Two years later, the Department of City Planning reported that open streets have a 12-percent lower vacancy rate than the citywide average. "As [the] report shows, when we design people-centric streets and utilize strategies like open streets, it benefits local businesses and all New Yorkers," said DOT spokesman Scott Gastel. DiNapoli said that the city should do more to mitigate concerns of the volunteer groups or business improvement districts that operate the open streets for the city. On the plus side, complaints from neighbors about residential noise dropped 20 percent on open streets during the same period (on non-open streets, such complaints dropped by only 8.4 percent). The number of open streets rose in 2024 — and DOT says there were even more in 2025.