Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to boot cars from swaths of The Bronx’s East Tremont Avenue in a bid to speed up city buses — but local drivers blasted the move as “crazy” on Wednesday.
Starting Sept. 19, cars will largely be banned from sections of the six-mile corridor between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., with the exception of large trucks, access-a-ride vans and emergency vehicles.
“Thanks to our historic bus action plan, City Hall is bringing the Tremont Avenue busway back to life,” Mamdani said Wednesday at Walter Gladwin Park, as he announced the city was breaking ground on the long-stalled project.
“New Yorkers will feel this change almost immediately,” he vowed, as City Hall officials claimed the project would make Bx36 bus service faster and more reliable.
But drivers will feel the change the most, Bronx motorists said.
“It would be a problem for everybody!” one local, who gave his name as Hector, 66, said as he waited in his car to pick his wife up from work along East Tremont Avenue.
The Mamdani voter said the mayor should “to remember who put him here” before implementing the dramatic changes.
Even bus rider John Beuther, 79, thought the plan was “crazy.”
“Everybody drives up here,” he said adding that the bus on the avenue — which City Hall estimated had an average speed of 5 mph during rush hours — was already fast enough.
“I’ve gotten the bus along here a few times. They’re already pretty fast,” he said.
Julio Martinez, 38, owns Chon Barbershop on East Tremont Avenue and parks in front of his barber shop each day, as do his customers. He said the changes could hurt his business.
“Everybody’s driving,” Martinez said. “We’re gonna lose a lot of money. No one’s gonna come and get a haircut.”
Former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration paused the busway project in 2025 saying it did not have enough community support, NY1 reported at the time.
Mamdani put the plan back on track, claiming the changes will improve bus speeds by up to 60%, saving riders up to six minutes per trip and increase safety for make pedestrians and bikers.
Eastbound buses will get the restricted path from Third Avenue to Southern Boulevard, an about 10-block stretch, while westbound ones get the busway for the about three blocks from Southern Boulevard to Belmont Avenue.
Allan Rosen, vice chair of transit advocacy group Passengers United and a former bus planner for the MTA with decades of experience, told The Post he was skeptical of the promise that the Bx36 will be faster.
“I don’t believe any DOT (Department of Transportation) promises. They promised 30% faster travel times in 2016 for Woodhaven Blvd bus lane and SBS and got slower travel times,” Rosen claimed.
Mamdani, during Wednesday’s press conference, took a swipe at drivers, accusing those who find themselves in the bus lane of “deliberately trying to slow down our buses.”
He said he wants to slap drivers with more big-brother style camera tickets through the MTA’s Automated Camera Enforcement program, which used to be called ABLE.
“One critical part of this is also ACE and ABLE, and ensuring that we are expanding the number of miles across the city, where we are able to hold those accountable, who are deliberately trying to slow down our buses by being in those very lanes,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani touted a faster bus plan in Brooklyn earlier this summer that relies on speeding up buses by removing stops.
He was slammed by Bronx politicians earlier this summer over another bus plan on Fordham Road.
The politicians said the DOT’s redesign plan didn’t include basic neighborhood upgrades or bring back much-needed bus stops that were removed to speed up the buses.
A busway is a street where buses get to go straight through, while regular cars can only enter briefly to reach a local destination and then must turn off.
Read the full article here
