The town’s woeful makes an attempt to broaden the variety of lanes reserved for buses and bicycles earned failing grades Tuesday from members of the Metropolis Council.
Established in 2019, the NYC Streets Plan set mandates for town to construct at the least 150 miles of protected bus and 250 miles of protected bike lanes between 2022 and 2026. However Division of Transportation numbers present the company fell in need of its targets repeatedly below Mayor Eric Adams.
Council Majority Chief Shaun Abreu mentioned town is “trying to make up for lost time” after two years of hovering close to the midway level of its mandate for brand spanking new bus and bike lanes.
“A 50% is a big, fat F,” he mentioned.
New DOT commissioner Mike Flynn and his prime lieutenants had been referred to as on the carpet in entrance of the committee and badgered over what one councilmember referred to as an “uninspiring” report on road redesigns which might be alleged to prioritize the protection of cyclists and speed up slowpoke buses.
Council Majority Chief Shaun Abreu (D-Manhattan) chairs an oversight listening to at 250 Broadway on bike and bus lanes, March 3, 2026. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
“The way things have been working is not good enough,” Councilmember Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) mentioned. “And I hope that you are hearing that clearly from this City Council, that we want to see significant improvement.”
In his first official transfer initially of 2026, Mayor Zohran Mamdani named Flynn head of DOT, a precedence hiring that pointed to his administration’s deal with dashing bus service that averages 8.1 mph — among the many slowest within the nation, in line with the Unbiased Finances Workplace.
Mamdani made the supply of “fast and free” bus service a key element of a mayoral marketing campaign that featured different transportation proposals.
Advocates mentioned that’s in distinction to Adams, testifying that the enhancements mandated below the NYC Streets Plan didn’t bear a lot fruit below the one-time “bus mayor.”
“It was a long four years fighting for bus riders under the Adams administration,” mentioned Jolyse Race, of Riders Alliance, an advocacy group. “And for four years, the streets plan was ignored and bus riders were completely disrespected by the elected officials.”
Flynn inherited a backlog from the earlier administration on bus lane tasks, with town finishing simply 20.8 miles towards its 30-mile aim for 2025 — which was an precise enchancment from the 13.5 miles constructed out the earlier 12 months.
“The mayor has been clear that we can and must do better, and that safe and livable streets are a priority for this administration,” Flynn mentioned.
An MTA bus heads south alongside a bus lane in Decrease Manhattan, March 3, 2026. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The DOT chief additionally cited Mamdani’s current revival of motorbike and bus-lane tasks that had been placed on ice due below the Adams administration.
“Our most important steps have been to resume important street redesign projects that stalled due to political considerations or legal challenges,” Flynn mentioned.
These embody placing in protected bike lanes alongside McGuinness Boulevard in Brooklyn and increasing a double bus lane alongside Manhattan’s Madison Avenue from forty second to twenty third streets and redesigning long-planned bus lanes on Fordham Highway in The Bronx.
The McGuinness Boulevard mission confronted opposition from the “Keep McGuinness Moving” marketing campaign. THE CITY reported in 2023 that the hassle appeared to have vital ties to the politically wired Argento household that owns a movie manufacturing firm and several other different companies within the space.
The Fordham Highway bus lane mission, in the meantime, was scrapped after working into highly effective opposition from the likes of Fordham College, the New York Botanical Backyard and the St. Barnabas Hospital Well being System, a transfer that the then-head of New York Metropolis Transit referred to as “perplexing” and “disappointing.”
Earlier this month, Mamdani introduced the revival of the Fordham Highway bus lane mission whereas standing alongside the top of the MTA, who mentioned town must observe by on “long-overdue commitments.”
“The bottom line is this: The buses can only move as fast as conditions at the street level allow,” Janno Lieber, MTA chairperson and chief govt, mentioned Feb. 13.
For the bike lanes, Chris Sanders of Transportation Options testified that town is lagging far behind cities akin to Barcelona, London and Zurich in prioritizing house for individuals who journey on two wheels.
“It is a global city, it’s not competing with the rest of America,” mentioned Sanders, of the group’s Manhattan activist committee. “It’s competing with the rest of the world and we need to bring our streets up to that high, high, high standard.”
Councilmembers put the DOT leaders on discover that they should observe by on the commitments specified by the following five-year streets plan.
“We don’t want to be coming back to you in six or nine or 12 months with failures again on not building enough bike lanes, not building enough bus lanes, not building the pedestrian space we all need to make our communities safer and to make it faster for all of us to get around,” Restler mentioned.
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