NYC further rolls back plans to revamp Fordham Road bus infrastructure

The city’s Department of Transportation is backing away from plans to revamp bus infrastructure on Fordham Road in the Bronx, angering some transit advocates.

The DOT had initially offered a number of options to improve the notoriously congested Fordham Road, which occupies a stretch on the Bx12 bus route — the second busiest in the city and the busiest in the Bronx, according to the agency.

Bus speeds on the route have declined to an average rate of around 7.5 miles per hour, according to the DOT, and can be as slow as under 4 miles per hour in other parts – making commuting to Manhattan challenging for people who rely on public transportation.

Two of the city’s proposed options would have transformed the road into a busway, similar to the one on 14th Street. A busway would allow only buses, trucks, emergency vehicles and those accessing residences or businesses on the road during peak hours. But in May, the DOT opted for the third, less ambitious plan: creating an offset bus lane, which is a lane dedicated to buses, one lane away from the curb.

Now, the DOT isn’t even doing that. The city will instead just repaint the existing curbside bus lane, according to agency spokesperson Mona Bruno.

“After painting is completed, NYPD will conduct heightened bus lane enforcement. Next summer, we will review the results of these measures and evaluate whether additional treatments are necessary,” said Bruno.

The earlier proposals had been met with opposition from Bronx business leaders and local institutions like the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo among others, Streetsblog reported in May.

Meanwhile, one poll of several hundred local residents found that 89% of respondents supported improving existing bus lanes, with 70% supporting transforming the road into a busway.

The city’s own street design manual explains that offset bus lanes work best in congested streets with heavy demand at the curb because it allows for buses to avoid other vehicles at the curb.

The executive director of the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, Danny Harris, slammed Mayor Eric Adams for falling flat on his promise to improve the city’s infamously slow buses.

“Our city, especially under this mayor, continues to put cars and parking spaces first, and we're seeing similar pushback — whether it's on Fordham Road or McGuinness Road — where the mayor is not trusting in the transportation experts that he's hired to actually do the work, and we're letting politics get involved,” Harris said. “As a result, people are being left behind, whether they're waiting for the bus, whether they're on the bus, whether they're riding a bike, or they want to ride a bike, or whether they're pedestrians.”

He added that the news coming during Climate Week made it an especially disappointing blow.

“To basically tell the world while they're all in New York that you're going to make these lofty commitments and at the same time you're going to kill a project, that's not only good for New Yorkers, but it's good for the earth, it just completely sends the wrong signal to New Yorkers and to the world about the commitment of this administration and this city towards sustainable goal,” Harris said.

The current curbside bus lane will be repainted as soon as the end of the month, according to the DOT.