The car-free plaza on Clarkson Street in Tribeca, with its permanent gate, is an upgrade from the current metal barricades that must be moved, repeatedly, by volunteers or city employees, all day. Parents across the city have advocated<\/a> for this kind of French treat for years.<\/p>\n The gate will be installed across the entrance to Clarkson Street at Hudson Street outside of City As School<\/a>, a progressive public high school founded in 1972. The gate will block drivers from turning left onto Clarkson from Hudson during the Open Street hours (school days, from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m). The gate can be opened and closed for emergency vehicles, but its continued presence on the street signals its primary purpose: people.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a parent of two New York City\u00a0public\u00a0school students, I understand the importance of Open Streets as an opportunity to provide safe,\u00a0open-air\u00a0environments for children\u00a0to\u00a0learn and\u00a0play \u2014 while also\u00a0providing\u00a0parents and guardians\u00a0calmer and more social\u00a0pickups and drop-offs,\u201d said\u00a0Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn. \u201cWe are using innovative tools to\u00a0help keep children safe as schools, from new street designs and an expansion of our school slow zones.\u201d<\/p>\n DOT will use the downtown gate as a pilot with the hope of \u201cpotential expansion to other Open Streets across the city,\u201d the Mamdani administration added in a statement.<\/p>\n Properly protected school streets have long been a top priority of Open Plans, the livable streets advocacy group, and the image at the top of this story reflects the group\u2019s involvement in this project.<\/p>\n \u201c[The] swing-arm gate [will] create a welcoming, safe outdoor space where students of all abilities can gather and enjoy spending time outside with their entire school community,\u201d said Sabina Sethi Unni, community planner at the organization (which shares a parent company with Streetsblog). This block, which will also feature a street seat, including space for students to garden, will be a model for schools across the entire city. Building safe, accessible open spaces is incredibly important for our youth, and permanent infrastructure helps reduce staffing burden for schools.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of the mayor\u2019s back-to-school announcement, the administration said the school Open Street<\/a> program has grown to 77 locations, up from the 69 that were confirmed in early 2026. That modest increase keeps the city far behind<\/a> global peers in designating streets for children. Paris, with one-quarter the population, has\u00a0200 school streets<\/a>, and London, which is roughly the size of New York, has\u00a0at least 800<\/a>. As a candidate for mayor in 2025, then-Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani was all-in on school streets, telling Reddit<\/a> that he would make the program \u201cuniversal,\u201d meaning schools would have to opt-out rather than opt-in.<\/p>\n Instead, Mayor Mamdani has so-far focused on using power granted to the city by the state legislature (also known as Sammy\u2019s Law<\/a>) to create 15-mile-per-hour school slow zones at more than 200 locations so far. Shortly after taking office, Mamdani promised<\/a> to implement the law \u2014 which is named after 12-year-old Sammy Cohen Eckstein, who was killed by a driver on Prospect Park West in 2013 \u2014 to create 800 school slow zones by the end of the year. The administration says it is on track to install the remaining 600 by the end of the calendar year.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery student deserves to feel safe when they make their way to school, and every parent deserves the same peace of mind,\u201d the mayor said in a statement. \u201cOur administration will continue to take action to ensure our streets are safe, especially those surrounding our children\u2019s schools.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to the permanent gate and the slow zones, the DOT will also implement street safety projects at schools. One such project, traffic-calming measures on 86th Street<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Brooklyn\u00a0from\u00a0Stillwell Avenue to\u00a0Shell Road, reduced pedestrian injuries on the corridor by 36 percent since completion in 2021, according to DOT.<\/p>\n More than 300 schools are set to get street redesigns this year, the administration said. Future projects include street improvements on Coney Island Avenue near P.S. 889, three projects in the Rockaways<\/a> which will add curb extensions are other traffic-calming measures, one project on Elton Avenue<\/a> in the Bronx, and pedestrian and bike improvements near schools at Courtlandt Avenue, Park Avenue\u00a0and Morris Avenue<\/a> in the Bronx.<\/p>\n All that isn\u2019t enough for many street safety activists, including those at Transportation Alternatives, who pointed out that Mamdani has not fully taken advantage of Sammy\u2019s Law by reducing speed limits across whole neighborhoods:<\/p>\n The Mamdani administration is implementing Sammy\u2019s Law through a patchwork of short, disconnected stretches, some as short as about 100 feet.@NYC_SafeStreets<\/a> is calling on the mayor to think bigger and lower speed limits across entire neighborhoods to save lives. pic.twitter.com\/HZra34RRRm<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Transportation Alternatives (@TransAlt) September 8, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/gate-at-clarkson-street-e1788917652891.jpg\")
Another view of the city\u2019s planned gate to keep drivers off Clarkson Street during school hours. Photo: Open Plans\/Project for Public Spaces<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/paris-school-street-touched-e1788917630628.jpg\")
A school street in Paris. <\/p>\n