Twenty miles of new bus lanes, busways
to be added to New York City streets
Mayor Bill de Blasio discusses the reopening of the businesses under phase one of relaxing COVID-19 restrictions. Photo by Todd Maisel
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
The city will open 20 new miles of
bus lanes and busways across the five
boroughs between now and October to
improve commutes for New Yorkers as
the city starts easing restrictions due to
the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Bill de
Blasio announced Monday.
“These 20 new miles of busways and
bus lanes are going to help over three
quarters of a million New Yorkers get
around more easily,” said de Blasio at his
daily briefing at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
on June 8. “Look, more service equals
less crowding, equals more health and
safety; that’s what we want to achieve.”
City transit gurus will open 16.5
miles of bus lanes and 3.5 miles of busways
in the coming five months, starting
this month with two lanes in Manhattan
and the Bronx and a short new busway
in Queens.
The first new busway will run along
0.3 miles of Main Street from Sanford Avenue
to Northern Boulevard, and the city
will roll out three blocks of bus lanes east
of the existing 14th Street busway from
First Avenue to Avenue C, and 2.7 miles
of lanes in the Bronx on 149th Street,
between Southern Boulevard and River
Avenue.
In the following months, workers
will install busways on Jamaica Avenue
in Queens, Jay Street in Brooklyn, and
two on Fifth Avenue and 181st Street in
Manhattan, each of them between 0.3 to
1.1 miles long.
The city will also add further bus
lanes, including 6.4 miles along Merrick
TIMESLEDGER | 10 QNS.COM | JUNE 12-18, 2020
Boulevard in Queens and 6.6 miles on
Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island.
On busways, the city bans throughtraffic
on the street for most of the day,
while vehicles can still make pick-ups,
drop-offs and deliveries, but have to turn
off the street after a block or two, similarly
to the bus-only Fulton Mall in Downtown
Brooklyn.
Bus lanes reserve a lane or two for
buses for several, usually during the day
on weekdays, but still allow car traffic on
other lanes at all times.
The announcement follows the successful
pilot of the 14th Street busway in
Manhattan last year and the 20 miles of
new red-painted lanes will make traveling
faster for almost 750,000 daily riders,
according to de Blasio.
The Manhattan thoroughfare prioritized
buses October 2019, for a 1.4-mile
stretch between First and Ninth streets,
upping bus speeds by 24 percent and ridership
by 30 percent, according to city
officials.
That pilot project will now be permanent,
the mayor said, adding that, if the
new bus corridors prove to work, they
will become permanent, too.
But de Blasio’s new scheme fell well
short of demands by both the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority, whose
officials demanded the city add 60 miles
of bus lanes, and four out of the five borough
presidents, who together with transit
advocates demanded City Hall add 40
miles, as bus ridership has become more
popular than the subway during the pandemic.
“It’s a step in the right direction, but
it’s been clear for the last weeks that
mayor was underprepared for this moment,”
said Joe Cutrufo, spokesperson
for Transportation Alternatives.
The newly announced lanes also
don’t match the proposals transit advocates
put out in the last months for busways,
and Cutrufo said that like with de
Blasio’s Open Streets initiative, he was
going for roads that were easiest first.
“Given how this city has approached
reclaiming open streets, they tend to go
with the lowest hanging fruit first, and
that may be the safest way to approach
this politically,” he said.
A full list of the new lanes:
Busways
Queens: Main Street, Sanford Avenue
to Northern Boulevard, 0.3 miles
Queens: Jamaica Avenue Sutphin
Boulevard to 168th Street, 0.9 miles
Manhattan: Fifth Avenue, 57th to
34th streets, 1.1 miles
Brooklyn: Jay Street, Fulton and
Tillary streets, 0.6 miles
Manhattan: 181st Street,
Amsterdam Avenue to Broadway, 0.6
miles
Bus Lanes
Manhattan: 14th Street, First
Avenue to Avenue C, 0.8 miles
Bronx: 149th Street, Southern
Boulevard to River Avenue, 2.7 miles
Queens: Merrick Boulevard: Hillside
Avenue to Springfield Boulevard, 6.4
miles
Staten Island: Hylan Boulevard,
Lincoln and Nelson avenues, 6.6 miles
/QNS.COM
