NYC DOT completes Hillside Avenue bus lane construction

The New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) has completed construction of nearly eight miles of new bus lanes on Hillside Avenue in Queens. The upgrade is designed to deliver faster bus service for over 215,000 daily riders on 22 bus routes along the corridor. The agency says that the project is one of its longest bus priority projects in history. It brings offset bus lanes from 139th Street to Springfield Boulevard, addressing a challenge of buses getting caught in traffic that causes them to slow to as low as four miles per hour. 

"NYC DOT is changing the game one bus lane at a time, and this redesign of Hillside Avenue brings consistent, camera-enforced bus lanes across the corridor while freeing up curb space to support local shops with their deliveries and customer access," said NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. "We thank Mayor [Eric] Adams and the [Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)] for their support in improving this critical transit corridor for everyone who uses it."

The Hillside Avenue bus priority project also improves service to another 21,000 daily riders along five Nassau Inter County Express (NICE) bus routes and improves connections to other transit modes, including four nearby subway lines, the Long Island Rail Road and the JFK AirTrain. According to the department, Buses on Hillside Avenue move more daily passengers than PATH, New Jersey Transit rail or Bay Area Rapid Transit. If looked at on their own, NYC DOT says the buses on Hillside Avenue would be the 18th largest transit system by ridership in the U.S.

Hillside Avenue crosses through several neighborhoods of eastern Queens, including Briarwood, Jamaica, Hollis and Queens Village. About 60% of area residents utilize transit to get to work and 83% of Hillside Avenue users are bus riders.

"Hillside Avenue bus lanes are a game changer for the more than 215,000 daily riders who rely on the 22 MTA buses routes along this corridor to connect them with surrounding neighborhoods, other boroughs, the LIRR, subway, Jamaica Bus Terminal and JFK Airport," said MTA New York City Transit Chief Operating Officer Bernard Jackson. "We look forward to continuing to work together with city partners to implement tools we know get buses moving safely, reliably and efficiently."

Prior to the upgrades, certain sections of Hillside Avenue hosted curbside bus lanes that operated during rush hour. The department says these inconsistent curbside bus lanes were among the first ever installed in the city in 1969, and the recent upgrade marks their first major transformation in more than five decades.

NYC DOT's design features a mixed variety of lanes, including a parking lane on each side of the street, one travel lane for vehicle traffic, one lane for left turning vehicles and one lane for bus traffic in each direction. The new offset bus lanes are only for bus access, being enforced by the MTA's Automated Camera Enforcement system. These lanes are operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week and are not mixed-use lanes. The eastbound bus lane stretches from 144th Street to Springfield Boulevard. The westbound bus lane stretches from 139th Street to Springfield Boulevard.

The design doesn’t just speed up bus service but also added more than 600 parking and loading spaces to support access to local businesses. The MTA notes that it opted to make the change after seeing success with other projects, citing an up to 22% increase in speed in bus routes that underwent similar changes between 2019 and 2024.

"The completion of these new and improved bus lanes on Hillside Avenue will have a real positive impact on the lives of the 215,000 people who ride the bus along this corridor each day," said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. "Riders here will no longer have to endure bus rides that seem to move at a snail's pace. These bus lanes will shorten commutes and allow for more reliable bus service, enabling riders to have more time to spend with their families and pursue the interests they care about."