 All right. Well, I think we're up to a hundred attendees or 81 attendees. Andrew, you want to take it away? Yeah, sure. Thanks, that and welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us for today's event, Future Streets, Lessons and Paths Forward from Open Streets. We've got a great program of presentations and moderated discussion to encourage thoughtful debate about the future of Open Streets in New York City. Before we hand things over to our event MC, Thad Bilowski of the Columbia University Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes, I am a fellow co-host wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves. I'm Andrew Brown, Director of Programs at Ben Allen Institute, a non-profit based in New York that works to create equitable cities through inclusive design by working with historically under-resourced communities to achieve justice in how cities are built. Thanks Andrew and hi everyone. I'm Catherine Sacco, Director of Partnerships at the Urban Design Forum. We are an independent membership organization debating the critical issues facing our city. Our fellows are designers, developers, public officials and advocates working to shape a better future for all New Yorkers and we're really excited to be co-hosting this event today. Hi, I'm Danny Harris. I'm honored to be Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. We've been on the forefront of fighting for people first city in New York for almost 50 years and in doing so helping to advocate for better walking, biking and public transit. So it's an honor to be here with all of you. Thad, you need to unmute yourself. Okay, well welcome everyone. Thanks so much. I'm Thad Pulaski from the Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes. We're a research group at Columbia University that focuses on environmental justice and climate justice. I just want to start by saying, you know, we're meeting virtually today as we have been for the last year, but otherwise we would be gathered in Lenapehoking, the unceded ancestral homeland of the Lenape peoples and I want you to join me in acknowledging the community of the Lenape community, their traditional territory, elders, ancestors and future generations and in acknowledging that the city that we share was founded upon the exclusions and erasures of many indigenous peoples. The purpose of this event today is to gather lessons from this incredible last year of radically reimagining the city, what's worked, what didn't work, what's next. As you see, we're casting the net wide for this conversation. It's not wide enough. There's more people to be involved in this conversation. We think that the future of the city streets and public spaces should involve everyone, but maybe especially those who have been historically excluded from that conversation. So we'll do what we can today to learn lessons and we're going to have five rapid petrocuta style presentations, followed by a panel discussion response from city officials from from department of transportation and department of city planning. And I just want to say before we can start that throughout the next one and a half hours that the Q&A will be open and we'd love to hear from you. And please, please share your thoughts and ideas, please be respectful of the panelists and so they will have five presentations starting right now with our first presenter. And our first presenter will be Leslie DeVall from Street Lab. And Leslie, are you all set to leave us through your seven minute presentation? Yeah, here's my screen. I hope everybody can see it. So hi, I'm Leslie. I'm the executive director and co-founder of a nonprofit in New York called Street Lab. And we Street Lab creates and shares programs for public space across the city. We're a funny little organization that has really grown over the past 10 years, filling a niche and a need, all focused on public space. It's a series of programs that we provide across the city and the programs are all have sort of a physical component that transforms space and creates a place to gather. So some of the examples of our programs are our reading room, a portable reading room read, a drawing station. We have something called Explore, which is like almost like a natural history museum exhibit about urban nature, building station, you can see crazy Lego writing. And we work all over the cities in the city in all kinds of public spaces. Everywhere we go is by request. We don't work alone. We're there in partnership with community groups who are working hard to make public spaces welcoming and improve them. And do all kinds of things for their communities. And we now provide in a typical year about 150 days of programming. So what happened with the pandemic, of course, like everyone, we did have to stop. But in our case, we didn't really have to change much about what we do because we don't rely on walls. So when restrictions were lifted in July, we were ready to go back out there on the street with some new programs designed from the ground up specifically for the pandemic and for open streets, because that had just been announced. So this is just a shot of West 9th Street and Red Hook on the very day that restrictions were lifted in July of last year. And here we are setting up this is way do who works for us setting up a our obstacle course. And here is one of the programs that we started taking around to a lot of open streets. This is in Red Hook again in July. Here it is on 34th Avenue Open Street in Queens. Last fall on Willis Avenue in the Bronx. 101st Street in East Harlem and Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem. So you know the challenge at that time was of course how to bring people together safely while keeping them apart. So some of the other programs we designed for this moment were something we call street marker which really relies on these chalk tools that allows people to make collaborative murals in the street out of chalk together while while staying together. That that resulted in some beautiful, beautiful murals temporary murals that got everybody working together. Here's some more shots of that. Another program we came up with very quickly was homework hubs we heard from students and teachers and families that you know students were isolated and but still you know was there a way we could allow them to meet and at the same time work together, get help, take a little bit of the pressure off their parents. So we set up in a plaza and then we started using some of the open streets again as the weather got colder. We turned to the heated areas of dining stalls set up on streets. This is in Chelsea West 16th Street next to Chelsea Market. We also started doing using those stalls for other kinds of programs. Musician with the Chelsea Symphony. So the lessons learned are that are sort of the same lessons that we've learned over the years of doing this that apply to any public space. So that programming is key. If you're working in a space where people don't already naturally gather programming becomes even more important. This is West 9th Street. Again on that first day that we arrived to set up our obstacle course before we were there. It was closed to traffic, but you see the challenge of just convincing cars that no actually you've got to stay out this is this is in use. You know, I think also what happens on streets is perhaps even more more of an opportunity to fulfill the promise of public space which I think is is places where we can connect forging this compact of living together and sharing space. When we when we do things like a reading room on the street. When we do things like a reading room that doesn't involve cars. There's more of a transformation and it's this juxtaposition that sends more of a message this is from back in 2013 from our first reading room that we called the uni. Right in the middle of right in the middle of the street, and that transformation is what street labs all about that's what we're seeking. And I hope we can find more ways to use streets for these kinds of things as for us, you know, in terms of how we're planning for streets. There's hope here now that the program is going to be here to stay and, and we need to work towards more resources that support open streets. You know we're, we're, we're planning to just try to continue to build our capacity to this is just this past weekend getting our right program back out for the first time in public. So we want to take this to all the open streets as much as we can we're trying to just build our capacity to respond as much as we can and continue experimenting. So I'm going to end there and take any questions, or leave it to you that too. Great Leslie, if there, if there are questions for Leslie please put them in the Q&A, and so we'll use the Q&A to manage any, any additional questions for the panelists so we can keep the presentations going. And so next up is Jim Burke from 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition. Jim, are you all set to share screen and present. I am all set. Okay, can you see my screen. Okay, so I'm one of the founders a co founder of 34th Avenue Open Streets, but I'm just one person. We have about 150 volunteers, 40 that work any given week on closing and opening the streets programming. And this all started right after the city did a very