No bullshit — yes bus lanes.
New Deputy Mayor for Operations Julia Kerson ripped the Adams administration on Sunday for slow-rolling a proposed Madison Avenue bus lane — one that the Mamdani administration's newly invigorated Department of Transportation says it will install this year.
“Last year, DOT proposed extending the bus lanes on Madison Avenue from 42nd Street down to 23rd Street," Kerson said at a press conference in Midtown. "But interference from the last administration caused the agency to miss this painting season, delaying critical improvements for transit riders.”
Kerson said her presence at Sunday afternoon's announcement indicated that when it comes to street safety and transit, the Mamdani administration intends to act, not talk.
"Operation is about execution. It's about coordination across agencies for moving barriers and making sure good projects don't stay stuck on the shelf," she said.
The now-unpaused plan will bring a double bus lane configuration to Madison Avenue between 42nd and 23rd streets. When the bus lanes are painted this year, the street will have two lanes for buses, one general travel lane for private cars and trucks, and a curbside lane that will be a travel lane during rush hour and a parking lane the rest of the time.
More than 1,000 buses on more than a dozen routes use Madison Avenue each day, but bus riders only benefited from red-painted dedicated between 60th and 42nd streets — thanks to bus lane the Koch administration installed back in 1981.
South of 42nd Street, local bus travel as little as 4.5 miles per hour, while express bus speeds move at less than 6 mph on some stretches.
Bus riders on the avenue mostly missed out on any benefits of congestion pricing after it launched last year. Even as the toll cut traffic volumes south of 60th Street by 11 percent, the M1 bus never achieved a speed higher than 5.45 mph and the M3 bus never moved faster than 5.22 mph.
The new double bus lane should help take advantage of the reduction in traffic from congestion pricing when it goes in this spring, officials said on Sunday.
"This project supports congestion pricing by helping more people get into and around Manhattan's core without a car," said DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn. "When buses work better, the whole transportation system works better."
Kerson's blunt statement that the Adams administration paused the project was no doubt an example of what one former colleague called her "hardcore, no bullshit" attitude. It was also a surprising revelation: Not all advocates were aware that Adams administration had killed the project, as it had to many many street redesigns. Kerson told reporters that she sees her role as paving the way for those blocked projects — and more! — and ensuring new ideas actually get implemented.
"We are committed to delivering a world-class transit system for New Yorkers, and we're going to supercharge the work that was delayed in the last administration," she said. "The mayor has set a very ambitious agenda around fast and free buses. It's our job to get that done."
Mamdani's DOT could probably spend half of this year just making announcements un-pausing or finishing projects that the previous administration announced and then abandoned. But the agency leadership said that the mayor has challenged them to do more than just clean up an old mess. (Scroll the chart below):
"The mayor has told us to be ambitious, to think big. I'm a planner, so I love plans," said Flynn. "We have the 'Streets Plan' full update coming this year, so I think that'll be a great opportunity for more of a citywide, big vision. So there's definitely more to come there."
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and new City Council Members Virginia Maloney and Harvey Epstein also attended Sunday's festivities.
