Play Streets Chicago

PlayStreets is an initiative that reclaims public space by temporarily closing streets to auto

traffic and creating ‘pop-up play spaces’ for local residents. Based on the decades-long and

successful New York City experience, the Chicago Department of Public Health launched its

own PlayStreets initiative in 2012. Now in its fourth year, PlayStreets Chicago has provided

over 26,000 children and adults from 27 different underserved neighborhoods with safe,

supervised places to play and be physically active while generating additional benefits like

community cohesion, violence prevention and socialization. As the lead consultant to CDPH on

the PlayStreets program over the last 4 years, Active Transportation Alliance will lead a presentation on:

• A brief history of PlayStreets;

• The main tenets of a PlayStreets program;

• Chicago’s story of creating the political will and identifying funding for the PlayStreets

program;

• The ‘nuts and bolts’ of the execution of a PlayStreets initiative;

• Lessons learned.