poor pilot program. That was just two blocks long by our only park by the only space that we did have, and it was very heavily policed. So what we wanted to do is, is activate the street. When the police were in charge of the street, no one was using it. And one of the reasons they canceled it after a very short pilot was they said, no one's using it, and not realizing how inviting it uninviting it was. So we actually took over a small street, close it with sandwich boards and immediately filled up with kids and we started talking we started using it that day. And it was just a message to DOT and the mayor that really just some signage and a barricade is enough you don't need a big police presence. And so we also knew that you needed to invite people out to the street because the street is from any people, a very dangerous place. That's where people, you know, people get hit by cars and, and, and for unfortunately for 2030 years, we haven't, we've stopped playing in our streets and enjoying them. What we wanted to do immediately was we instituted programming and we institute programming pretty much seven days a week. We did a few right off the bat, and we did Zumba and salsa and pilates this is a children's game sapper from South America. And we also said bring out your beach chair come out for coffee relax. And this year is an ESL class, every different nationality practicing English. It's just hot luck. We basically pulled out all the stops and try this is our family bike ride every Friday, we get 10 to 40 people depending on the weather and the day. Just really this is Pilates, we just real painting we just really wanted to make sure that people took ownership of the streets. That's why we had volunteers so the volunteer we also wanted to make as many people invested in our streets. So we first partnered with over a dozen community groups to help us back us in our bid to make sure that that we could take over from the police to open and close the street. We didn't, there was no we don't have a wealthy bid in our area we don't have restaurants. This is all residential. So every single day, we were on the street in the winter Halloween, we put cultural programs dance programs. We just went we also try to respond to any complaints. So people so it's a little dirtier the whole city was dirty but we've seen a what will do cleanups on Saturdays. And with so many this is one of our partners cyclistas Latin Americanos, we said come to your 34th Avenue bike ride on on an open street not worry about having to need a police escort. We did candlelight village vigils. We did Caroline, we did everything from early mornings to evening just depending on the on the day on the DOT was really wonderful and looked the other way, and basically found us find what worked and what didn't. And this is a big success being able to do this and we have volunteers cheerleaders up to 80 years old. We have a lot of teenagers that help us. And basically a lot of our programs were started, like this particular one is a races, a 13 year old boy said, I would like to do races. And we said, Okay, if you really want come with your mom tomorrow and we'll do races. We'll process the week they want to practice English. And so anybody who met us on the street. We just immediately started programming with them all they had to do a show up. And no matter what the weather we did it all year round. It's very important to make sure just like when I grew up I grew up in the Bronx, and we use the street all year round, and we wanted to bring that same kind of freedom and safety. Back to our streets. And there was, you know, later on now, now the permitting process, unfortunately is very arduous, and we're hoping the DOT can make it they've made a little slightly easier. But in order for this to work around the city, and for it to be more equitable that we really have to make this a lot easier and let a lot more flexibility. You know, right now there are certain things that are not committed or it's just so, so painfully screen after screen to do these things. And we think this to be all over the city. So we really need to make a really easy ask, especially if the street once the street is designated. It should be a couple of clicks and you get to do your program. Now our street you know is is is 26 blocks long. And we pushed that we wanted all of 34th Avenue actually, because in order for it to be meaningful. It has to be more than a block or so. Our goal is for it to be a connected network so that you could travel throughout the city on your bicycle on your skateboard or just going for a walk without ever ever having to fear for your life or worry about cars. And we've been very lucky with our drivers. They've seen their residents themselves they've seen that maybe it might be a second or two out of longer their day. But we've shown look what you can do you know park your car and then come join us come join us and learn salsa or help a neighbor learn English or go for a nice bike ride. And this is basically we just try to engage as many many neighbors as we could, and any complaints or any issues we've tried to address them. And we've worked very closely with DoT and previously NYPD to make sure that everybody can enjoy our streets safely. And I can't emphasize Leslie also emphasizes programming is key in order to bring people out comfortably in the street. If you simply close the street, it's not going to magically fill with people. Now that we've shown that you can do that you've see we saw a tap dancing class the other day I've seen every kind of boxing class I've seen people have seen probably in your times seniors playing bingo we've seen every kind of people in person come out and use the street the way that it can benefit them the most. And this, this pales in comparison to any part, because it's right outside your door. And it's accessible from 8am to 8pm moments from where you are and a lot of our people who enjoy our street, they might be day laborers cleaners. And so all of our programs are geared to just drop in you don't have to sign up. It doesn't matter if you miss a class or miss this you're always welcome. So that way we capture all of our neighborhood from all income levels. And we love 34th Avenue we're thrilled that it's permanent, and we'd like to see this as I said a connected network throughout the city. So thank you. Thank you Jim. That's great. And we have a group presentation group working on the neighborhood hoods now project. We have Leslie Ramos from the 82nd Street partnership, and Emma silverblatt from soil architecture and Shane Alger from LTL architects, please go ahead. Hi everyone. For the past year, our team of architects has been able to provide pro bono design services and Jackson Heights Queens through UDF and Van Allen unprecedented program neighborhoods now. Our work in this program was made possible by a large group of collaborators. We're very grateful for the volunteers and support we've received today. I'm going to start off this presentation by sharing some examples of what we believed worked well for us during this project. First off, coming into a diverse primarily immigrant community. There was a lot of initial mistrust. The outcomes of this project are indebted to the dedicated involvement of our local partner, the 82nd Street partnership executive director Leslie Ramos provided support by personally reaching out to connect us to the community. As designers Leslie was our main client, and we were able to support her in realizing projects for the bids constituents and beyond through her network in the area. Secondly, we found it was very important to have established a field office in the neighborhood. This allowed us to become a familiar presence among a population that is less tech centric, and primarily responsive to in person communication. This space donated by a landlord on Leslie's board also functioned as our construction material storage and a message board to share services and completed work. Since last June we have worked with 24 local businesses and attempted to aid the community in accessing many of New York City's public realm programs. We found that some projects were much easier to accomplish than others. We were most successful at helping individual businesses get permitted for open restaurants. We provided free, collapsible barriers produced from recycled formwork to any restaurant that asked. We also employed a local carpenter on these jobs and hired local artists to paint them. But the greatest success we saw was realizing that by giving these businesses owners a helping hand to get started. They were in turn reaching out to their neighbors and explaining to them how to get permitted. And this chain reaction allowed many more members of the community to participate in open restaurants. So if Emma had sort of an overview of some of our successes my portion of presentation will show and start to elaborate on some of the difficulties we encountered. So one of the things we love about Jackson Heights is the annual Street Food Festival called Viva La Comita. It's led by Leslie and 82nd Street bid. It serves as a vital economic boost to restaurants and helps Jackson Heights become the destination cultural district. So the image on the right shows 12 locally owned restaurants along 82nd where Viva