What do you think of the ‘streeteries’?
The Office of Planning (OP) invites District residents to complete a short survey designed to assess the experience people who visited outdoor dining and retail establishments during the COVID-19 public health emergency.
The survey asks a series of questions about what residents do or do not like about the program, including whether it facilitated patronage of restaurants, support for service-industry employees and the impact on access to public space.
It also asks if residents would like to see spaces (other than sidewalks) continue to be used for outdoor dining post-pandemic.
Established in June 2020 through a joint District Department of Transportation (DDOT), OP and Department of Health (DOH) effort, the outdoor dining and retail pickup program initially aimed to uplift small businesses following the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the resulting public health emergency status.
At the start of the public health emergency, the District issued temporary guidelines allowing businesses to expand into public space. That was typically defined as the publicly owned area between private property lines such as the sidewalk and the roadway.
This program allowed these spaces to be utilized by restaurants for outdoor dining, and by retailers for curbside pickup and delivery for the duration of the public health emergency.
The survey will be available until February 14, 2021.
Click here to complete the survey.
Local business owners are being encouraged to complete a different survey, posted here.
