Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Curb management

Pedestrians Will Get More Space on Cramped Lexington Avenue … In 2024

Cramped: pedestrians will get more room as part of a sidewalk expansion on Lexington Avenue between 42nd and 51st Streets. Photo: Julianne Cuba

Pedestrians will get more space along a crowded Midtown corridor near Grand Central Terminal by taking a lane away from cars — but the full scheme to increase safety and reduce systemic discrimination against pedestrians won't happen for at least three more years, city officials said this week.

Community Board 5’s Transportation and Environment Committee voted unanimously on Monday in favor of the Department of Transportation project [PDF], which would expand the sidewalk on Lexington Avenue between 42nd and 51st streets, where currently, pedestrians get just one-third of the public space available, despite comprising 76 percent of the roadway's users.

“The existing sidewalks are very narrow,” DOT’s Casey Gorrell told the civic panel during the virtual meeting. "Pedestrians need some space, and it has to come from somewhere, and it’s coming from cars."

Currently, Lexington Avenue has three vehicular travel lanes, with commercial loading, hotel loading, and taxi stands on the east side, and a curbside bus lane and bus stops on the west side. Yet despite commandeering that much public space, cars make up just 17 percent of the corridor's usage, and buses make up about seven percent, according to data from autumn, 2019. At some hours of the day, walkers outnumber drivers more than four to one, according to DOT.

Last year, the city created a temporary reallocation of space between just 42nd and 48th streets by converting one travel lane into a walkway after a repaving. Now, starting this fall, DOT says it will further address the overcrowding on Fifth Avenue by continuing the sidewalk expansion through 51st Street on the west side of the street. That work will include painting a new 10-foot walkway by removing one lane of private vehicle traffic, and creating a new red-painted bus lane.

Chart: DOT
Chart: DOT
Chart: DOT

And as part of the city's East Midtown Rezoning, DOT will also create a more permanent solution to give pedestrians more space, which includes a capital project to build out the east side painted extensions between 41st Street and 48th Street in concrete. But that bulk of the project is not slated to start until 2024, according to DOT's presentation.

The reallocation of space will give the roughly 5,100 pedestrians who traverse the corridor each hour up to 45 percent of the streetscape, a 15 percentage point increase over the current 30 percent. The new design will mimic the configuration on Seventh Avenue between 34th and 42nd streets near Penn Station.

As part of the project, DOT will also consolidate bus stops, ban left turns at 41st Street, remove the taxi stand at 42nd Street, add curb extensions, and relocate the tour bus stop from where it currently sits at 50th Street to 51st Street.

The CB5 vote came on the same night that the transportation panel also supported a watered-down version of a long-delayed plan to speed up buses on Fifth Avenue.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

Thursday’s Headlines: Tisch Comes Clean Edition

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch finally commented on her department's crackdown on cyclists. Plus more news.

May 15, 2025

Tisch Rap: NYPD Criminal E-bike Summonses Surge 4,000 Percent

The NYPD wrote twice as many criminal court summonses to e-bike riders in two weeks than it wrote all of last year — an astronomical increase that is a remnant of a repudiated racially biased police practice.

May 15, 2025

Quiet Desperation: NYPD’s Tisch Didn’t Tell DOT About Her Crackdown on Cycling

The NYPD commissioner did not inform her counterpart at the Department of Transportation that police would begin issuing criminal summonses to cyclists.

May 15, 2025

Not the Same Ol’ MTA: Cost of Upgrading Subway Signals is Cut in Half

A new design-build strategy, plus removing old signals fully, is credited for cutting costs in half. Take that, Sean Duffy.

May 15, 2025

Lander, Labor Activists Slam Cuomo After ‘Goliath’ DoorDash Gives $1M

The donation from the the app company is seen as a way of influencing a possible future mayor to side with the tech giant.

May 14, 2025
See all posts