Playgrounds To Open to Public Within Weeks
While Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal runs up against opposition in Albany from the Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver, the city's green plan to open up school playgrounds as public parks is quietly moving forward behind the scenes. Sixty-nine school playgrounds scattered throughout the five boroughs are expected to open within weeks, the Parks Commissioner, Adrian Benepe, said in an interview. The initiative would be the first phase of the city's goal to have every New Yorker live within a 10-minute walk of a park by 2030.
About 81% of schoolyards are currently closed to the public after school hours, and the city has targeted 290 public school playgrounds and high school athletic fields currently open for only a few hours a day that the Parks Department, in partnership with the Department of Education, could open up for public use.
About 160 of those schoolyards would require major construction work before they could open to the public, Mr. Benepe said. The Parks Department is planning to foot the bill for those schoolyards, with the help of non-profit community groups, and the Department of Education has agreed to chip in for the refurbishments of an additional 60 schoolyards.
The schoolyards to public parks initiative would cost almost $114.5 million in total, according to city estimates.
Mr. Bloomberg's 2030 plan also includes plans to install lights on 36 athletic fields to make them safe for night-time play, refurbish at least one major abandoned park site in each borough, and plant 1 million new trees throughout the city.
