GAME ON: Mamdani Transport Plan For World Cup Is Gridlock Alert On Steroids

Who says Gridlock Alert says are only for the holidays?

The Mamdani administration announced on Friday a transport plan for the World Cup that is ostensibly “Gridlock Alert on Steroids,” featuring a conversion of 42nd Street into a river-to-river busway, car-free ticketholder queuing streets near Penn Station, and a complete ban on deliveries across a wide bicep of Midtown — a huge expansion of alert days’ usual tepid urging of people to merely drive less.

On each of the eight match days — June 13, 16, 22, 25, 27, 30 and July 5 and 19 — the city will:

• Create the bus-only lane on 42nd Street, which mirrors (and extends) the successful busway on 14th Street.
• Dedicate the two eastern-most lanes of traffic along Sixth Avenue as bus-only lanes from 42nd Street to 59th Street. (Fifth Avenue’s existing two bus lanes will also come into play.)
• Convert W. 40th Street between Eighth and 11th avenues and W. 41st Street between Eighth and 10th avenues into bus-only blocks.
• Ban bars on W. 33rd Street between Sixth and Eighth avenues and W. 32nd Street between Sixth and Seventh avenue as a ticket-holder queuing area, part of a massive security operation on match days.
• Bar large trucks between 30th and 60th streets, river to river. Smaller delivery vehicles such as cars, vans and cargo bikes are exempt. The City Hall announcement also exempted, vaguely, “essential delivery providers operating within the zone.”

That new transit space will begin six hours before matches and continue for up to three hours after each match ends, the city said. During those periods, only official stadium shuttle buses, MTA buses, World Cup-branded vehicles and emergency vehicles will be allowed. Those shuttle buses provide express service for ticketholders to and from Manhattan and the Jets-Giants stadium in New Jersey from three pickup and drop-off spots — the Port Authority, Columbus Circle and near Grand Central — before heading straight to the World Cup via the Lincoln Tunnel.

Taken together, the game-day restrictions are huge — but Mayor Mamdani pointed out that they merely reflect “best practices” from all over the world and are aimed at “minimizing the impact of World Cup transportation on New Yorkers.”

“As the eyes of the world turn to our city, our responsibility remains the same to make sure New Yorkers can still get where they need to go safely, affordably and without unnecessary disruption,” he said. “Whether you’re heading to the stadium for a match, the park for a pick-up game or the office like any other day, our streets will work for everyone.”

Getting into the weeds, Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn focused on the delivery restrictions and busways as the key to an efficient and safe World Cup season.

“Shifting delivery hours in Midtown and creating dedicated space for stadium shuttle buses will help minimize disruptions for New Yorkers during World Cup match days,” he said. “This plan will also help ensure the vast majority of ticketholders will be able to get to matches seamlessly by mass transit, without driving or adding excessive congestion to our streets.”

Typically, a declaration of a Gridlock Alert day, say, during the United Nations General Assembly or the December holidays, consists merely of city officials urging New Yorkers not to drive.

But these World Cup gridlock alert days go further. The Mamdani administration announcement mentioned that ferry service is being added and highlighted all the streetscape improvements that are already underway, such as wider bike lanes on Sixth Avenue, the super-sidewalks in Hells Kitchen, and the dedicated bus lane on Broadway in Queens to shuttle travelers to LaGuardia Airport quickly.

The administration urges New Yorkers to sign up for alerts, including traffic disruptions, by texting NOTIFYNYC to 692-692.