Greener Corridors for a More Resilient City

Reimagining NYC's major streets with safety and sustainability in mind

Vast traffic arterials such as Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, Boston Road in the Bronx, and Northern Boulevard in Queens have an outsized impact on New York City. They snake their way through every one of the city’s 189 residential neighborhoods, affecting the majority of the city’s residents who live within walking distance of these thoroughfares. They comprise nearly a quarter of the 6,300 miles of city streets, equivalent to the distance from New York City to Houston. Sixty percent of all pedestrian fatalities have occurred on New York City’s arterials in some years despite these thoroughfares being a fraction of all streets. The amount of paved roadbed belonging to New York City’s arterials is equivalent to more than 10 Central Parks, a stark reality in a city whose land is more than 70 percent impervious.

In the early 2000s, the City began a push to improve these roads through measures such as new bus and bike lanes, lower speed limits, and more street trees. Despite significant and impactful efforts, dozens of these major roadway corridors across the five boroughs remain unsafe, unhealthy, inefficient, and unsustainable. Vehicles speed, pollute, and jostle in a street space free-for-all; desolate asphalt and concrete expanses are hot and impermeable; and automobile-oriented land uses like single-story drive-throughs and surface parking lots make for an unpleasant and uninviting pedestrian experience where public and private realms meet. Many arterial roadways continue to exemplify historic planning efforts that divided communities, displaced families, and negatively affect residents’ health.

Through a series of articles, conversations with professionals, policymakers, and community members, and advocacy around City policies and projects, Greener Corridors seeks to flip the script on these corridors. Considering the term “greener” through a wide lens, it asks: rather than neighborhood barriers and spaces to avoid, how can the city’s largest roads be models of sustainability, public health, social cohesion, and equity among communities along their paths? And, critically, how can it happen without displacing the very people who would benefit most?