Monday, June 16, 2025
Mostly cloudy, high 71.
Gray skies are expected to continue for most of the week, with showers and thundershowers forecast for Wednesday and Thursday. Sunshine should return Friday, just in time for the weekend, with highs climbing well into the 80s.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Ten years ago today, Donald Trump stepped onto an escalator in the atrium of Manhattan’s Trump Tower and, to the soundtrack of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” descended toward the lobby to announce his candidacy for president of the United States.
Upper West Side News
By Laura Muha
A state Supreme Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a coalition of Upper West Side residents who sought to get rid of the six-month-old bus lanes on West 96th Street, amNY reported.
In issuing the June 3 ruling, Judge Arthur Engoron said the plaintiffs “failed to show any irreparable harm caused by the subject bus lanes.”
“Despite petitioner’s protestations, a bus lane does not ‘sever’ a resident’s connection to the street in front of their building nor does it ‘make it impossible to make deliveries,’” he wrote. “Inconveniences do not irreparable harm make.”
The Department of Transportation (DOT) completed a redesign of 96th Street between West End Avenue and Second Avenue last December and inaugurated it in January. The redesign added 1.7 miles of bus lanes in both directions, as well as pedestrian safety improvements, neighborhood loading zones, and left-turn bays to streamline traffic flow, the goal being to speed up the crosstown commute for the more than 15,000 New Yorkers who ride the M96 and M106 buses each weekday.
DOT spokesperson Vincent Barone told amNewYork that the agency was pleased with the judge’s decision.
“These bus lanes are making commutes faster and more reliable … while also enhancing safety for everyone along one of Manhattan’s busiest crosstown routes,” he said. “We’ve won countless meritless lawsuits against our street designs and are thankful for the judge’s decision in this case.”
Read the full story – HERE.
Prices on many things may be going up, but the upfront cost of renting an apartment actually got cheaper in the city last week, as a new law eliminating most broker’s fees for tenants went into effect.
The Fairness in Apartment Rentals (FARE) Act, passed by City Council in November, shifts the responsibility for paying brokers fees from tenants to landlords, who often hire brokers to show apartments and negotiate deals with prospective renters. Since a typical broker charges 12 percent of the first year’s rent, the FARE Act will save the average tenant about $5,400 in upfront charges, according to StreetEasy.
That doesn’t mean that the overall cost of renting will go down. In anticipation of the law’s implementation, some landlords have moved to cover their anticipated costs by raising rents. But that still may be easier for tenants, since those costs are spread out over the term of the lease, as opposed to being charged upfront.
Kenny Lee, an economist at StreetEasy, told BrickUnderground.com that the FARE Act is “a big win for renters.”
The Real Estate Board of New York, a trade group, has filed suit against the city, challenging the act. As part of the suit, the group requested a preliminary injunction that would have prevented it from going into effect while the court case was being decided. U.S. District Court Judge Ronnie Abrams last week rejected the group’s request, clearing the way for the law’s implementation. Abrams also rejected the trade group’s claim that the law was unconstitutional, but the judge did allow the court case itself to proceed.
Read the full story – HERE.
Early voting in the mayoral primaries got off to a strong start Saturday, with turnout nearly double what it was four years ago.
More than 30,500 New Yorkers braved the rainy weather to cast ballots Saturday, according to the Board of Elections. That’s compared to the 16,687 voters who went to the polls on the first day of early voting in 2021.
There are 11 mayoral candidates on the Democratic ballot and one on the Republican slate; incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who ran as a Democrat in 2021, is skipping the primary and running for a second term as an Independent. In addition, Upper West Side residents in District 7, which runs more or less from West 92nd Street to West 163rd Street, will be voting for a Democratic nominee for City Council. You can confirm if you live within the district by typing in your address — HERE.
There are no other City Council, Assembly, or State Senate races taking place on the Upper West Side or in Morningside Heights this cycle, but there are a number of citywide races that affect the neighborhood. All of the races, except the election for Manhattan District Attorney, are done by Ranked Choice Voting; get a refresher — HERE.
Early voting runs through June 22. Polling sites are open as follows:
- Today: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- June 17-18: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
- June 19: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- June 20: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- June 21-22: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Election Day is Tuesday, June 24.
Read/watch the full story, including links to our interviews with the District 7 City Council candidates – HERE.
Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.
DOT’ is remarkably disingenuous and dishonest – insisting that bus lanes are essential to help bus riders.
And then closing streets for “open streets” forcing bus detours and no bus access.
are these “open streets” all day everyday?
I agree about the OpenStreets problem specifically on UWS avenues, especially Amsterdam above 106 and 110
Just for clarity, are you saying that a bus lane (a lane solely dedicated to buses) doesn’t help bus riders?
This is typical nonsense from the anti-bus lane crowd
It does not in all cases. Sometimes it helps, especially if there is a heavily congested street that will remain congested regardless. Other times, like on 96th Street, congestion is being induced where there was no big issue with congestion before. In other situations, bus service is slower like on 3rd Avenue because all the lights are timed to 15 mph.
Buses in Manhattan average somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 mph. How is the 15 mph traffic light timing going to slow things down to any measurable degree?
That is the average speed factoring in dwell times at stops and red lights etc. Express buses to the Bronx make less stops and have been badly hurt by the light timing too.
I would love to see the report on where this particular lane has been causing traffic congestion. I took this bus going to school across town and always decided to walk when I needed to get there on time. I took this recently for an appt. and arrived 10 mins faster than I normally use to. It seems like the only issue was the double-parked cars obstructing the lane.
