Millions of New Yorkers and tourists vote with their dollars and their butts. Plain and simple, they like Open Restaurants. This visible yet silent majority outweighs the small vocal minority. Restaurant patrons and the opponents of the Open Restaurants program have one thing in common: both agree that our streets and sidewalks are valuable space. Open Plans believes that outdoor dining is an excellent addition to New York City’s vibrant street life. The Department of Transportation must manage the program appropriately to ensure it works for restaurants and residents. Our vision for the future of Open Restaurants is simple. We believe:

• Design. The guidelines should ensure that on-street dining is part of a cohesive streetscape that is vibrant and well-ordered. For example, we envision movable tables and chairs with umbrellas or other overhangs rather than permanent structures. Standards should provide guidance for design while still allowing room for creativity.

• Safety and accessibility. The updated guidelines must address the conflict at the curb between restaurants and bike lanes. Seating should be directly at the curb with physically protected bike lanes outside of the seating area to protect riders, patrons, and restaurant staff. In addition, all sidewalks must remain fully accessible for pedestrians to pass without obstruction.

• Enforcement. We recommend the updated enforcement process is consistent and transparent, a process that focuses on corrective rather than punitive enforcement as the restaurant industry is still recovering.

• Fees. Curbside space is valuable and should be priced as such. We recommend comprehensively pricing the curb, for restaurants, vehicles and other uses. The fees collected can be used to manage and care for the public realm.

• Management. The Open Restaurants program must be managed as part of the public realm ecosystem rather than in a silo. Therefore, we call on the city to create a framework and structure for better coordination, stewardship, and public space management, including the Open Restaurants program.

Outdoor dining has revealed what we’ve known all along: the curb is a precious public space, and there are numerous better uses for it than the free long-term storage of private vehicles. We can have a safe, clean, and livable public realm by making common-sense improvements that benefit restaurants and residents alike.

Read the full testimony of Sara Lind, Director of Policy, here and Jackson Chabot, Director of Public Space Advocacy, here.