La Comita is held. Red indicates some restaurants which initially showed interest to us in participating in the open restaurants program. Unfortunately 82nd Street has lost one ground floor restaurant and multiple second floor tenants during the COVID pandemic. So Jackson Heights is home to many small businesses that have narrow interiors which make social distancing difficult. The existing streetscape has many challenges for restaurants to participate in the open restaurants program. Some of those are indicated in red on the slide. You can see the existing bike rack on the right side of the slide which takes up two restaurant street frontages. And the bus stop as well as very limited parking makes several businesses ineligible to participate. Of the restaurants that are eligible we encountered additional difficulties. One manhole led to a citation from Con Ed that resulted in the removal of their outdoor seating entirely. One Colombian bakery and one Latin American restaurant were not able to participate because they're licensed by the state rather than the city. And Leslie will elaborate on that point a little later. So we saw the DOT open streets program as an alternative to help some of the businesses that weren't able to participate in the open restaurants program. Behind our open streets application was a team of architects as well as traffic engineers. Unfortunately this application was denied due to concern by the NYPD about public safety and quality of life issues. So as a design exercise we also explored the potential for full pedestrian plaza. We've seen success in other parts of the city with the creation of pedestrian plazas. And if the open streets application was approved and the community adopts it as a success the plaza could be a consideration for the community at a later date. So our experience working in Jackson Heights has exposed the pre-existing inequality that exists in New York City. If programs and policies are not designed with the marginalized communities at the center, those programs will only continue to exacerbate the existing inequality. As we review our work over the past year we asked ourselves how access to open street program could be improved. We started by trying to answer why our attempt to implement the open street program on 82nd Street failed when we had all the right ingredients. A nonprofit organization willing to lead, professional site planning assistant, participating in restaurants in a track record or running a single day event without any incident. Our first step was to look at for open street around our district for comparison. Sadly, we only found one on 34th Avenue. And a splendid look at Queen simply highlighted the scarcity of open street throughout the borough. Taking a broader look at the city we noticed that open streets were abundant in affluent and mostly white neighborhoods. It is no doubt that the primary beneficiaries are communities with few social economic problems and more resources. Given that open street program is being rarely used as an economic development tool in less affluent and diverse communities, the city should make a few adjustments to ensure the program is more inclusive and inviting. Here are a few of our suggestions. First, the city should take into consideration cultural practices when developing rules. For example, in Latin F community, it is customary to have multi service food establishment. Just on one block of 82nd Street, we have a Mexican bakery slash grocer slash restaurants in a Colombian carniceria slash grocer slash restaurant. Despite both locations offering full service restaurants, the rules exclude them from participating because they're permitted through the state of New York, which licensed grocers. Another program improvements we would like to see is clear rules and improve communication between program managers and inspectors. On a three, one of our restaurants, Spanish speaking restaurants was visited by two non Spanish speaking DOT inspectors. The assessment of the existing setup vary. It seems that each inspector had different interpretation of the rules, which did not match our previous conversations with DOT. To implement the inspectors recommended changes, the restaurant was told by Khan Edison to take down the setup due to assistant manhole. These are very costly changes in this encouraged restaurant from participating in the program. New York City has a long history of using three programming to stimulate economic and cultural activity. The Open Street program was started with the same premise. We know that the program can be a tool to restart the city's economy and help businesses overcome economic crisis. For example, during our festival Viva la Comida, participating restaurants revenues increased between 30 to 80%. New restaurants that participate in the festival tend to stay open past the one year mark, while those that do not participate usually shut down before the one year anniversary. In conclusion, to foster equitable recovery and prevent working poor families from going into further poverty during economic and cultural disasters, the city needs to address the lack of resources in communities like the ones I serve. It also needs to address the social and quality of life issues that prevent this franchise communities from participating in programs such as Open Street. Thank you. Thank you for that great presentation and lessons learned. This next presentation is from students from the Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School. I've had the great pleasure to be working with them over the last year as these young leaders are imagining a future for their neighborhoods so I'd like to introduce Elliott Hidalgo, Jen Martinez and Noelia Martinez. Are you guys all set. Yes, we're all set. Right. All right. Thank you all for joining us this afternoon. My name is Elliott Hidalgo. I'm in the 11th grade, and I'm a corridor youth leader. I'm here today with my peers Noelia and Jen, and we'll be presenting to you all about our environmental justice initiative in Washington Heights called the Clean Air Green Corridor and how it relates to the ongoing conversation of equitable access to open and green spaces. Our school, the Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School and NYC Outward Bound School, ran an all week elective called restoring high bridge where students learned about the history and importance of green space and the systemic barriers restricting green space in our neighborhood. Six students were energized about this topic and now 200 more students. We have developed the Clean Air Green Corridor. With support from our nonprofit partner Friends of Wheels, corridor youth leaders like myself are working to transform the built environment of 182nd Street into a hub for community powered environmental and climate justice action that integrates arts and culture in Washington Heights. In this initiative, corridor youth leaders are working to provide 100,000 plus people access to the Harlem River and otherwise off limits area and hybrid park, our anchor park, while also connecting the dots between youth leadership, education, climate and environmental justice. Our project focuses on the idea that we can help build a safe, clean and healthy community by remaking 182nd Street. The community of Washington Heights is mainly a low income Latinx immigrant Spanish speaking community where asthma, diabetes and cancer rates are high. We are struggling to breathe clean air is an urgent issue in our neighborhood of Washington Heights. According to the Community Air Survey in 2016, our community was among at the NYC neighborhoods with the poorest air quality. This is unsurprising, given that the George Washington Bridge, Henry Hudson Parkway, Harlem River and the I-95 all bring substantial car traffic to the neighborhood as seen on the map. Corridor youth leaders have already begun to remake the street. We have been installing tree guards, cleaning up the wheel's gardens and studying traffic, air quality and urban heat island in our neighborhood. Now I'll pass it on to Jen, speak about our plans for the summer. Thank you, Elliot. I am Jen Martinez, a senior from wheels that will soon be attending NYU. As mentioned, environmental injustice affects people of color the most, while incorporating green space into these areas helps reduce these burdens. There's a lot of research that focuses on the benefits of green space, but very little has been done centered around Washington Heights until recently. Throughout my senior year, I have studied, I have been studying 175th Plaza, known as Plaza de la America. I conducted a survey of residents who reported that they are using this Plaza on a frequent basis, as shown in the pie chart. In addition, many of the residents stated that their mental and physical health was improved through doing Plaza activities, such as wedding get dances, bands playing and more activities. Our short term goal is to close 182nd Street to Cards and replicate the success of Plaza de la Americas. This street will strictly be used for the bettering lifestyle as seen on the slide. And during the summer, we will test the success of different activities. Here are some of the things we'd like to see happen in the space. Saturday dance parties, voter registration, places to hang out and