By Gus Saltonstall
The redesign of the 96th Street corridor with new dedicated bus lanes has been completed, the New York City Department of Transportation announced on Tuesday.
Along with the new dedicated bus lanes, the redesign, which stretches from Second Avenue to West End Avenue on 96th Street, also includes new left turn bays, loading zones for drop offs and deliveries, and lengthened bus stops.
“96th Street is one of the city’s busiest crosstown routes, where bus speeds during rush hours can be as slow as walking,” DOT Comissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new 96th Street corridor on Tuesday. ““By prioritizing both bus and pedestrian improvements, we’re enhancing efficiency and safety for everyone who uses 96th Street, creating a better commuting experience for all New Yorkers.”
The redesign converted one of the two vehicular lanes in each direction on 96th Street to buses-only traffic, leaving slightly narrower curbside parking lanes, and one lane for cars and trucks in each direction, as shown in the photo below.
The new bus lanes will operate 24 hours a day. The DOT also implemented daytime “Neighborhood Loading Zones” to “better facilitate curb access for deliveries and service vehicles.” Additionally, left turn bays were added at intersections along 96th Street to help traffic move more smoothly.
The 1.7-mile stretch along 96th Street services 15,500 weekday riders on the M96 and M106. Along 96th Street, 74 percent of households do not own cars, and 68 percent of residents commute through public transportation, according to the MTA.
Prior to the redesign, bus speeds on 96th Street were as low as 4 mph during peak hours, the MTA added.
The redesign took place despite a protest at the beginning of September by a group of Upper West Side residents and Councilmember Gale Brewer, who pushed back against the plan to implement dedicated bus lanes along 96th Street, and requested alternatives to speeding up bus service.
The MTA said the redesign would be completed by the end of the year, and did so with a month to spare.
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I love this, looking forward to faster bus service on 96th street.
Agree, this looks great! Hopefully this will come to to 72nd street soon too!
This shows what poor thinking goes into these plans. The only bus on 72nd is the M 72. Really. In fact it’s a silly bus because it can’t go xtown but dips down to X on 66th where there is already a xtown bus. On 72nd there is little vehicular traffic. When they take away lanes for traffic and devote to bus lanes, where there are already few, what are they doing?
It is about waging a culture war, not better bus service.
Another mess brought to you by the DOT. The partnership between them and Trans Alt and app companies is a scourge to the UWS.
Agreed. I wrote two notes above re: 96 and a thought about 72.
Have you seen the back up on 96th going west?
All the way to Columbus and sometimes CPW.
It’s the only access from the east side to the West Side Highway.
Question: if 4 vehicles are parked in the bus lane, is it really a bus lane?
This morning I saw four trucks parked in the lane going east from 96th street. I don’t think it speeded up the bus at all.
The bus is for all of us who live and work in NYC. Those cars heading to the WSH are mostly heading out of NYC. We are the priority here.
City DOT “cares” so much about bus riders – yet is completely ok with diverting buses in favor of “Open Streets” and denying bus riders essential bus access.
Hmmm
This has not led to faster bus service, but has led to more traffic on 96th.
It’s been in place for 5 minutes. Let’s give everyone a chance to collect some real data instead of speculation.
I took the M96 myself, I have also driven on 96th.
Agreed
This has been a nightmare. Cars getting stuck routinely in the intersections causing more traffic jams and posing even more dangers to pedestrians. Meanwhile, the bus lane is completely empty. They should make this a bus lane only for rush hours 7-10am and 4-7pm.
Better yet, they should post bus schedules for both drivers and pedestrians, so you know when to go or not!
The real issues include:
Insufficient bus frequency/insufficient buses – The buses are packed, especially after school.
The real need is more buses (not bus lanes).
Buses are slowed by red lights, the speed limit (now 25 MPH) and rider entrance/exit.
Again – bus lanes do nothing to address red lights, speed limit etc.
96th is a special corridor due to West Side Highway on one end and FDR on the other end. Also, on the East Side, significant issues relating to Mt. Sinai.
As an UWS bus rider, thank you!
I can see a need during rush hour but when I took bus this weekend there was just a. Empty bus lane and infrequent service. Amsterdam and Broadway must be a bigger disaster now at rush hour with backed up west side highway traffic
As someone who rides this route during rush hour two days a week, and noticed the lane implementation on the west side weeks ago, service has not improved. The problem is the delivery trucks who continue to use the bus lane as a loading zone and now busses need to weave into a backed up single lane of traffic to get around. If they were going to push the bus lane through, they should have had the manpower to police the delivery vehicles who clog it. Until that problem is solved, the lane is useless.
Aside from writing tickets, what do expect the NYPD to do….use their vaporizer weapons to make them disappear? Delivery vehicle drivers don’t even attempt to move when a ticket is being written.
they need to implement towing cars/trucks more often. no one will learn without this happening.
It’s only as good as it’s enforcement. They should go on a ticket blitz of the violators.
Seems like the M96, automated camera enforcement (ACE), is not turned on. The cameras should have been activated the day they added the bus lanes.
This will only get worse once the influx of cars come to the UWS when congestion pricing takes effect in January. 96th street is the main access to the Westside Highway. Local officials really need to consider the chaos that is coming in January if it is already bad now. I see so many cars get stuck in the intersections blocking north and south bound traffic on Broadway, Amsterdam, and even Columbus. Pedestrians have to weave in between cars routinely now. The idea was in the right place but unfortunately, without widening the street for another lane, it is not feasible in the real world.
OK. Another stupid DOT mistake completed, this time, without a majority community buy in.
I just hope the WSR follows up in six months with updated travel times, and then we can compare the results. (If the DOT and MTA release them) If they are not what they think they are supposed to be, will they revert back to what is used to be, or at least consider the real culprit- more frequent bus service?
And if they are as good or better can we redesign more streets like this? (and we should more frequent bus service too).
more bus service should be following right behind this redesign.
For a lot of people, anything that is anti-car is good. If it makes driving a car more difficult or expensive it is good, even if it provides no benefit of any kind. Cars have become a little like cigarettes have been for the last 50 years
The difference between cars and cigarettes are that cars have utility, cigarettes don’t.
Bus lanes in NYC, like bike lanes, are a joke because there is no enforcement. Even the police park in bus lanes.
I am really not sure how this will pan out – there are so many moving parts (pun and all) to this crosstown street, between the exit to/from the highway and all the deliveries and the traffic that’s backed up as it is. HOWEVER, if it will end up helping speed up the M96, then that’s awesome. If it gets awfully worse all around – well, just like the street lane was dyed red to make it ONLY BUS, it can be remade back into a general traffic lane if the future. Whether I want it or not, I have a front row seat to how it goes!
I have driven cross town several times from West to East. Traffic was horrific and there were no buses. I observed this in both directions. There is too much traffic and little bus service to make this a valuable use of street space. And where are the loading/unloading docks? So far, I rate it 0. Another impediment to NYC living.
Not true that there is an off spot to load or unload cars. If you must unload in the bus lane( next to parked cars) it is a $200 fine if caught
Trucks park in the bus lane and the bus then goes into the travel lane
Service has not improved , 2 buses can still arrive one after the other
We unload in the hydrant stop and heaven forbid they are already in use
I live right on 96st UWS. A nightmare. Traffic backs up to CPW during height of rush hour n school ends. Traffic gets caught in between the intersection, a pedestrian horror show. Red bus lanes are used by Amazon n truck illegal parked in these lanes. This a horro r show.
Love it. Cars making other drivers angry. Most people driving in the city don’t need to be taking that space. I hear the complaints: if I take a train/bus, the commute is longer. So now driving will take just as long.