Kick-off of Open Streets Season with Expanded Car-free Earth Day Celebration

NYC DOT Will Celebrate the 55th Anniversary of Earth Day on Saturday, April 26, With 54 Streets Across the Five Boroughs Opened to Pedestrians as Part of Open Streets: Car-Free Earth

Citi Bike Will Offer Free One-Day Passes to All Riders

The largest-ever Open Streets: Car-Free Earth Day event — with a record number of car-free streets and expanded events in Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, and on Staten Island was announced today. The annual event, hosted by NYC DOT, makes select city streets car-free and promotes activism and education surrounding climate change, environmentalism, and sustainable modes of transportation. The event also marks the official start of the city’s Open Streets and Public Space Programming season.

This year’s, Car-Free Earth Day will include 54 car-free streets and plazas across the five boroughs, with locations featuring public art or community programming—up from 53 locations as part of 2024’s event. Select streets will be open from 10 am and 4 pm.

Through the support of Lyft, on Open Streets: Car-Free Earth Day, Citi Bike will offer unlimited 30-minute rides on a classic Citi Bike for 24 hours. Riders can take advantage of the offer by using the promo code CARFREENYC25 in the Day Pass tab of the Citi Bike app.

ABOUT CAR-FREE EARTH DAY

First launched in 2016, Open Streets: Car-Free Earth Day originally converted select Manhattan streets into public plazas and car-free streets for pedestrians, cyclists, and local businesses. Last year, NYC DOT awarded $30 million in contracts to expand resources available to in-need Open Streets, plazas, and other public spaces. Expanded resources include staffing, permitting and administrative support, community outreach, promotion, fundraising, grant writing, and more.

Signature event locations are listed below, and the additional 47 community-organized locations can be found at nyc.gov/carfreenyc.

NYC DOT also announced that five artists have been commissioned to provide temporary, environmentally focused artworks along certain routes through the NYC DOT Art program. New York-based illustrator Ishita Jain’s whimsical illustration, titled Branching, honoring some of the oldest New Yorkers—the City’s majestic trees—will be featured on 300 JCDecaux bus shelters citywide. The popular NYC DOT Art Stop Letters will also come to Car-Free Earth Day with a brand-new botanical design by NYC-based illustrator Caitlin Keegan. Her work illustrates springtime in a car-free utopia.

NYC DOT Art will also present two sculptural installations at Car-Free Earth Day. Connecticut-based interdisciplinary artist Molly Gambardella is bringing her Asphalt Asters, which tranforms community-sourced single-use plastic bags into larger-than-life sculptures. The second installation by New York-based artists Anjali Deshmukh and Ernest Verrett, titled Rising. Curtain.,is a beaded curtain depicting a map of global temperatures from 1901 to 2000 to raise awareness about climate change and prompt consideration of its effects. Visitors are invited to reflect through a series of games that help the sculpture change throughout the course of the event. Artists were selected through recent open calls from the NYC DOT Art program. Learn more about NYC DOT Art initiatives and open calls at nyc.gov/DOTArt.

SIGNATURE EVENT LOCATIONS

Manhattan:

• Broadway: 17th Street to 46th Street
• St. Nicholas Avenue: 181st Street to 190th Street
• Dyckman Street: Broadway to La Marina/Inwood Hill Park

Queens:

• Woodside Avenue: 75th Street to 78th Street

Brooklyn:

• 5th Ave: 40th Street to 50th Street (expanding from 40th Street to 45th Street)

The Bronx:

• E 188th Street: E Fordham Rd to Valentine Ave + Creston Ave: E 188th St. to E Fordham Rd + Valentine Ave: E 188th St. to E Fordham Rd (expanding E 188th Street)

Staten Island:

• Port Richmond Ave: Richmond Terrace to Castleton Ave (expanding from Castleton Ave to Post Ave)