Friday’s Headlines: A Great Day in the Bronx Edition

The Mamdani administration will out-bus the “Bus Mayor” and take the “crash” out of “Crashland” with a set of major street safety and transit improvement projects later this afternoon in the Bronx.

The Times got their tip tightened up before we could — good on you, Dana! — but when the news is good, we’re happy that other outlets are interested.

In short, the long-stalled bus priority project on Fordham Road — the scene of what many call Mayor Adams’s greatest failure for suffering bus riders — is back on, albeit as a pair of offset bus lanes rather than the car-free busway that activists wanted.

Perhaps anticipating blowback, City Hall reminded reporters that DOT’s analysis shows that offset bus lanes will provide the greatest speed and reliability benefits for bus riders. (We expect to have more reporting on this today.)

Beyond that, Mamdani will also announce today that the city will complete the protected bike lane on Ashland Place — a critical link in a network stretching from the southern end of Sunset Park to the Manhattan Bridge (in one direction) and nearly to Queens (in the other).

A single block in the project was never completed at the behest of Adams’s donors and his since-indicted chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin. And it’s no small matter: Since the project was announced until its restoration, there were 23 reported crashes on the single block, injuring nine people, including four cyclists and three pedestrians, according to city statistics.

“The project will convert the remaining, southernmost block of Ashland Place, known as ‘Crashland,’ from a two-way street to a one-way street with the addition of a two-way protected bike lane,” City Hall said in a statement. “Fixing this last block of Ashland will put in place the final missing block to create a continuous, protected bike route from Sunset Park to DUMBO, with connections all the way to Greenpoint and Queens.”

And wait, there’s more! City Hall said Mamdani would also announce these improvements:

• Starting, in spring, a long-delayed plan build a bike lane network through Midwood, Flatbush, and East Flatbush in Brooklyn Community Boards 14 and 17. It’ll be protected bike lanes on Cortelyou and Dorchester roads in Ditmas Park from Coney Island Avenue to Flatbush Avenue, and standard bike lanes on another 14 streets.
• DOT will install delayed protected bike lanes on Brooklyn and Kingston avenues from East New York Avenue to Wingate Park — which itself will be surrounded by a new protected bike lane loop.
• The agency will also add conventional bike lanes along Rutland Road and Fenimore Street between Flatbush and Brooklyn avenues. (That’s another area where locals may want full protection.)

Despite all the good news, it’s interesting that the Mamdani administration remains silent on the three blocks of the protected bike lane on Bedford Avenue that Mayor Adams ripped up at the request of religious leaders in Williamsburg. We’ll obviously be asking about that, too.

The bottom line is that all the news is reflected on our regularly updated Mamdani tracker, which you can see below and on our homepage.

In other news (yes, there was a little other news):

• But for the bus and bike news above, Streetsblog’s Mamdani-O-Meter might have gotten reset from 11 days to zero because of the mayor’s continued waffling over his police commissioner’s ongoing criminal crackdown on cyclists. (Streetsblog)
• The Trump administration lost on Gateway and was ordered to provide the money that it was trying to withhold. (amNY, NYDN)
• GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman keeps talking about getting rid of congestion pricing. (News12)
• And, finally, Council Member Chi Ossé is the latest to jump on the Jimmy and the Jaywalkers bandwagon, following up the group’s soon-to-be-hit song parody about dogshit with his own video: