Google Maps (July 2022)
The Department of Transportation is creating division on 96th Street, with two groups on the Upper West Side clashing over a plan to add dedicated bus lanes along the street’s M96 and M106 routes.
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As ILTUWS just reported: [perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=”18″] “The plan, first presented before Community Board 7, 8 and 11 back in May, would restrict general traffic to a single lane, replacing the outermost general traffic lanes with dedicated bus lanes. It would also add three queue jump signals at 96th and Central Park West (eastbound), 97th and Fifth Avenue (westbound), and 96th and Third Avenue (both east and westbound).
“The DOT made the case that this would expedite bus travel on the route, which serves about 15,000 riders daily and where bus speeds can drop as low as 4 MPH during peak hours. The presentation also highlighted potential safety benefits on 96th Street, which is currently in the top 10% of streets with the most people killed or severely injured per mile, with 391 injuries on the corridor in the past 5 years (44 of whom were killed or severely injured).”
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But the West 96th Street Neighbors Coalition, which claims to represent about 1,200 residents in the area, disagrees with the DOT’s assessment. The organization held a press conference against the plan this morning and released a statement arguing that “the bus lanes will increase traffic congestion” and “cut residents’ buildings off from the street, preventing passenger loading and unloading for taxis, disabled people, and school children.”
This prompted StreetopiaUWS, an organization aiming “to shift our landscape from one that is dominated by cars and trucks to one that is built around beauty, interaction, health and connection” to dive into the fray. Streetopia, and its parent organization OpenPlans, sent out a late afternoon email asking subscribers to call council members Gale Brewer and Shaun Abreau in support of the bus lanes and released a statement this morning in response to the West 96th Street Neighbors Coalition’s claims.
“The opposition to this bus lane isn’t just out-of-touch, it’s not factual…it [the bus lane] won’t change a thing about residents’ access to the curb, or their free parking.” the statement said, adding that the project “will also relieve congestion, make streets safer, and improve air quality.”
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With both groups pushing to influence the future of the street, it’s not yet clear how things will play out. However, ILTUWS reached out to Council Member Abreau who told us the following:
“I’ve gotten calls from folks supporting the bus lane and opposing the bus lane. My primary goal right now is to make sure that there is real community engagement from DOT and that they’re not making implementation decisions without understanding the needs in the neighborhood. The people who live on 96th Street should have a serious role in that conversation. I’ve spoken with Commissioner Pincar, and he has agreed to join residents to walk through the affected area and discuss concerns.”
We’ve also reached out to Council Member Brewer who sent us the following statement:
“I respect the concerns of the neighbors and I want buses to be as speedy as possible. I think there may be other methods to keep busses moving on these two blocks such as transit signal priority.”
Bus lanes (on mixed bus/car roads) on 96th street or elsewhere are a insufficient band aid for traffic congestion, a purely mediocre solution over-hyped by a city which is chronically stiff and bereft of new ideas.
These lanes cut through all types of neighborhoods and they allow people to skip and hurry beyond the parts they don’t want to see. When you can’t park or stop in your car, you can’t patronize local businesses, unload your groceries, or even take a leisurely stroll outside your car. You are practically stuck on the road. Informed NYers should recognize that attempting to increase the flow of traffic without allowing cars to stop is often a curse to neighborhoods caught in the middle of it. Yet somehow, it seems that today’s urban architects have not absorbed that lesson.
Regardless of how they travel, visitors are just as much a part of the lifeblood of the city as people who live here. A car allows them to reach the most under-served and unappreciated areas of the city, which includes certain areas of the UWS. Sure, bus lanes may save you a few precious minutes on your commute, but the other side of the coin is their effect on the entire urban landscape, accessibility to the city itself and freedom of movement within all its parts. The cost of new bus lanes in terms of social and economic impact in neighborhoods is too often misunderstood or ignored. Trying to fix a broken status quo is okay, however bus lanes are not a correct or appropriate solution.
The bus lane isn’t intended to fix “traffic congestion” it’s so the buses can go faster. You know, the bus that about 15,000 people a day use? Your romantic vision of cars is misguided. Bus lanes improve accessibility and have a positive social and economic impact.
The West 90s Neighborhood Association supports DOT’s proposal and believes that, all things considered, it will benefit our community.
Neil Berson and Ed Soloway,
Co-Presidents
It is “all things considered” phrase that is doing a lot of work here.
Of course you support a dedicated bus lane as you want to ride buses with no traffic. Bit selfish.
That dedicated bus lane on 96 Street, will result in congestion, reduced air quality for the residents on that street, more noise pollution on a residential strret, etc.
Streetopia, and its parent organization OpenPlans, are Propogandists, plain and simple.
Listen to this:
“The opposition to this bus lane isn’t just out-of-touch, it’s not factual…it [the bus lane] won’t change a thing about residents’ access to the curb, or their free parking.” the statement said, adding that the project “will also relieve congestion, make streets safer, and improve air quality.”
It is Streetopia that is intentionally out-of-touch and intrntionally lying. They do it whenever they speak.
How removing a lane from traffic will relieve congestion is just lying.
Claiming that the congestion that will result will improve air quality is just lying.
