Mayor Bloomberg and DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan recently announced Summer Streets, an experimental program that will temporarily open a 6.9 mile car-free route from the Brooklyn Bridge to 72nd Street. Major cross-town streets will remain open. Summer Streets will run from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on three consecutive Saturdays in August, the 9th, 16th and 23rd (my birthday).

I think this is an awesome plan! But I did wonder if it will hurt local businesses and create havoc. Not to worry. Sadik-Khan said this: “We’ve been making very careful preparations on our traffic front to make sure that we’re dealing with the access issues that residents have, with the delivery issues that businesses have and also to make sure that we’ve got appropriate access for emergency vehicles.”

Similar car-free corridors exist in London, Paris and Bogota. Several American cities have adopted temporary plans as well.

Via City Room