The six candidates who answered our questions are (clockwise from top left): Brad Lander, Jessica Ramos, Scott Stringer, Whitney Tilson, Zellnor Myrie and Zohran Mamdani. Andrew Cuomo and Adrienne Adams (pictured on the floor) did not answer.
Streetsblog is rolling out the top candidates' answers to our eight-question campaign questionnaire. All of the questions and answers will be posted here, and each day's question will feature the full answers in two forms: the text is not only below but plotted on a matrix graded by a panel of livable streets movement experts. Remember, candidates make many promises, so rather than grade the answers on dreams, we also added in a "reality" category so readers can judge if the candidate actually has a plan for achieving his or her promises. Don't worry, there won't be a test later: we'll recap all the answers on an uber-matrix later in the month.
Question 7:
Scott Stringer, former Manhattan Borough President and City Comptroller
We need to create a way for open streets and outdoor dining to work for everyone – businesses, residents, and pedestrians – permanently. Beyond the pandemic, outdoor dining has been a lifeline for local restaurants and brought new energy to our neighborhoods.
Now the Council has implemented new rules that create endless bureaucratic hoops restaurant owners need to jump through to apply for the permit, then limiting the number of approvals. As mayor, I will urge the Council to revisit the issue, push to loosen the unnecessary design requirements so smaller businesses can participate without breaking the bank, and create a dedicated support program to assist business owners navigate the process making it simpler, fairer, and more transparent.
As we expand this program, however, we must also tackle concerns about noise, sanitation, and sidewalk access so outdoor dining is enhancing neighborhoods, not disrupting them. Every community deserves to benefit from open streets and outdoor dining, I will work to ensure that the program is accessible and fair across the entire city, not just in a handful of rich areas.
Zellnor Myrie, state Senator from Brooklyn
As mayor, I will commit to expanding and improving them to ensure they remain vibrant and accessible for all New Yorkers. Outdoor dining is a valuable opportunity to support small businesses, which allows neighborhood growth and local economies to thrive. However, under the current administration’s Dining Out NYC Program, many restaurants are burdened with breaking down their open-air cafe setups every winter. We’ve already seen a steep decline in participation.
If we want outdoor dining to be successful, we need to make it easier and more accessible for restaurants to participate instead of creating new barriers. As mayor, I would champion a year-round outdoor dining program to ensure that restaurants can fully benefit from the program without disruption.
Similarly, Open Streets showed New Yorkers the potential of reimagining public space, making our city safer and more accessible by giving people much-needed space to walk, bike, and gather while also reducing traffic injuries for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. Despite its clear benefits, the program has been drastically reduced — from 83 miles at its peak to just 20 miles today. As mayor, I will restore and expand open streets to ensure New Yorkers across all five boroughs can benefit from safer, more vibrant streets.
Jessica Ramos, state Senator from Queens
I am deeply committed to outdoor dining, but the current scheme is unworkable. As of March, roughly 1,800 out of 2,400 applications were approved, and you have to wonder how many more restaurants skipped the application process altogether. It’s in everyone’s interest to help our restaurants thrive — these are some of the last businesses keeping our commercial corridors vibrant and our storefronts full in the age of Amazon.
Expanding outdoor dining and open streets requires a mayor who can bring people together, even when conversations are tough. My background in the labor movement has taught me that difficult conversations are best handled through an open-door policy, honest dialogue, and clear principles. New Yorkers deserve to be heard and to understand why these changes are happening and how they’ll benefit everyone. Building consensus is the only way to make these programs successful.
Brad Lander, City Comptroller
As mayor, I will expand and improve them. Most recently, my office sounded the alarm bell on the Adams administration’s failures to effectively implement the new version of the outdoor dining program. New York City’s restaurant scene survived and flourished through the pandemic because of outdoor dining, with over 12,000 restaurants participating. But then City Hall and the City Council over-regulated the program (especially prohibiting year-round sheds). And now, the Adams Administration is utterly failing to approve those permits, leaving lots of restaurants out in the cold.
As mayor, I’ll collaborate with the Council to make the application for outdoor dining faster and easier, enabling more restaurants to stay open year round and maximizing seating while respecting pedestrian traffic. As a recent report in the Comptroller’s office laid out, my priorities in negotiating those amendments with the Council will be to: a) Make it permanent – for roadway cafes that meet design standards and allow winter enclosures ensuring the safety and protection of customers and workers. b) Make the application process faster and easier – implement a 30-day processing timeline for Dining Out applications, upgrade application technology and resume in-person applications, and increase technical assistance across multiple languages. c) Maximize restaurant seating while maintaining space for pedestrian traffic by reverting to decade’s old clearance standards, of half the sidewalk width or eight feet, whichever is greater to maximize seating space. d) Ensure the city has the resources and capacity it needs to not just review and process applications, but help restaurants comply.
I’m also a huge fan of the open streets and neighborhood plaza programs. As mayor, I will ensure that DOT’s Office of Livable Streets is resourced and staffed to efficiently process open streets applications, and empower the agency to partner with intermediaries to facilitate community-based organizations eager to create “play” streets, building on the work of PAL.
Zohran Mamdani, Assembly Member from Queens
Yes. Firstly, I support making outdoor dining a year-round program. Outdoor dining not only brought liveliness and joy to New York City’s streets, it fueled our economy and boosted small businesses — the heart of this city. I would also eliminate the unnecessary and cumbersome design restrictions placed on restaurants and streamline the process by which restaurants and cafes can provide outdoor dining.
Secondly, open streets are a critical program that I would also expand. One way I would achieve this is by bringing school streets to every school in the city — creating more structured outdoor play time, smoother and safer arrival and pickup times, space for afterschool programming and community meetings, improving air quality and more. This can be done easily by changing the program from one that schools opt into to one that they are automatically enrolled in (unless they choose to opt out). To support other open streets — full closure and limited local access programs — a number of interventions are needed. First off, much more city funding needs to be made available to the partner organizations that operate open streets.
Currently, open streets reimbursement grants administered by DOT are capped at $20,000 a year. Open streets partners simply cannot run robust pedestrianization programs for a full year with such limited funding. Around the world, cities are putting many times this amount into pedestrianization programs — Montreal makes up to $700,000 (CAN) directly available to merchants associations that operate car-free streets, and Paris is going even further, planning to invest €300 million to create over 100 hectares of pedestrian areas by 2030. In addition to increasing funding, we must invest further in permanent infrastructure changes on open streets corridors. Using infrastructure to pedestrianize streets rather than doing this on a temporary basis will greatly reduce the labor and operational costs associated with open streets and make the program much more sustainable. To supplement all of this, I would explore a regular pedestrianization program on Sundays and holidays, taking inspiration from Bogota and Mexico City.
Whitney Tilson
Yes. Open streets improve quality of life. And outdoor dining, where foot and road traffic permit, help struggling restaurants.
