A package of bills passed by the City Council Thursday will allow New Yorkers to track online the city Department of Transportation’s progress toward meeting the goals of the City Streets Plan, including the progress of bus and bike lanes.
“There’s been a lot of frustration from myself and the body in terms of DOT’s lack of meeting the legally mandated requirements but also the lack of transparency in it all,” said Queens Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers, one of the bills sponsors and chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “The commissioner said, ‘well, it’s only due once a year in February. If you want us to give more, then you should have it more frequently.’”
What You Need To Know
- The city Department of Transportation has fallen short of the benchmark number of miles of bus and bike lanes each year under the five-year streets plan
- Citing lack of progress and transparency, the City Council passed bills to establish an online tracker following proposed projects and progress on the lanes
- DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez says the Council is creating obstacles to meeting the 30 miles of bus lane and 50 miles of protected bike lanes required each year, with members blocking projects in their districts
The DOT has not been meeting key benchmarks for bus and bike lanes.
Each year since 2022, the DOT, as part of the streets plan, has been required to build 30 miles of protected bus lanes and 50 miles of bike lanes, among other street updates.
In 2024, only 13.5 miles of protected bus lanes were built and just over 29 miles of new bike lanes.
Progress in other categories has been a bit better, like transit signal priority, which allows buses to proceed before other traffic, accessible intersections for people with low or impaired vision and intersection redesign.
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The DOT laid blame on politics in its February update. They cited the killing of the Fordham Road busway, saying it was “abandoned after local elected and stakeholder pushback,” and added the City Council has “recently passed legislation that will increase the volume and type of notices and reports NYC DOT would be required to provide about upcoming and completed projects, slowing project implementation.”
DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez suggested the new legislation will not improve the numbers.
“It’s only possible if the councilmember wants those lanes in their district,” Rodriguez said. “They cannot be asking for those numbers and then coming up with the opposition for those bus and bike lanes to be built in those districts.”
But one of the bill’s sponsors, Queens Councilmember Julie Won, said to blame the Council is disingenuous.
“The Council never votes on that. Whether there’s politics involved or not, it’s their responsibility to take their capital plan and implement it.”
The commissioner says the Council is only focusing on the bus and bike lanes, and the streets plan is more than that.
“In the last three years, we have built 1.5 million square feet of pedestrian safety space. We have almost 100 open plaza and we had 237 open streets,” Rodriguez said. “Many of those accomplishments are not counted.”
Rodriguez says whatever the law is, the DOT will comply.
