De Blasio administration finally unveils
plan to open streets for social distancing
BY MARK HALLUM
Less than 24 hours after
Council Speaker Corey
Johnson threatened to go
to Governor Andrew Cuomo
regarding Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
reluctance to open streets for
social distancing, hizzoner announced
100 miles of pedestrian
and cyclist road space.
According to the speaker’s
offi ce this will start with 40
miles of street closures, sidewalk
widening and additional
bike lanes for the fi rst month
that follow weeks of de Blasio
telling New Yorkers enforcement
complications have kept
the administration from creating
social distancing space in
roadways.
“As the weather gets nicer
and this unprecedented crisis
stretches on longer, we need to do
everything in our power to keep
our neighbors safe and healthy.
This announcement is a great
starting point for the ongoing
conversation about how we share
our public spaces during this pandemic
and in a post-coronavirus
future,” Johnson said.
The advancement of open
streets will start in areas
around parks despite the mayor
closing the majority of parks
Canal Street on April 10. PHOTO BY MARK HALLUM
under the explanation that New
Yorkers were not remaining six
feet apart, deeming green-space
as an area of concern for the
spread of COVID-19.
The open streets plan will be
in place for the duration of the
governor’s PAUSE program.
“I’ve said consistently that
we want to see new approaches
but we have to make sure that
they’re safe and we have to
make sure that there is enforcement,”
de Blasio said Monday.
“The focus will be where the
need is greatest… Some of the
communities we’ve already
identifi ed as having been hard
hit by COVID.”
Some communities will
have sidewalks widened like
was seen around Rockefeller
Center during the holidays and
bike lane miles will also be
expanded throughout the city.
Vehicle miles traveled by
borough have been reduced
from between 78% in the
Bronx to about 92% in Manhattan,
according to statistics
from StreetLight Data.
Johnson and Councilwoman
Carlina Rivera, who both
represent parts of Manhattan,
introduced legislation in the City
Council on April 22 that would
require the city Department
of Transportation to create 75
miles of open road. While this
bill only recently went through
the Transportation Committee,
it came with support from
council members across the city.
On Sunday morning, de Blasio
told reporters the ability to
open streets came down to the
police force having the personnel
they need to enforce it.
Later on Sunday, Johnson
wrote in the New York Times
that if the mayor did not get
serious about opening street
space, he would appeal to the
governor to wield authority
over the matter.
“You have to be very realistic,
you have a lot of people in a very
dense urban environment…
It’s very hard to walk down a
sidewalk in New York City and
social distance,” Cuomo said
Monday. “Remember, in New
York City, the traffi c is way,
way down… I spoke to the city
council speaker and the mayor
about it. We did open streets
and there was a program that
was operational. Apparently they
have a disagreement of how it
workers. I said fi gure it out.”
This debate for open streets
goes back to Cuomo, in the early
days of the pandemic, mandating
that streets be opened up
after observing crowding in
parks. De Blasio committed
four stretches of roadway in
four different boroughs that
only lasted less than two weeks
before being discontinued.
“You have no cars, you don’t
need as many streets. There is a
direct proportionality,” Cuomo
added in his Monday briefi ng
on coronavirus.
State may need an army to trace COVID-19
cases and keep numbers down
BY MARK HALLUM
Governor Andrew Cuomo not only
reviewed the numerical qualifi cations
of keeping the spread of
coronavirus under control but said there
would need to be at least 30 tracing personnel
for every 100,000 New Yorkers.
Moreover, the state will need to maintain
a hospitalization rate of less than 70% of
capacity and an infection rate below 1.1 in
order to keep the number of COVID-19
cases below the “outbreak” level.
“When we talk about reopening, this
should not be a political discussion… It is
a factual discussion on reopening,” Cuomo
said. “In this environment, it’s becoming
rhetorical rather than factual. We want
to reopen, but we want to do it without
infecting more people or overwhelming the
hospital system.”
In a discussion between President Donald
Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis,
Cuomo’s Republican counterpart said he
gained more from federal briefi ngs on COVID
19 in January and February, taking a
dig at the other side of the aisle. Trump asked
what DeSantis had learned to which he responded,
“a lot more than the Democrats.”
Florida, which issued stay-at-home orders
much later than other states which became
hotbeds for coronavirus early on, is preparing
to reopen next week. DeSantis was criticized
earlier in the month for opening beaches
despite cases still being on the rise in the
Sunshine State as of three days ago.
As of Tuesday’s COVID-19 briefi ng,
there were about 900 hospitalizations in
the last 24 hours with 335 deaths across
the state in the same time period.
DARREN MCGEE - OFFICE OF GOVERNOR
ANDREW M. CUOMO
Governor Andrew Cuomo delivers
his daily press briefing on COVID-19,
Coronavirus
According to the Centers for Disease
Control, regions can begin reopening if
their hospitalization rate is on the decline
for up to 14 days, to which Cuomo said
upstate New York would begin this process
sooner than downstate and New York City.
But New York’s reopening plan is the most
data-driven in the United States, he said.
June
Democratic
presidential
primary
cancelled by
New York BOE
due to COVID-19
BY MARK HALLUM
If there were going to be any major
upsets in the June 28 primary, it came
early when the state Board of Elections
canceled the polling day altogether.
The cancelation of the presidential primary
just the latest in a series of actions
in the past month from Governor Andrew
Cuomo to deal with the COVID-19
outbreak. In late March, Cuomo pushed
the primary back from April 28 to June
23, then another executive order made it
mandatory for all New Yorkers to vote by
absentee ballot.
The latest development came as a shock
to not only the Bernie Sanders campaign,
who issued a scathing statement, but other
organizations that did not believe the action
was necessary or invited by the public.
“Today’s decision by the State of New
York Board of Elections is an outrage, a
serious blow to American democracy, and
must be overturned by the DNC,” Jeff
Weaver, a senior advisor to Sanders, said.
“Just last week Vice President Joe Biden
warned the American people that President
Trump could use the current crisis as an
excuse to postpone the November election.
Well, he now has a precedent thanks to
New York state.”
The DNC told Reuters, however, that the
DNC does not oversee decisions on state
primaries, but reviews changes to how
states allocate delegates.
Although Sanders had suspended his
campaign early in April, the candidate
had still wanted to remain on the ballot.
The BOE, however, felt that with Joe Biden
as the presumptive winner of the Democratic
primary, it would be “unnecessary
and frivolous” to hold an election, Reuters
reported.
As for New York State Board of Elections,
there was no mention made about
the decision nor an explanation for the
unprecedented move made in a meeting
Monday. They had not issued a statement
as of press time.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, likewise, was
silent on the decision.
Additional reporting by Simon Lewis
and Trevor Hunnicutt, Reuters.
4 April 30, 2020 Schneps Media