The ribbon on the latest bus lane in the city was cut on Tuesday, with the hope that bus speeds will increase amid a dismal citywide average of 8 miles per hour. On 96th Street, it’s around 6 miles per hour.

“Providing a dedicated bus lane will speed up bus services and help buses cut through traffic,” city Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said. “So New Yorkers can get to work, visit their family and make their doctor’s appointments on time.”

What You Need To Know

  • Despite adding an additional 1.7 miles, the city Department of Transportation is still behind in the mandated number of bus lanes it must build by next year

  • The 96th Street bus lane is curbside in some places, offset with parking in between, which some residents say causes more traffic, but officials say it will increase bus speeds which, according to the MTA, are around 6 miles per hour on the corridor

  • The bus lane is part of several proposals intended to increase mobility in the city amid congestion pricing

But not everyone likes the change. One resident approached MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber, saying whoever came up with the plan should be fired.

Another said their windows are from the 1920s, and the lanes cause so much congestions, the sirens from emergency vehicles trying to get through go on for longer until they are forced into oncoming traffic to get around.

“There is not enough space. We have a hospital here on 98th Street, here Mt. Sinai hospital, you have a hospital here on 97th Street, Second Avenue, you have schools, you have pedestrians, you have a lot of traffic,” Constantine Stamos, owner of Jerome Florists at the corner of 96th Street and Madison Avenue, said. “If anything, this will create more congestion, not less.”

There were complaints before the paint was laid down to the 1.7-mile route from Second Avenue to West End Avenue. Residents on the West Side were worried about cars having to block the bus lane to drop off or unload. The Department of Transportation modified the plan to include loading zones.

Some East Side residents, meanwhile, say this was the first they heard of any of it.

“There’s an enormously long process. That’s one of the challenges of getting bus lanes done in this city. Is that we are obligated to go through that, we don’t object to it, we like to share with the community,” Lieber said. “But the idea that there was no outreach to the community is just not right. But we’ll keep trying.”

Others say the offset bus lane doesn’t go far enough. The Department of Transportation was trying to save parking spots, since there were complaints about that too.

“I wish they really had just committed to the bus lane and kept it in the right lane,” Mark Metzger, bus rider and 96th Street resident, said. “Right now it’s not actually dedicated, it’s mostly dedicated and that lack of dedication is probably causing more issues than it’s worth.”

And it was easy to see the difficulty buses still had pulling out of bus stops past parked cars.

“If they’re committed to public transit, they should have just committed all the way,” Metzger said.

While there are still several bus lanes still in the works, the city is still behind the mandated amount of miles they must put out under the city’s Streets Plan, and they still won’t tell NY1 the number of miles they’ve already laid down this year.