Fifth Avenue busway coming to Midtown soon
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A mile-long stretch
of Fifth Avenue
in Midtown will
be transformed into a
busway under a new
plan Mayor Bill de Blasio
announced on June 8 to
get the city moving while
reopening.
The city will open 20
new miles of bus lanes
and busways across the
fi ve boroughs between
now and October to improve
commutes for New
Yorkers as the city starts
its fi rst phase of reopening
and eases restrictions
due to COVID-19.
“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 briefi ng at
the Brooklyn Navy Yard
on June 8. “Look, more
PHOTO BY MARK HALLUM
The 14th Street busway during its launch on
Oct. 3, 2019.
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 next fi ve months, starting
this month with two
lanes in Manhattan and the
Bronx and a new Queens
busway.
The fi rst 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
0.3–1.1 miles long.
On busways, the city
bans through-traffi c on
the street for most of the
day, while vehicles can
still make pick-ups, dropoffs,
and deliveries, but
have to turn off the street
after a block or two.
Bus lanes reserve a lane
or two for buses for several,
usually during the
day on weekdays, but still
allow car traffi c 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 redpainted
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
Third and Ninth streets,
upping bus speeds by 24%
and ridership by 30%, according
to offi cials.
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
offi cials demanded the
city add 60 miles of bus
lanes, and four out of the
fi ve 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
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