play cards. When the street is close to summer, we will, we can survey people about how it was used and if it improves their lifestyles. We can also see if the air quality has improved and if the urban heat island is reduced and if the closed street encourages more physical activity. Now I would like to pass it on to my partner, Noelia to talk about our long term division. Hello everyone, my name is Noelia. It is my pleasure to be here today as I'm a real student. So today I will be discussing our short, our long term vision and will be currently are working on and what our goals are for the long term. So currently we are working on completing this application for the open streets program, which will be including a site plan, and a, and we will be figuring out the management of the streets. Community partners, we want to open the streets as best as we can without causing any troubles to people live in the area like neighbors. So our youth leaders and is not working with a group of community is not working with a group of partners on a community engagement plan in which we will see the guidance of surrounding businesses, and especially the schools around our streets. Why, why us and why now Washington Heights is our home, we can we know how to make our community better when we work together. We are excited to be part of this because it can be a model for how youth leaders can imagine a better world where all communities have access to clean air and green space starting our own communities in the long term. By the time I graduate high school in 2023. We will have created a cleaner green quarter from Broadway to Highbridge from where students can walk to school safely and enjoy school activities outside. Along the cleaner green quarter there will be trees, green roofs and green bus stops, and a stronger healthy greener community. Thank you again to future streets for allowing us to be here and present our work that we have been working really hard on was truly our pleasure to be here today. Thank you so much, Elliot, and Jen and and no alia and great presentation. Now, our last presentation is Danny Harris, the director of transportation alternatives. Danny welcome. Oh, you're on mute. Can we unmute you. Really, such a pleasure to be here today and thank you for the opportunity. What I wanted to do is share with you a vision of what can come next for New York. And, you know, this is not a this is not cyber trucks this is not hyper loops this is not flying cars. This is a pretty simple model that just starts to reimagine what our streets look like. So what I'd like to do is just maybe start with a question you're all in the comfort of your own home. And I just want to sort of ask if you think this is normal. Put your hand up for yourself or whoever's around you. If you're on this call I hope you can see that it's not. And as we talk about obviously our city getting back online. We just need to recognize how broken our streets and transportation, and all of the incredible negative impacts on every part of the city and disproportionately impacted and impacts low income and community color is right now in Rex shows that New York City has the worst traffic in all of the nation. And this is before we're sort of fully reopened. So it's just important to let this sit in that there's so many other important pieces of life that we want to come back to normal for us to be able to do this in person, you know, to get back to work. But you know the reality is that this was broken and we need to reimagine it. A transportation alternatives we try to solve a pretty simple equation. It's obviously, you know, has taken more than a century to get right and we still haven't gotten it right. This minus cars equals quality of life. In this equation we know what is static we know it is dynamic, and we know that even when we shift the amount of space that we devote to cars by a small amount it creates exponential impacts for quality of life across the city, just as we've seen over the last year amid the tragedy of Kobe. There's a big stock of how much space the city squanders on the movement and storage of vehicles there are more than 19,000 lane miles devoted to the movement of vehicles and 3 million free parking spaces. So for those of you who drive or have driven, or have heard no shortage of stories, you know, there is 1.5 parking spaces for every one card registered in New York City. For every 116 bicycles there's only one place to park that bicycle. So this is a fundamental inequity, especially considering that only a minority of New York City households own a car. If we look at the full breakdown right now 75% of our streetscape is devoted to movement and storage of vehicles. It is almost a rounding error as it relates to protected bike and bus lanes. And it suggests that, you know, even as sidewalks are such a significant part of the of New York City, not only are they too narrow but they're increasingly covered with mountains of garbage and scaffolding. So to get around on our sidewalks I have a stroller. It's incredibly challenging if you have somebody with limited abilities if you're an older adult if you're in a wheelchair. There are incredibly challenging issues that target the most vulnerable New Yorkers and make our city inaccessible for too many. And, you know, the costs are significant. So the cost of traffic violence alone to New York City's economy is over $4 billion a year. When you talk about opportunity costs and the lost number of hours and potential productivity, it's almost another 2 billion. So it's not just that we can't go back to normal, we can't afford to. This vision of New York City 25x25 where we're calling on mayoral candidates to repurpose 25% of our streetspace by 2025. We've been overwhelmed by the support. Since launching this coalition in March, we now have close to 180 coalition members. We have six mayoral candidates who have endorsed including just recently, both Eric Adams and Andrew Yang signed on. And we've seen almost 10 cities around the country that are adopting this model of 25x25 to try to push not only their city, but their candidates to do the same. And it's important to talk about what this actually could look like. And I just want to stress here, especially for advocates who've been on the frontline, we are so used to fighting for table scraps. Maybe we get a little bit here, a little bit there, but we can't think holistically. I just want to share with you as we put out a hypothetical of all the things that we could get with the space. All of these are yes and we could have a fully protected and connected bike network. We could have a fully, I could have a more protected bus network, we could have 1000 lane miles of open streets, we could have daylighting at every intersection, which is where you remove the parking spot adjacent from the crosswalk so it's both safer for pedestrians and cyclists and cyclists and also drivers. That space can be turned to bike parking to outdoor space to micro mobility hubs. We could have more pedestrian space we could have a car free streets outside of every school in New York City. We could if we monetize even a quarter of all of the pre parking in New York we could generate upwards of a billion dollars. We could take trash off of our sidewalks we could have dedicated delivery zones to get off of the site double and triple parking we see all over the place, and and and. And just lastly when we think about who this impacts, you know it impacts all New Yorkers, especially our most vulnerable. When we look at low income commuters and knowing that commute time is one of the single biggest indicators of moving people out of generational poverty. It can transform the amount of time that you're stuck in traffic into time back and opportunity, especially for hard working New Yorkers. We know that healthcare workers have the longest commute time in New York City. It was terrible before COVID. It's a tragedy now. Recognizing that there are over a million New Yorkers who have a disability about half of them have ambulatory disabilities. This can fundamentally reimagine not only how paratransit and excess right move, but also access to the curb into sidewalk space. About one in 10 New Yorkers have as one in 10 New York children have asthma those rates are even higher in the Bronx. This can fundamentally reimagine our air and particulates, especially knowing that these levels whether it's with stroke or heart disease or higher among communities of color, this can transform what our city looks like it can transform how we move. We know that the public supports it we did some polling found overwhelming support from New York City voters for these issues, and also importantly, especially as we're seeing traffic violence go up. 30% of New York City voters have been injured in a traffic crash 70% know somebody injured or killed those numbers are higher if you're black in a hole that makes $50,000 over the age of 50 Staten Island residents 48% of them have been injured in a traffic crash. So our question really it's not just if we can afford to keep doing what we're doing it's if we can afford not to 25 by 25 is an incredibly bold challenge to think about the future of the city. We invite you to come join us. You can add your name to our coalition as an individual business