Good afternoon, Chair and Members of the Committee.
My name is Maulin Mehta, and I am New York Director at the Regional Plan Association. RPA is an independent nonprofit civic organization that has worked for over 100 years to improve economic opportunity, housing affordability, mobility, climate resilience, and quality of life across the New York metropolitan region.
Today I am here to address two interconnected priorities: fully funding and expanding the NYC Streets Plan and strengthening our outdoor dining program. Both issues focus on a fundamental challenge we at RPA continue to work hard to provide insights for - using our limited public right-of-way to deliver the greatest public benefit.
In 2019, the City Council enacted the Streets Master Plan, a landmark law that committed the City to measurable improvements in bus lanes, protected bike lanes, pedestrian space, and intersection safety. As the coalition letter we signed onto notes, the City has fallen short of required targets in recent years. That is not simply a missed metric, it is a missed opportunity for safety, climate progress, public health, and economic mobility.
The Streets Plan must be fully funded, fully staffed, fully implemented and brought back into compliance with the law.
RPA’s Building Better Streets and Re-Envisioning the Right-of-Way reports make clear that the right-of-way is our largest, and potentially most flexible, piece of public land, yet we still dedicate the overwhelming majority of it to the storage and movement of private vehicles.
If we are serious about achieving Vision Zero, reducing emissions to meet our climate goals, improving bus speeds, and making the city safer and more affordable overall then the Streets Plan cannot remain under-resourced.
We support calls to expand DOT staffing and capital capacity and to accelerate projects to harden bus and bike lanes. But we must go further.
The current Streets Plan is largely metric-driven around mileage and square footage. That framework was essential. But the next iteration must be more ambitious and outcome-oriented. RPA’s Fourth Regional Plan calls for shifting 75% of trips to sustainable modes, dramatically expanding safe cycling networks, and redesigning streets for people, not just vehicles. The Fourth Regional Plan made clear nearly a decade ago that reclaiming street space is one of the lowest-cost, highest-impact climate and equity strategies available to the City.
The Streets Plan should be expanded to:
Integrate Open Streets and Pedestrianization: Open Streets, pedestrian plazas, and shared streets must be treated as permanent components of our transportation network, not temporary pilots. We support making pedestrian plaza metrics permanent and ensuring every community board has access to quality pedestrian space, as reflected in the coalition letter.
Integrate Outdoor Dining Into Public Realm Planning: Outdoor dining is not separate from transportation policy. It is a form of right-of-way reallocation. The Streets Plan should explicitly count and plan for the program’s impact on sidewalk extensions, curb lane activations, shared streets and seasonal vs permanent street closures.
Set Outcome Targets: Beyond miles installed, the Plan should target specific outcomes we want to see as we repurpose streets. As the coalition letter calls out, this includes 1 million daily bike rides by 2030, increasing citywide bus speeds by 20%, a 10% reduction in transportation emissions, a 20% increase in plaza visitors, and 75% of trips shifted to sustainable modes by 2035.
RPA also strongly supports legislation introduced by Council Speaker Julie Menin and Council Member Lincoln Restler to improve and make the outdoor dining program year-round. Through our Alfresco NYC initiative, we documented that outdoor dining is critical in supporting small businesses, activating streetscapes, and improving neighborhood vibrancy by enhancing public safety and creating informal pedestrian infrastructure.
We drew attention to how well-designed outdoor dining improves accessibility and public space quality when properly regulated and supported. Creating a seasonal program has resulted in less interest in the program, depriving communities across the City the opportunity to enjoy such a worthwhile amenity.
Ending seasonality and improving the program would provide businesses more certainty when choosing to invest in the program, and encourage that investment to be for higher quality, accessible structures. It can help reduce repetitive construction and removal costs and align the program with the City’s climate and mode shift goals.
It also aligns with Mayor Mamdani’s priorities, recognizing that repurposing curb lanes is a central strategy for affordability and neighborhood vitality. This moment is particularly important because we are simultaneously implementing congestion pricing and working to reduce transportation emissions while facing pressures to widen highways in parts of the region.
Congestion pricing strengthens the case for reallocating street space. As we reduce vehicle volumes, we must convert reclaimed capacity for bus priority lanes, bike lanes, plazas, and public space.
We also cannot separate streets policy from other land use challenges. Safe, bus-connected, pedestrian-oriented streets can make density more politically and socially viable by increasing access to jobs, reducing household transportation costs, supporting small businesses, and enabling transit-oriented development.
If we want to build more housing, particularly around transit, we must make those streets safe, welcoming, and vibrant.
New York City’s streets are our largest public asset and it needs to be the central platform for achieving the safety, climate, equity, and economic vitality goals we want to realize. The Streets Plan was visionary when passed. It must now be implemented with urgency and expanded with ambition.
New Yorkers are ready for streets that work for everyone.
