Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jim Burke, Co-founder of 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition on Open Streets Funding
6:38:27
ยท
127 sec
Jim Burke, co-founder of the 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition, testified about the success of the Open Streets program and the need for dedicated funding. He highlighted the positive impacts on commerce and safety, but emphasized that much of the work is currently done by volunteers using their own resources.
- Burke requested a specific line item in the budget for Open Streets partners and DOT staff working on the program.
- He mentioned that their Open Street is used by thousands of children for safe travel to school.
- Burke argued that New York should be leading the nation and world in this area, but is falling behind due to lack of funding.
Jim Burke
6:38:27
Commit chair Brooks Powers, thank you very much for this meeting.
6:38:31
I just wanna echo what a lot of the other speakers are saying.
6:38:35
OpenStreet is a clear home run that DOT has implemented.
6:38:44
If you look at commerce, it's way up along where open streets, exist.
6:38:48
If you look at safety, it's anywhere from forty to seventy one percent less injuries.
6:38:53
Any way you look at it.
6:38:56
But a lot of that hard work is borne by volunteers.
6:38:59
I'm a volunteer for the, largest, open street here in New York City.
6:39:04
It's 26 blocks long.
6:39:05
It's 30 Fourth Avenue Open Streets.
6:39:08
And we have volunteers that, you know, have to buy their own chess sets and and and jump ropes and materials.
6:39:17
We teach English as a second language a couple of times, a week.
6:39:21
That money often comes out of people's pockets who are already volunteering on the OpenStreet, we really need dedicated funding, for these, safety programs, and a line item in the budget, directly for the OpenStreet partners as well as for all the people, that work in DOT to get these OpenStreet, open, and to really help with the infrastructure that keeps them safe.
6:39:52
So I really appreciate, if you would put your attention to that because New York should be leading the nation, and and the world, and unfortunately, we're not.
6:40:04
People have leapfrogged ahead of leapfrogged ahead of us, and we just need a little bit of funding.
6:40:10
Our open street, thousand kids use it to go back and forth to school safely.
6:40:15
I think they deserve a tiny bit of it's point zero zero zero zero one seven when I looked at it in the budget.
6:40:21
So if you could really make sure you allocate that money, I promise you that we will deliver the services and make you proud.
6:40:30
And I think that everyone
Mark Chen
6:40:31
Your time's expired.
Jim Burke
6:40:33
So thank you.