community group I'll put the information in the chat, and I look forward to the conversation and the only path forward in New York City is on streets for people and we look forward to building together. Thank you so much. Thank you Danny. All right, so that was our five presentations different lessons learned from open streets and what's next and now we'd like to invite our panel to lead us through a discussion. On the panel we have Dr. Christian Branium will will moderate Christian is one of the, one of the co chairs of the New York panel and climate change and a fellow climate researcher. And we have Emily Wyden off who's the director of public space at New York City Department of Transportation where they've been doing amazing work for the last decade transforming our streets into public spaces. And Eric Gregory who is now the chief urban designer of the Department of city planning. So thank you so much for leading this discussion and Christian I'll turn it to you. Thank you so much that and you know I'm really pleased to be here today I, I serve as a co director for a network at the earth Institute called the earth, the environmental justice and climate just cities network. I'm also really pleased to contribute to today's event and take part in this robust conversation. So to start off with the panel, I really love to hear quickly. You know more about Eric and Emily's role in the open streets program Eric is at the New York City Department of city planning is this that mentioned, Emily is at the New York City Department of Transportation. Maybe we can start with Emily and then I go to you Eric. Can you tell us Emily more about how how your role intersects with the open streets program. Can you tell us briefly. Absolutely. So yeah, it was my amazing amazing small but mighty team that helped roll out both open restaurants as well as open streets in response to the pandemic. It was really an incredibly encouraging time to see New Yorkers embrace our streets for people and for community and in a way that, again, like despite all the great work that's been happening. I really just saw an amazing uptick in in how New Yorkers valued their streets and see this as a really critical moment to kind of continue continue this momentum. Just to flag, maybe to the primary frequencies that we hit with these programs that that we feel are really kind of galvanizing our past work and accelerating it and evolving it into the future and I think open restaurants has shown us that that this and public open space is not mutually exclusive that we can actually leverage and benefit, benefit and support our businesses while also supporting vibrant open space and it's really just about working with communities and getting the influence right between the two. And, and with our open streets program, you know, more than ever, we have this this software layer that allows us to manage our streets in a kind of on demand way, more precisely for pedestrians and when we need it. And we think this is, you know, it has shown us so much, you know, in our collaboration with Jim and and his team to show that managing these streets in a residential along a residential corridor is just as valuable as as you know, past weekend and seasonal street programs have done in commercial districts to also being able to provide a tool that allows us to engage with communities in a meaningful way to start something to start to create safer streets, and we're very excited that that will allow us to continue to design and grow at a corridor and district wide scale, safer and more inclusive street designs with with communities moving forward. Thank you. Thank you Emily. Yeah, I mean, I should have said earlier that what a herculean effort to get this rolling so quickly last year. As others have mentioned really applaud you and your staff. You know, Eric, can you tell us more about your role in open streets. Thank you Christian and thank you for all the wonderful partners and presentations that have shared some wonderful projects that are already happening and pushing pushing us both Emily and I and the city as a whole to kind of dream bigger. So thank you for that. So I'm happy to be here to represent urban design on behalf of the Department of city planning. Our aim is to shape a more livable city by advocating for high quality design of the built environment. We do this by contributing the quality of life and well being for all New Yorkers in every neighborhood. And I think I think it's, we've always kind of worked from the mantra of the experience that people have when they walk down the street and move to their city. And so it's really great to see the variety of ways that folks have used both the open restaurants program and open streets programs. And just for for our role, I think, you know, there was a lot of different agencies that that were involved in the effort. We were very much focused on the open restaurants, although I will say that as urban designers we working at city planning we really try to champion this holistic view of the public realm, which is not just a, you know, looking solely at the sidewalks and open spaces but also the buildings that speak interact and frame those spaces and so I think all of these together are really important when we start thinking about the future of our streets that we that we want to see and a lot of the sidewalk cafe regulations that kind of existed pre pandemic before open restaurants, some of you might have been able to visit them, although their numbers were few. And, you know, today we're, you know, with the open restaurants we're looking at the neighborhood of like 10,000 restaurants have been able to to use a program and I think, you know, picking up on some of the things that Jim was speaking to really about being flexible and finding ways to simplify things and and and have us kind of get out of the way. And so I think a lot of the effort really was through many many meetings across the host of different agencies to look at the rules that are governing how these spaces are used. And how can we simplify or kind of in this emergency order kind of turn off some of those things so that we can really make sure our streets were remaining safe. But also bringing back some some vitality and vibrancy that certainly was missing I think all of us were yearning for. And so I think it's been really amazing to see the work that's unfolded by New Yorkers by community groups. You know, to kind of activate the streets and by business owners to kind of work through work through a lot of the guidance and enforcement issues that clearly are challenges moving forward but to create spaces that really helped keep them in business, but also, you know, bring nourishment and livelihood to New Yorkers. Thank you Eric. Yeah, I really, I'm really excited to have this conversation now because you guys have kind of set up some great questions. And I've been monitoring the chat a little bit to see what questions are there. Just to start, you know, you both have talked about different benefits of open streets. One question I have for you is, you know, how can folks better understand what those benefits are more broadly open streets in some ways is similar to similar, you know, other programs that have happened internationally so for example, abroad in Barcelona, Spain, a super block initiatives created where traffic was limited in groups of blocks. And there was a lot of opposition in the beginning, and then later residents actually embrace that program so you have thoughts about how we can amplify or modify the messaging so that folks understand the benefits of the open streets program. And either of you wants to respond. Sure. I mean I'll just say, just jump in first and then Eric please. You know, something that has been hugely valuable is having our limited local access open street. Again, it's allowed for neighborhoods to fine tune and manage their streets if they want to be able to still pick up and drop off on a block if they still want to be able to park on a block they can but they can do it in a way that's much more safe that's much less vehicles than than normally traveling the corridor. And like we've seen with all of our programs, starting to, to change the street leads to much more, you know, little, little baby steps in the beginning can lead to much more dramatic steps in the future. I think, you know, working across a lot more geography with some of these baby steps will really accelerate a lot of moves, as we start to see kind of increased successes, citywide and I think, you know, the other, the other big piece for us is we're moving, we're finally at a moment with a permanent program and funding and kind of a city transitioning to recovery. We're finally at a moment where we can start to plan an actual program, you know, up until a short time ago we were in this in this response mode and so of course they're going to be a lot of a lot a lot of floundering a lot of communication issues a lot of management issues during a crisis so we're very, very excited to, again make this make this shift into a permanent program and focus on messaging and outreach to really make sure that folks who, again may not have had access to these tools but may start to see them in, you know, in other parts of the city can begin to really learn more