing to the green house gas footprint – which is more that I can say for the trains or buses I would have to take in order to NOT PARK ON MY STREET!
Am I furious? YES! I just met the guy who masterminded this whole BS underneath all of us a few minutes ago and I had words for him as he filmed me without my permission on his iPhone.
We were lied to when I was just told that this was open for discussion two years ago. It was not. I get the 102-103 Block Association newsletter and I saw nothing about it there. I did not receive any information about any of this until a couple of months ago when I signed a petition against this nonsense.
I am as liberal and progressive as they come, but the so called progressives who have been talking smack about our parking situation and who think we are all privileged and can afford a parking garage or spend the ridiculous amounts of money for parking in a low traffic, RESIDENTIAL, neighborhood are completely out of touch. There are so many more things to advocate for right now for our city and the world – helping the homeless, helping the poor, helping those seeking asylum, that this issue is so da*m petty I can’t even see straight. Peace out.
PS – this guy is probably going to get the 83 year old lady who started pushing back against him arrested today. Those optics will look really bad for him, don’t you think? I cannot abide useless people…