The Bronx

Last June, DOT and the MTA cut the ribbon for Select Bus Service along Webster Avenue in the Bronx. Now the agencies have released a status report showing the impact of the 5.4-mile, $9 million project [PDF].

This is part four of a five-part series by former NYC DOT policy director Jon Orcutt about the de Blasio administration’s opportunities to expand and improve cycling in New York. Read part one, part two, and part three.

Once the MTA's East Side Access project is finally complete, a few additional upgrades will allow Metro-North's New Haven Line trains to stop at new stations in the East Bronx and cross the Hell Gate Bridge before heading to Penn Station. The Bronx is also expected to grow faster than any other borough in the coming years. With both factors in mind, the Department of City Planning has released a new report on the potential for transit-oriented development at Metro-North stations in the Bronx.

The multi-year project to improve Fordham Plaza in the Bronx -- a critical transit hub -- entered its latest phase yesterday with the groundbreaking for a bigger and better public space for pedestrians.

An unlicensed driver who killed a pedestrian in the Bronx last year was charged with only a traffic infraction that carries a nominal fine and a maximum 15-day jail term.

When the Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation, known as WHEDco, was founded in 1992, the dark days of arson and abandonment in the South Bronx were still fresh in people's minds. The organization set out to build new housing in a devastated neighborhood -- and decided to take a broader view of community development by also looking at employment, nutrition, crime, and education. When WHEDco's latest development, Intervale Green, opened in Crotona East in 2009, its residents identified another major need: safer streets.

Near the intersection of Morrison and Westchester Avenues in Soundview, just a block from the Bronx River Parkway, one block separates a forlorn green triangle from Parque de Los Niños and its well-used benches and baseball diamonds. Now, a local group is hoping to phase in public space upgrades to the area through DOT's plaza program. The first step received support from Community Board 9 last month.

White Plains Road, running 2.8 miles between East Tremont and Birchall Avenues, is one of the Bronx's most dangerous streets, with more traffic deaths and severe injuries than 90 percent of the other streets in the borough. Most of this wide, overbuilt road is set to receive a road diet by September, converting two lanes to one lane in each direction while adding a striped center median and turn lane. The plan has already gained the unanimous support of both community boards along the street.

A hit-and-run driver who killed a woman in the Bronx in 2013 will serve six months in jail.