so I think there's a lot about, you know, communication and outreach, and that is still kind of, we're just, we're just at the beginning of, and really hope to do a lot more of that in the coming months to make sure that folks realize what opportunities they are and how we can kind of right size programs to the various challenges in different ways. Thank you Emily. Yeah, you know I want to go ahead Eric, please. No, no, please, please. Oh, no, go ahead. Go ahead. Thank you. I was just, you know, I think, I think a lot of the, you know, Emily was kind of mentioning that just, you know, just the expansion of the programs as a whole is has been the the biggest, I would say, visible component of these programs before we had I think, you know, less than 900 sidewalk cafes in the city that were permitted and that was a very onerous process, you had to get licensed architects and engineers to stamp your drawings, you had to pay a fair amount of fees to to have that space. And, and like within zoning code, which city planning is is the steward of you had restrictions on where you could even have them. And so I think just by the sheer volume and the ability to like kind of loosen that throughout the city has been the biggest visible of the importance of these things and how great they can be. You know, certainly that that's going to represent new challenges for us that will have to think through and making sure that you know quality of life is still, you know, there for New Yorkers. But I would say that you don't have to look much further than a lot of folks on this call for how we get the word out on these things and that's through, you know, neighborhoods now which was was really great and like pulling together design professionals and partners that could kind of be on the ground and working directly with businesses and residences to unpack some of these regulations and guidelines of the temporary program was key. And, you know, certainly, folks that are such as Jim and Leslie where they're you know bringing programming to the spaces I think, you know, those are the, you know, the biggest folks that can help spread the word of this now on the city side certainly, you know, we have tools like our websites and social media and how we're mapping things to bring awareness so that people can see where a sidewalk cafe is in the city and perhaps they need to you know, be informed through that means. I think we from an from an urban design perspective have always tried to use visualization to really draw out the complexities of regulations and so how can we, you know, use the right words and kind of not speak to too much in jargon so that we can make sure that like the way we're communicating is also accessible. And I think finding ways to get out there and speak with folks outside of a particular initiative just to kind of, you know, always be checking on the pulse of neighborhoods is important it's very challenging for us, we're a very small team. But I you know the ideas of having like the field office that the Jackson Heights group did is great where you're able to really get on the ground and get out there so I just, you know, I guess in short, you know, your communication and getting the word out there has to be you know tapped across all mediums and resources. Yeah, you know, and for me, as a researcher, I've been following the air quality improvements that have happened in the Northeast since COVID started and I, you know, I wonder if there's an opportunity to communicate the potential air quality benefits that come with open streets. You know, some folks have mentioned reduced reduced traffic crashes reduced incidents where vehicles and pedestrians are colliding. So, you know, obviously there's some effort involved in tracking those things, but maybe that's another another way to communicate the benefits. On the flip side, you know, folks may be may, you know, be upset about changes in traffic patterns are changes in parking in a city with very limited parking. You know, how, how are you guys thinking about the flip side where where where you know obviously there there have been some clear benefits and and we maybe we haven't quantitative really measured them. However, we anticipate there's been there have been some real benefits around air quality. And, you know, and things like traffic crashes, which have been measured to some extent. How do you address the flip side of, you know, concerns about traffic and parking. You know, how can we take those concerns into account as well. Yeah, I think, for sure, we are behind in communicating the wider range of benefits of these types of programs, particularly when it comes to air quality. So I think there's a tremendous amount of potential to to air quality, heat vulnerability index, a lot of these, you know, other really critical indicators, health indicators quality of light indicators in into this work for sure. And that's something again there are a lot of other cities that, you know, have done this really well and so there's a lot, a lot to learn from and ramp that up. I think it's definitely something we're interested in and again we're excited this year with a little more resources and a little more capacity to start to be able to do more more observations more inspections really be able to quantify and qualify how a lot of these spaces are functioning so again very, very excited. Very excited to move that piece forward. Eric, do you want to I mean it's, I don't know if there's any like, you know, perfect answer here because it is challenging, you know, you're, we're in one of the densest cities on the planet and certainly having to make sure that we take into account a wide range of voices whenever we do things from a regulation standpoint is very important. Understanding, you know, the communities that we're working in, you know, a lot of these projects shared today are in low income neighborhoods that have, you know, had years and years and years of disinvestment. And so, you know, really understanding what's happening in those locations is extremely key so that we can begin to, you know, write a lot of the wrongs that have happened there, you know, from, from decades of kind of poor planning practices so, you know, I think what's, what's, you know, love it or dislike it, you know, the public process of public review and, and, and, you know, going through the political discourse of trying to get these changes to happen and really seeking inputs of community boards of community groups is, you know, just something that we're going to have to do is we, we try to make this program permanent which Emily alluded to which is what we're beginning to embark on now. But what's great is that like we, we've been getting a lot of feedback and I mean, could any of you imagined like, you know, a year ago that we would have had this, you know, these amazing streets to talk about and like just it's amazing like how quickly the dialogue has changed and, you know, through groups like the transportation alternatives to put forward these really actually quite simple ideas of changing our streets. And so, yeah, you know, with, with, with any change, you know, has its challenges, you know, it, it can, you know, impact, you know, someone's day to day life. But I think those are, those are the things we just have to find ways of working through. Yeah, you know, it's tough, right, when you make policies. A lot of times there's opposition of policies initially because of fears of what could happen. You survey people years later, and they feel differently about those policies so we recognize the challenge you guys challenges you guys are facing. And yet I think, you know, most folks, the vast majority folks are really excited about open streets. You know, I wonder if there's a role for students in supporting this, you know, college students at institutions that, you know, we're affiliated with myself far in our college in Columbia University. You mentioned the designs and drawings for the cat, the corner cafes, maybe maybe architecture students urban design students can support restaurants with that. Maybe student volunteers can help with main with managing the streets. You know, obviously, we may have to train them a bit for that and, and, and make sure they have, you know, cultural humility, as well as cultural competency but maybe there's a way for students to support so please feel free to reach out to myself at that You know, you just touched on something that I wanted to discuss. And, and that's equity. You know, you mentioned that your work, Eric is focused on every community, every neighborhood, you know, and yet, much of the discussion in recent years has been around equity as opposed to equality and so there seems to be an opportunity to prioritize, disinvest the communities, and, and make sure that there's equity and ability for folks to to advocate for open streets. You know, how could the process be less challenging and more equitable is there a way to make it easier for folks to set up their open streets. Have you thought about ways to integrate equity into the process of approval for open streets. Any thoughts on that. Eric and and Emily and I guess I'll start with Eric Eric this time because you kind of touched on this a little bit. Yeah, I think Emily will be able to speak more