Vision for climate-resilient park unveiled for New York

A community-led volunteer organisation has released a report advocating that New York City’s “gold standard” open street should be transformed into a permanent linear park.

The Alliance for Paseo Park has unveiled a set of community priorities, along with conceptual renderings and a holistic plan in the report for Paseo Park, which includes making it permanent pedestrian-first space.

Most successful open street

Jackson Heights, Queens, is home to New York City’s largest and most successful open street, Paseo Park (formerly 34th Avenue Open Street). Yet Jackson Heights, one of the City’s most diverse and densely populated districts, ranks last in park space and lacks a community centre.

The City has allocated $90m in capital funding for improvements to the 26-block long (1.3 mile) stretch, which runs along 34th Avenue from 69th Street to Junction Boulevard. The open street was created in 2020 during the pandemic.

The creation of a linear park along 34th Avenue Open Street would give the community up to 7.5 acres of park space, quadrupling the amount of public green space.

The Alliance for Paseo Park’s report is the result of nearly a year of multi-lingual, multi-faceted community outreach and engagement conducted by volunteers from the alliance, including: eight tabling sessions; two community visioning workshops; 12 “outreach ambassadors” holding smaller kitchen table conversations; several dozen in-person and virtual meetings with neighbours, local leaders, organisations, and businesses – and even a survey designed by local Girl Scouts specifically for children.

“We must work together to make it better and push the City to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create green space from street space that could serve as a replicable model across New York City”

The Paseo Park Community Roadmap includes conceptual renderings, a before and after of how the open street could be transformed to a public space for the community. The report recommends the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DoT) address the city-wide problem of speeding mopeds and e-bikes by creating space for higher speed working and commuting cyclists and vehicles on an adjacent avenue.

“Our community is clearly calling for a pedestrian-first space, where children and our elders can be safe from speeding vehicles. With this redesign we have a chance to address flooding, rising heat, and other effects of climate change.” said Dawn Siff, executive director of Alliance for Paseo Park.

“Our open street is still evolving. We must work together to make it better and push the City to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create green space from street space that could serve as a replicable model across New York City.”