Wednesday’s Headlines: Working for the Yankee Bus Lane Edition

Mayor Mamdani is a Mets fan, but on Tuesday, he announced he was doing something for uptown baseball fans: Bx6 bus riders in the Bronx are getting a crosstown speed boost with a long-in-the-works reconstruction of 161st Street that will get fans and workers to Yankee Stadium faster than ever.

The city Department of Transportation and Department of Design and Construction broke ground on a major overhaul that will bring a protected center-running bus lane to 161st Street from Concourse West Village to just past River Avenue. 

The project will convert the 161st Street tunnel under Grand Concourse to bus-only traffic in both directions. DDC will also add bus boarding islands on the center-running portions of the route — as well as sidewalk extensions, refuge islands and new trees to make walking safer and more pleasant for pedestrians.

Mamdani joked in a statement that it pained him to deliver anything nice to Yankees fans, but recognized it was part of the job.

“Unfortunately, as the mayor of New York City, I must deliver fast and reliable buses for Yankees fans as well,” Hizzoner said. “I can think of no better way to welcome the start of baseball season than by breaking ground on a project that will make commutes faster, streets safer and daily life a little easier for tens of thousands of New Yorkers every day.”

DOT and the MTA introduced Select Bus Service to the 161st Street corridor back in 2017. The upcoming work, which will run through 2028, actually attempts to deliver on the original SBS concept as the city’s version of bus rapid transit.

There’s no such thing as a “long-suffering Yankees fan,” but we’re all long-suffering bus riders.

Construction on the project wraps up in 2028, the city said. The Bronx Times also has the story.

— Dave Colon

In other news:

• You can also ride a vintage subway train to the Mets and Yankees season openers. (amNY)
• Only two air traffic controllers were on duty at the time of Sunday’s deadly LaGuardia Airport plane crash — and they didn’t have any way to track the fire truck involved in the collision. (NY Times, Gothamist)
• The Times and Streetsblog covered the ongoing QueensWay vs. QueensLink battle.
• All eyes on new Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia. (NY Times)
• Bloomberg profiled outgoing Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s transformation of the French capital’s streets.

• President Trump professed ignorance when Spectrum News asked him about his government’s attempt to defund the Second Avenue Subway: “I haven’t heard about the Second Avenue Subway in 20 years.” (NY1)
• The MTA is taking head-on TWU’s fight to enshrine costly two-person train operation into the law. (amNY)
• A Brooklyn bus depot hasn’t had working fire sprinklers for four years, but the MTA says that’s about to change. (Daily News)
• International tourism to New York City dropped by three percent last year. (NY Times)
• Sometimes we wish the NY Times would acknowledge that cars are awful instead of always writing about ways to make them a tiny bit better.
• Empire State Development may want $350 million of taxpayer cash to cover Atlantic Yards and deliver long — and we mean “long” — awaited housing. (Gothamist)
• Mayor Mamdani is asserting mayoral authority over city programming in his housing voucher fight with the City Council. (Gothamist)