Posted May 2, 2012, 7:13 PM
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Location: Toronto
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New York City Sidewalks Overflowing with Vibrancy, and Conflict
Competition for sidewalk space heats up
April 29, 2012
By Jeremy Smerd
Read More: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...LBIZ/304299975
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Private enterprise—legal and not—has always unfolded on New York City's sidewalks. But in recent years the competition for street space has accelerated. Food trucks and vendors have proliferated since the recession increased demand for affordable street fare. Sidewalk cafés now number 1,153, up 35% in the past four years. Discount bus carriers have turned crowded curbs in midtown and Chinatown into depots. Scaffold crews claim 150 miles for curbside construction. And this summer, the first of 10,000 new competitors for sidewalk space will arrive when the city's bike-share program begins.
- “Sidewalk activity is what makes New York vibrant,” said Alex Mautner, a former commissioner of the Department of Transportation, which regulates much of the streetscape. “The question is, how do you harness it and how do you bring a modicum of decorum to the streets so that it functions?” The wealth of walkers has brought opportunity to street salesmen and the many businesses for whom curbs are cash cows. Sidewalk cafés, for instance, have become a virtual necessity for restaurants in many neighborhoods, said Robert Bookman, a longtime industry lobbyist. “Restaurateurs need to maximize every inch much more than they did 30 years ago,” he explained. Though the number of food-cart permits is capped at 5,100, there are now about 19,000 food-vending licensees to operate them. That means a cart that sets up for lunch in midtown might cater midnight snacks in the meatpacking district.
- “Now people with the permit are running carts 24 hours a day,” said Mostafa Sayed, who has been selling street meat in east midtown for 17 years. Demand to operate the limited number of carts has pushed up the price of permits, which sell on the black market for thousands of dollars each, he said. Last week, the City Council held hearings on legislation to more closely regulate street salesmen. “Vendors are concentrating in areas where they aren't supposed to be,” said Daniel Garodnick, the chairman of the Consumer Affairs Committee. Mr. Mautner, who has worked as a consultant in the business, believes the city should allow permits to be bought and sold like taxi medallions. The value of a food-cart medallion would be tied to its location, giving owners a stake in the success of the neighborhood where they operate—or at least its cleanliness.
- The best way to manage the madness is to make sidewalks bigger, said Fred Kent, founder and president of the Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit based in New York. “That would spur major economic development,” he said, adding that the city should remove car lanes to widen narrow sidewalks. “Cars don't shop.” Parking spots may be the first casualty of the coming bike-share program. Most of the bicycle racks in midtown's Community Board 4—from Eighth Avenue to the Hudson River—are likely to be placed in the street, said Jenna Chrisphonte, the board's assistant district manager.
- Not all sidewalk businesses are growing. The ranks of newspaper vendors have dwindled since the days of afternoon editions to about 260. And the once-ubiquitous pay phone is now a relative rarity. Just 12,729 remain, down from 35,000 a dozen years ago, and they're used more for advertising than communicating. That doesn't mean phone kiosks are going away. In May, the Bloomberg administration will launch a pilot program to replace some of the phones with tablet computers, a plan that could be expanded when the city's franchise agreement with phone carriers expires in 2014.
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