directly to the process for for open streets. That's a department transportation initiative but just just to kind of echo some of your thoughts earlier about tapping into youth and students and I think it's wonderful to see the work that Jen and Noella shared earlier today really great and I think we're we've been looking for opportunities to engage with with youth in similar fronts. You know, we're a small division but but certainly want to bring more voices not just into this conversation but into the broader planning and urban design fields, which we hope will will become much more diverse and be reflective of the communities of our city so just hats off to them for being part of that wonderful initiative. You know, I guess when we look at sidewalk cafes as they exist now and open restaurants, which is where city planning has been much more, I guess a part of, you know, I think we can we can begin to be more equitable by, you know, limiting getting rid of the geography restrictions so you know before they were only in maybe certain parts of the city, maybe more fluent or where you would have a nexus of restaurants or commercial activity and really thinking about how we can broaden that more widely. And I think, you know, thinking through one of the barriers to getting into those programs from a cost perspective. Certainly, you know, there's a bit of an honor system that takes place and making sure that our sidewalks are accessible for folks to move on on the sidewalks and we have to be mindful of, you know, private use of our public streets. So certainly we want to be able to to let folks tap into that space. But we also need to make sure that it is a it's a you know just like part cars are taking up, you know, 3 million, 3 million spaces. We also need to make sure that there's there's room for people to get where they need to go so just, you know, I think there's a lot of things that that happen between buildings. And having to kind of think through all of them is definitely very challenging so I don't know if that really answered your question but and certainly Emily might have thoughts on that the open streets program. Yeah, totally. I mean I think, you know, one baseline is just engaging more people and a broader having a broader conversation and communities for sure. There are a lot of neighborhoods that, you know, have resources and the resources are not just money but their, you know, connections and time and connections to different aspects of the community that are just fostered in such a sophisticated way that is kind of jumpstart, you know, moments like this when there are, there are these opportunities to take on management and design of streets, and so building building that capacity elsewhere in the city and and again oftentimes, in neighborhoods that need it most is, is a really vital component to all of this. You know, specifically around open streets, as, as Eric mentioned, we've just seen a fantastic increase in geography for the first time in a long time with a lot of our public space programs, because ultimately the kind of requirements to manage and maintain these things were so like touch. That's really, that's really important to us and a layer of the program we're really looking to preserve and think about how we can really kind of layer different, different uses layer management with programming in a way that kind of allows and and encourages a larger set of resources. We also feel very strongly that open streets, moving forward to be successful and equitable needs to have a city managed component, and so that will be something we're working towards this year to take some of these resources and have DOT be able to provide a lot of the, a lot of the management and what it takes to keep these things running, as well as being able to layer management and so we've for many years in collaboration with the horticulture community of New York and ace New York run our Plaza equity program where we pair kind of needs needs public space needs in communities with really great workforce development programs, and that has been such a kind of successful equation for kind of creating solutions out of a series of challenges and by really pairing them and locally addressing public space and community investment and that's something we're definitely excited to take further through open streets and develop that even more so that will be a huge, huge component of how we look to move forward with the program in an equitable way. Yeah, thank you for that comment Emily. I was thinking about the pedestrian Plaza initiative and, you know before today and I've heard a lot of discussion about, you know, having a more connected network of open streets, and you both have talked about equity and what comes up sometimes in New York is that, you know, access to safe bike lanes may not be distributed equitably, and also the need to transition the city away from fossil fuel using single use vehicles. And so perhaps there's an opportunity for this connected network of open streets where folks can bike. Maybe it's complimented by dedicated streets for buses, but I'm curious do you see an opportunity in the future for a connected network. Maybe it's linked with pedestrian plazas so that folks can get around the city without using vehicles could this compliment the city's goals around reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Definitely, you know we're thinking so much about this at DOT obviously and have so many tools again more tools than ever we feel like. I would encourage folks to take a look. If you haven't seen already to take a look at some of the work that we're doing along Broadway this year, taking our kind of gradient of of roadway design tools and and delivering an overall connected network that ultimately remains flexible and so it will be able to kind of be resilient as as mode shifts change should congestion pricing move forward you know kind of dramatic shifts in in the transportation and making sure that that ultimately our streets are streets continue to help people move but you know ultimately at a higher higher quality of life for sure. And I definitely again I think, you know challenges challenges of equity are very, very at the forefront of these larger transportation network moves that are ultimately going to be the challenge. I love love a kind of large big, you know big picture goal and certainly when you look at the car ownership numbers and and the miles of streets and the amazing real estate we have available kind of about, you know from far away. It's absolutely achievable the challenge is to really like where are going to be kind of the biggest cost benefit and how do we make really meaningful change on the ground to serve, you know the communities that need it most. As yeah making the kind of the biggest mode shifts that will get us to to where we want to be. You know I think that's that's definitely a huge part of the challenge moving forward. And you know, some of those mode shifts, you know, could really could really amplify tourism, you know, if we have, we expand the open restaurants program at the same time. We create this connected network, maybe that helps bring folks to certain restaurants. It helps street vendors as well that that, you know, set up along those connected networks. You know so that that sounds really exciting. So at this stage, you know, I want to transition to including some of the questions from the q amp a. I know you've you've shared some questions with me. So I'll, I'll kind of try to do my best to read these questions and kind of summarize them. And so that we kind of, you know, have that interaction with the attendees. So one, one question that's come in. I'll go ahead that did you want to, are we will you handle the question. Yeah, sure. I'm actually, because there are so many questions and really good questions and the q amp a. And this dialogue box in itself has become like a really great forum for discussion so I'd encourage everyone first of all to open that up and take a look and, and, and a lot of the questions are directed at the presenters. So we thought we have a little bit of time we did really good on timing so we thought we will go around to the presenters who have been monitoring the q amp a and have them give a key lesson learned or clear next step that they've taken away from the conversation today. It's been great, but to hear from Eric and Emily and to hear the city but also what's kind of amazing about this whole moment is that so much of the future of our streets seems to suddenly be in the hands of its citizens so we thought we just go go back around and the same or they're starting with Leslie from street lab and invite you to give a closing thought for us Leslie. Yeah, thanks dad. It sort of relates to one question that I saw pop up somebody said seems like these are all great pilot projects maybe we're still in the pilot phases what's a bigger vision. And I thought that was an interesting question because I think one thing that I take away from all this is is the capacity to change, you know, everybody turned on a dime this year right from the government agencies to the communities themselves and residents and what we need to get better at because it's because you know we can say we can start planning for the permanent things but but