Overview
- The New York City Department of Transportation kicked off construction Wednesday on offset bus lanes between Sedgwick Avenue and Boston Road, with a goal to finish work by the end of 2026.
- The project will move the bus lane away from the curb to reduce conflicts with deliveries and pick-ups and serve about 130,000 daily riders on the Bx12, Bx9, Bx17 and Bx22.
- DOT says buses on Fordham Road run as slow as 5 miles per hour in peak traffic and has set a 20% speed-improvement target that it will measure and try to reach through signal timing, curb rule changes, or other tweaks.
- City officials framed the redesign as a safety and equity measure for a corridor the agency calls one of the Bronx's most dangerous, while some local leaders, including Council Member Oswald Feliz, say the project falls short of broader neighborhood needs.
- The Fordham work is an early corridor-level step in the city-state 'Next Stop' plan that revived projects paused in 2023 and pairs street redesigns with signal changes, enforcement and other tools to make buses faster and more reliable.