Claiming that the resulting congestion will make streets safer is just lying.
They have gotten so used to lying that they just do it as a matter of course.
Liars gotta’ lie!
Dear Mr. Friedman, your nonsensical, baseless, and defamatory “Liars gotta’ lie” retort and “propagandist” name-calling is exactly the type of ridiculous banter that is not only unhelpful and divisive here, but is just plain wrong in terms of actual evidence of other similar NYC projects as well as those well-established transit-only lanes in other dense urban cities globally all of which experienced intense initial push-back such as yours. I’ve personally witnessed similar kerfuffles in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Paris each with the same positive outcomes after transit-only lanes were installed. Evidence of such bus-only lanes is overwhelming, of course along with some accompanying mistakes and lessons to be learned from specific projects such as this that may evolve and be tweaked over time to be sure. There’s plenty of room for healthy and robust debate and tailored exemptions including correcting/optimizing the abysmal traffic signal timing issues on 96th Street without people like yourself demonstrating overly emotional and fact-free tirades. Area small businesses, seniors, and disabled persons’ access can be accommodated as they have been elsewhere for those directly impacted. As a longtime UWS resident owner who uses 96th Street regularly and has no connection whatsoever with OpenPlans or Streetopia, I find your comments generally ill-informed and counterproductive. Perhaps less name-calling and more specifics may bode well for all.
For a person who claims to be against name calling you sure do pleanty!:
“Dear Mr. Friedman, your nonsensical, baseless, and defamatory “Liars gotta’ lie” retort and “propagandist” name-calling is exactly the type of ridiculous banter that is not only unhelpful and divisive here, but is just plain wrong in terms of actual evidence of other similar NYC projects as well as those well-established transit-only lanes in other dense urban cities globally all of which experienced intense initial push-back such as yours…. As a longtime UWS resident owner who uses 96th Street regularly and has no connection whatsoever with OpenPlans or Streetopia, I find your comments generally ill-informed and counterproductive. Perhaps less name-calling and more specifics may bode well for all.”
I have lived on 96 Street for over 50 years. I have watched as the West Siode Highway entrance on RSD was closed, forcing all traffic on to 96 Street. I have watched as West End Avenue was “traffic calmed” to fewer lanes, causing additional congestion. The biggest lie in this current disasterous decision is that reducing traffic to one lane will not cause additional congestion. There is already so much congesrion that blaring horns persist all day. In fact, there is so much of it that they had to remove the “No honking sign, Fines Imposed” from ithe corner of PS 75.
They tried this on 14th street. I don’t think it helped.
W 96th is already effectively one lane of travel due to the Key Food deliveries loading in all day and night at Amsterdam Ave. Add in the future demolition and construction on the NE corner of Broadway, the regular shuttles in front of 275 W 96th (the Columbia) the misguided narrowing of 96th at West End, the once and future construction at CPW, and you’ve got gridlock city and lower air quality for those of us who actually live here.
I live on 96 I take 96 bus
This is primarily a residential block filled with home entrances mid block it is incredible to consider ticketing disabled residents and young children who must enter their residence mid block on 96 . FYI
The 96 bus is fast compared to m86 I take it all the time. As a bus rider I can confirm imho the issue is primarily after you cross the park to the east side . And the biggest logistics issue is m106 using m96 bus stop but going a different route once it crosses east. As a rider I can confirm even the transit apps tag m106 as m96 . Fix transit apps, move m106 to 110th street and work on east side logistics . The west side is quick imho I use this bus constantly . More importantly dont create a hardship on residents like some city planners in history . Didn’t we learn from that ? The entrances to homes are mid block . Hardship on elderly , disabled and young children should not be considered. Thank you.
I am both a drive to leave and enter the city and use buses and the subway when in the city. Bus lanes are great, but I have never had any problems with the 96th Street cross town bus. I use it to go to Mt. Sinai hospital. It travels thru Central Park with no stops. The main problem I have is, there is only one bus shelter on this route from Broadway to 5th Ave. I am 84, and it is difficult to stand in the rain and snow.
DOT had no problem closing Columbus and Amsterdam Ave to buses on weekends between W106th and W110th Street for the Open Streets activities program that would be better in the three surrounding parks. These buses are rerouted even though this is a major artery to Mt. Sinai Hospital on West 114th St.
When I use my car to come back to the city, it is very difficult since many of our streets have become congested as a result of the narrowing of streets by bike lanes, for-profit citibike stalls and restaurant sheds.
StreetopiaUWS is the media arm of the multimillion dollar Lobby Transportation Alternative funded by Uber, Lyft and Mark Gorton, among others. “Transportation Alternatives’ mission is to reclaim New York City from cars.” The problem is, we have no decent public transportation system that allows us to enter and leave the city. TA wants us to be dependent on rental cars and bikes. The middle class can no longer live in Manhattan. Less than 18% of our population has children under 18. As a life long bicyclist who used her bike to ride to my teaching job in Harlem, we need light rail on all our tunnels and Highways, not bike lanes.
Transportation Alternative has resulted in every transportation alternatve on our steets and sidewaks. Now someone your age takes his life in his hands just walking.