"Mayor Mamdani's commitment, announced on Friday, to improve bus speeds on Fordham Road by 20 percent may give some Streetsblog readers whiplash: In 2019, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio made a similar commitment to improve bus speeds citywide by 25 percent. De Blasio failed, and bus speeds didn't budge. Mamdani deserves credit for notching early wins by reversing his predecessor's car-first mistakes - first on McGuinness Boulevard in January, and now on Fordham Road and Ashland Place and in Flatbush and Midwood."
"But simply restoring projects that were stalled, truncated or abandoned under Mayor Eric Adams won't help the new mayor achieve his campaign plank of fast buses, let along streets that are the "envy of the world." Let's look at Fordham Road first. Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, de Blasio promised to create new bus priority projects to take advantage of the pandemic "space dividend." He called it the " Better Buses Restart " and the "Red Carpet to Recovery." One of those projects was Fordham Road."
Mayor Mamdani pledged a 20 percent improvement in bus speeds on Fordham Road while reviving an "offset" bus-lane design. Previous city commitments under Mayor Bill de Blasio promised major bus-speed gains but failed to increase average speeds. Mamdani reversed several car-first decisions and restarted projects on McGuinness Boulevard, Fordham Road, Ashland Place, Flatbush, and Midwood. City surveys showed 70 percent local support for a Fordham busway, but political backlash from Bronx Council Member Oswald Feliz and business leaders led to watered-down plans. The revived offset lanes mirror earlier, diluted solutions that struggled to produce fast buses.
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