What it takes to widen a sidewalk by 5 feet

What I've discovered so far about making sure planned projects actually happen

I recently ran the New York City Marathon for the first time 🙌 . Some New Yorkers consider Marathon day to be the best day of the year in New York City. It take one day to complete but getting ready to run the marathon takes several months of training. As someone who lives in Williamsburg this meant many laps along the nearby waterfront. 

Most of the waterfront walkways are pretty wide or next to roads without much traffic. This is good, since it means the walkways can accommodate plenty of pedestrians headed in both directions. It also means the walkways are accessible for differently-abled people. A conspicuous exception is the 500 or so feet of Franklin Street that runs along Bushwick Inlet:

You can see from this Google Maps image from over a decade ago the side walk is pretty narrow and gated in by a chained fence on one side and trees on the other. Runners could run in the bike lane or cross the road for a wider sidewalk. However, few do since that would be less safe and interrupts the flow of running.

You can see the sidewalk narrowing to 5 feet on both sides

When I run past here, I always ask myself: why can’t we make this sidewalk five feet wider? It seems like an inexpensive, obvious accessibility improvement for this walkway. I often have to jump on and off the concrete to get past pedestrians or dodge runners coming towards me.

If we want to increase Abundance in New York City, I think one important lever would be to empower citizens to call out small but obvious improvements that could benefit residents in a cost-efficient manner. We also need mechanisms that allow citizens to tap into New York City’s considerable resources to make these fixes a reality, assuming citizens have the sustained focus to see a project to completion. 

Do these mechanisms already exist? Here’s what I’ve learned so far about this particular sidewalk.

First, I searched online to see if anyone else has had this particular compliant. As it turns out, there has been a desire to widen this sidewalk for years. Here’s a June 2020 plan from the Parks Committee of Brooklyn Community Board 1 (CB1): 

This screenshot is a little cluttered, but you can see that the plan would double the sidewalk’s width. I emailed the firm that created these designs, Abel Bainnson Butz (ABB), and one of the Partners confirmed the sidewalk would be widened from 5 to 10 feet. (They seem like nice people and added: “We also are really looking forward to seeing shovels in the ground and the realization of this project. Please feel free to stay in touch.”). 

Great, so we’ve discovered a plan that’s over three years old — but why has there been no obvious progress on it? I did some more online searching and sent out some emails to discover why. 

First, it does look like there is a timeline attached to this project. According to a ABB landing page, the anticipated completion date was 2024. However this target feels outdated since construction hasn’t begun at all. 

I did some more digging and found this project planner on the Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) website. It says the completion date has slipped and is now between March and September 2025: 

I have a couple observations here. The first is that the design phase took two-and-half years longer than expected? Maybe this is Pandemic-related, but the 2020 documents I saw seemed basically complete, so I’m surprised. 

Next, it looks like the project is stuck in procurement? NYC Parks expected that phase to be completed last month but is now expected to be done next spring. NYC Parks breaks down the Procurement Phase into five steps: 

The project is currently in the Contractor Bid Selection stage. That means NYC Parks is advertising the project and reviewing contracting bids. I can see why this particular step takes a while for anti-corruption reasons. 

I guess the broader question here is: what can residents do to apply ongoing pressure to complete projects like this one on time? Or even within the stated timeline?

Residents discussing the Motiva Parcal of Bushwick Inlet Park in 2019 (!!) (source)

NYC Parks knows a dedicated group of residents cares about this project. After all, they worked with CB1 in 2019 and 2020 to sign off on a design for this new park. NYC Parks might not know though that in 2023 random runners like me also want them to complete this project quickly. 

I have a couple of related ideas to find that group of residents: 

1. Have a QR code (or something similar) visible at the project site for people walking by to express their support for getting this project done. This could be a Google form or a blog to subscribe to

2. Create a landing page or social media account for this project. The NYC Parks project planner almost fulfills this need, but it doesn’t have a feed of project-specific updates or a way to subscribe to those updates

After that, I could present to CB1 about how X residents care about this project. Resident testimonials could make the concern more personal. That could be enough to get NYC Parks to provide occasional updates to CB1 and answer some of the timeline questions I've posed above.

Does anyone reading this have any thoughts on which of these options is most promising, or know someone who might? I’m open to working on this over the next year.

I’m also open to feedback if the best thing to do here is actually nothing. This project is already funded and has a timeline. Instead, it might be better to focus on other under-researched ideas. I don’t know enough about NYC Parks project planning to know if this is wise or naive, but some sort of analysis on past project completion times or an expert's opinion could yield some insights.