Jim is the Queens chair for the local advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. A long-time safe streets activist, Jim regularly devoted time to volunteering after work, and in 2020 he had more time on his hands than ever.
The Open Streets program was about to start. Mayor de Blasio had delegated responsibility to the Department of Transportation and local police precincts. In many neighborhoods, the police partnered with a local BID to take over daily management of the streets. The 115th Precinct and local BID lacked the staff to clean the street and move the barricades each day.
Jim helped jumped in: “We’ll do it!” He and members of his community advocated for safe streets in their home of Jackson Heights for years, and recognized that this was a special moment in time. Eager to show that the community could manage 34th Avenue without police presence and determined to make their local Open Street a success, they called a dozen local groups – including Queens Transportation Alternatives and the Jackson Heights Beautification Group. They formed the 34th Ave Open Streets Coalition and made it work.
The Coalition’s first goal was to make people feel safe and welcome using 34th Avenue. Next, they focused on making the Open Street permanent. Now that they have achieved both of these milestones, their next goal is to fortify the streets around schools to protect children on their way to and from school. And after that?
“After making the streets safer, we want an interconnected network, so that theoretically you could hop on your bike, your skateboard, push the wheelchair, go for a walk through all of New York City and stick to an Open Street network, never having to worry about violence from cars, and be able to safely get to your destination, whether you’re a jogger or walker or a cyclist,” Jim said. “That would be the dream.”