The bus lanes have made local traffic worse but bus service has neither been made better nor faster.
Absolutely no proof of this. Anyone who has to travel across the park regularly know this was woefully overdue. We need an SBS next. Sorry change bothers you.
MTA is not planning on creating any new SBS routes since all buses are planned to have all door boarding and the OMNY fare payment system is faster anyways. Basically all routes will eventually have the benefits of SBS. If we are being honest here, the same gains in bus speeds could have been done without bus lanes and simply making the crosstown buses free like what Mike Bloomberg proposed in his 2009 mayoral campaign. There is no need to make things harder for other vehicles. I find it hard to believe that the buses are 10 minutes faster when the M96 still has traditional fare collection and I have used the M96 since the implementation.
I’m waiting for some sourced data that shows your comment to be true.
The MTA will never put out a study that is critical of one of these bus lanes or busways. None of the transit advocacy groups will either.
So, how about anyone else that can back up the belief that bus lanes slow buses and made local traffic worse? I’ll wait…
How many well funded groups are there not backed by Mark Gorton and friends?
Do you actually ride that route regularly?
Eugene you have stated many times on here that you drive to the UWS, so how exactly do you know bus services is not faster?
Just because I drive does not mean that do not use the transit system. People can be multi modal. People can drive for some trips and then use the transit system for others. I do that. I also happen to know many transit workers.
Some of the biggest opponents to congestion pricing are those who use the transit system day in and day out and see driving as their “treat”.
evidence?
That’s not true. Taking the bus up and down 96th is noticeably faster than before.
Car traffic and parking is always made worse with bus and bike lanes.
The vast majority of New Yorkers do not own cars. City streets should be more dedicated to public transportation including buses and bike share options.
easy,. ban cars
Park the car and take a bus!
I love the bus, except when you miss one and have to wait 17 min for the next one because WHERE IS ALL THE CONGESTION PRICING MONEY GOING!!??!?
The new law FARE does not help renters as much as one would think. If landlords pass the fee on to tenants with a rent hike (building it into the rent) the base rent for year one is evened out, but future rent increases are calculated from the base rent. So if a $1000/month rental is adjusted to include the landlord’s fee, the first year would be around $1,120./month. The following year $1,120 is the base rent. A 3% increase on $1,120 is higher than an increase on $1000.
So in the long run tenants pay more. Numbers are obviously not real, but used to show the issue.
LMAO, comments section did not disappoint with car brain people saying bus lanes are terrible for bus riders. Now if we can just get bus lane enforcement going, then the bus times will be much better. We also need a bus lane on 86th St., 72nd St., and 66th/65th St.
Happy to see the court standing up for bus lanes! Sometimes fighting for more convenient and equitable transit in this city feels so hopeless, so this is lovely to see.
The people “fighting” for more convenient and equitable transit are not actually “fighting” for that, they are fighting a culture war to rid the city “unwanted” people and are weaponizing bus lanes to do it. Sometimes bus lanes do help and in those cases I have no objection to bus lanes, but a 24/7 bus lane on a street where buses moved along just fine, especially before Vision Zero and especially before Ubers and Lyfts flooded the city streets, is not justified. There are even bus lanes implemented in other parts of the city where buses saw no appreciable gains in speeds while the speeds of other vehicles decreased.
I don’t understand, who are the unwanted people you’re referring to?
More so that the laws are written in a way that NYCDOT can get away with stuff like this. The problem is that those opposed to urbanists tend to be very fractured and are not as organized.
Word on the street is that the Brusco Group, one of the largest UWS real estate families is only paying brokers half a month’s rent as the fee for listings advertised on Streeteasy. Also Brusco is encouraging brokers who show their apartments to try to find their own clients separate from Streeteasy if they can, make the clients hire the broker, and make them pay the brokers fee.
This would at least have people who are paying the broker’s fee receive some service from a broker. As a New York City renter, I found my listing online, toured the apartment by myself, and never once met the broker face to face or had an interaction prior to asking for an application. This would at least make a broker do their job for their price.
I used Sam from City Stop Realty and he worked very hard to find the apartment that was right for me. I met him at a Brusco apartment and I worked with him over the course of a week, touring at least 20 apartments with Sam, some of which were Brusco and others were not, and I highly recommend him as he is a true expert on the UWS!
That’s weird, it’s almost like the DOT is trying to make it easier to not have to take a car so that it’s actually easier to take a car when you have to take a car.
They want to make it easer to take an Uber or Lyft which many UWSers use to get around gentrified NYC but not anywhere else with a car. Looks like Manhattanites and gentrifiers get to avoid public transportation while those who aren’t privileged enough to live on the UWS and other gentrifying areas have to deal with rough transit commutes that do not get better and where customer service is less of a priority, especially under Kathy Hochul. Having emailed Janno Lieber myself about issues with transit service, there is a big difference in terms of executive customer service response with the MTA when I would email him under Cuomo versus emailing him under Hochul. These instances were months apart too, so I doubt he would remember me.
I cross at 110th Street now because 96th is a mess.
In your car?
Saw someone berate a Cuomo canvasser on the street this past weekend and it made my day.
Mamdani or bust!
The vibe I get is that a lot more people will vote for Zohran in Manhattan than many on the comments expect.
Mamdani will win and Brad Pander will be his first deputy mayor!