it's not going to nothing's going to be permanent going forward you know there's going to be more things that disrupt and change so even putting in permanent, you know, building permanent features in public spaces can be problematic when you have flooding and you have migration of people and you know that's our future so I just love. So if we can think more about the systems and the, and the ways that people were able to change and the roadblocks to communication and things like that and build, build a better capacity to change is maybe what I'm thinking should be the focus. Thank you. Jim closing thoughts takeaways. I consider this definitely permanent. And I would like to see some more infrastructure put in immediately from DOT and not wait for the design and build so that it just takes the intense labor that we have to do every single morning every single evening. It's an awful lot of work we've been doing it for well over a year now and coordinating out of 150 volunteers 40 volunteers to open and close every day. Plus our programming folks is a lot of work that can be the the barricade volunteers can be reduced significantly if there's some great infrastructure in place. And so I'm really hoping that DOT comes up and wows us with some some amazing things because love to have more of those volunteers to help us with other for other things. And, and have think they're a great partner, and we just would love to for them to take some of the burden off of our volunteers. Thank you. And can we hear from the neighborhoods now here Leslie. Sure. You know this was a very difficult year to be running bid and it underprivileged neighborhood with non English speakers. And I think that you know the lesson to take is that when we are trying to help our community. We need to start by solving those pre assistant conditions inequalities that were there. They were not new to our many city partners. We have been talking about them and then they just became an obstacle to help our small businesses and to reach them. I was very, very, very lucky to be picked for the neighborhood now program, because that gave the community free, and he gave my power to help many of the businesses that otherwise probably wouldn't have closed by now. And that's what I need to get credit to duty. We talked, I talked about the city a lot, but they stood out as a partner during this time of all the city agencies they're the ones who will work with us to modify rules to listen to our issues to try to I know that we didn't get there every single time, but I think the city should be looking to do a T to figure out how to better partner with people on the ground to listen and to implement programs that help the small businesses and just commercial districts in general. Thank you Leslie. Next, we'd love to hear from the wheel students and noelia Martinez, will you. Yes. Yeah, I'll say one of my biggest takeaways is probably like, when we do have this application filled out for the DOT, I do hope we get on great infrastructure. I hope that we get infrastructure that is not we're going to help the students but also the street vendors on the streets, because I think that's what this is mostly about we're working to help the community more than ourselves. So I really hope we get to do that and I really like this whole presentation I learned that programming is really key. And I think we're programming we can get a lot more people on the streets. Okay. Thank you noelia. Great job presenting today. And finally, Danny. Danny from transportation alternatives. I can hear me. It's not letting me turn my video off so. Hi, okay. Okay. Good. Yeah, so I think that, you know, in addition to the great conversation and the ideas. You know, I think a huge part that we all need to recognize it is really about imagination, especially of residents about thinking and expecting and demanding something better on their streetscape. And I have a two year old and a five year old. And when they draw a picture of the sky they draw clouds in the sun. When they draw a picture of a city they draw cars everywhere. So I think we also need to acknowledge that this is a hearts and minds campaign for all of us as we help New Yorkers 8.6 million of them. Think about and demand better outcomes from this incredible asset that we have which is asphalt. And so, you know, we need to stop moving from community board to community board to fight for a safe intersection or an open street or a protected bike lane or bus lane and show New Yorkers that, you know, we just as we wouldn't build a quarter of a bridge. We wouldn't do the same with these other critical pieces of infrastructure, whether they're protected bike and bus lanes or paper intersections. So there again, there is no path forward for New York that's built on vehicles. It's failed us for the last 100 years. It will do so for the next 100 years and doesn't matter if those cars are electric autonomous or flying. You know, they still take up a significant amount of space and leave too many New Yorkers behind. So, you know, we're incredibly, you know, hopeful about a future of the city and incredibly grateful to do with the partners on this call and those who are joining. And again, we urge you to get in the fight with us because, you know, it's great to talk about because it's another to actually get in. There's so many on this call and Jim especially I'm looking at you with the incredible work you've done on 34th have to make this a reality. And finally, all streets but really sort of a permanent model for what the city can do moving forward. So just very grateful to be here on the call with you. Thank you. In the last few minutes, it will be great to just hear closing thoughts from both of our panelists, and then if the other host organizations want to say anything to close us out, that'd be great too. So Emily and her. Yeah, I will just say to echo what everyone has said. Now more than ever, our streets are being stewarded by all of you. And I think that's so important. You know, people don't think twice about decorating a park or a playground for a birthday party or getting together and having a reunion. And I think, you know, the same should be for our streets and for your building, building your neighborhood on your streets. And I think that is what so much both, you know, restaurants have showed us that personal level of care as well as as all of your open street stewards thus far. And so I do think that's a huge, a huge kind of spirit of this past year that I personally am very excited to work with everyone to continue to move forward. Also just echo, you know, everything that all the partners have said on the call and, and I think, you know, speaking on behalf of urban designers at city planning we're eager to work with you to the extent that we're able to so I, you know, I definitely want to be, you know, we want to be right in the middle of this conversation with with you and others to rethink our streets and it's such an important time as we not only decide who our next mayor is, but also city council members I mean there's a vast amount of change that's going to happen with our elected officials and, you know, this is certainly a very important topic that it's going to be exciting to be inside government and see how we can hopefully respond to the creative ideas and on the ground that each of you is putting out there. And just lastly I do want to give a shout out to my local, my local open street that's run by a group called Marcus meets Malcolm on 120th Street here in Harlem. So much the way that Jim and 34 street have led the way I would say that that that group also has been really amazing and bringing like such wonderful programming to that street that I love walking down with my my three year old daughter so props to them if any of them are listening. Okay, and then, and then finally, maybe we'll just turn it back to your closing thought from our host starting with Catherine at the urban design forum. Yeah, thanks so much everyone, we are so grateful to be here and in conversation with all of you today. On behalf of the urban design forum and Van Allen Institute we are continuing our work through the neighborhoods now program and we'll be hosting further public programming to reflect on what we've been learning throughout the process in the spring and the summer so keep an eye out on our websites for more information about that and looking forward to continuing this conversation. So just echo what Catherine said, I'm really excited by all the work that was shared today and really excited just through our program and all the efforts that we see now to see the future of open streets really unfold and hopefully get to a place where we landed in an affordable future. But yeah, so again to echo Catherine said we're doing a lot of work, just showcasing the program and a lot of great stuff that came out of it over the next couple months. So please stay tuned for organizations to get more information on that. Thanks. Thank you for participating. This has been another great zoom event but I'm looking so much forward to seeing everybody out in the streets this summer. And yeah, let's just enjoy this great city that we share and come together in the public realm. Thanks so much for joining today and looking forward to future conversations.