It’s no secret that the NYC Department of Transportation wants to make the Big Apple more pedestrian and bike friendly, but the department’s plans go way beyond pop-up plazas and bike lanes. Much to our excitement,we just learned the the DOT wants to put a pedestrian plaza, a la Times Square, in every single community district in the city. Considering that the Times Square plazas have drastically improved the air quality in Midtown Manhattan, more spaces of the same type throughout the entire city would make a huge impact on air pollution.

The Daily News reports that during a City Council meeting, the DOT’s assistant commissioner for planning and sustainability, Andy Wiley-Schwartz, stressed that building a pedestrian plaza in all 59 districts is the DOT’s “hope,” and that this is a community-driven application process. He also added that the DOT won’t be “flying over at 30,000 feet and plopping them down where a map tells us is a good spot.”

So far 17 pedestrian plazas have been built and another 25 are in the works. Is there a plaza in your neighborhood? Send us your pictures!

Via The Daily News