NYC DOT proposes busway for 34th Street to speed up service in Manhattan

The New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) is proposing to add a busway for the 34th Street corridor across Manhattan to help speed up bus service with shorter, more reliable waits on the M34/A Select Bus Service, 22 express bus routes, New York Waterway, tour and other buses.  

The proposal follows the successful installation of bus lanes on 14th Street. After the bus lanes were implemented on 14th Street, NYC DOT says bus speeds increased up to 24 percent and crashes in the corridor dropped by 42 percent. The proposal follows support from all three local community boards for a bus lane on 34th Street. 

"The vast majority of commuters in Midtown are traveling by transit and they deserve world-class, fast and reliable buses," said NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. "After seeing tremendous success on 14th Street—where buses have sped up, traffic has virtually disappeared and far fewer New Yorkers are getting hurt in crashes—we are excited to propose a similar design on 34th Street. We look forward to refining the design with the community." 

NYC DOT presented the proposal for a 34th Street busway, as well as a proposal to extend the northbound double bus lanes on Madison Avenue from 42nd Street down to 23rd Street—two separate projects to speed up Manhattan buses—at Community Board 5.  

34th Street busway proposal 

Improved bus priority on 34th Street was a key proposal in the Connecting to the Core Plan to make it easier to travel around Manhattan's Central Business District without a vehicle. The 34th Street busway would utilize a similar design as 14th Street, where NYC DOT freed up space for buses and improved traffic safety without seeing any significant spillover traffic to neighboring streets. 

The proposal would deliver a busway from Ninth Avenue to Third Avenue and prioritize buses and trucks while maintaining local access for pick-ups, drop-offs and loading needs. Like 14th Street, local access vehicles would be required to turn off the busway at specific intersections to avoid a traffic violation. 

Installing a busway will free up curb space for deliveries and bring new pedestrian safety improvements, including painted curb extensions and improved visibility at intersections across the corridor. Outside of the busway, NYC DOT would maintain the existing bus lanes along 34th Street, from 11th Avenue to FDR Drive. 

34th Street would be New York City's eighth busway and the seventh installed since 14th Street in 2019. 

Madison Avenue bus priority proposal 

Madison Avenue is a critical corridor for transit, serving 92,000 daily bus riders on 34 bus routes—including the M1, M2, M3, M4 and Q32 local buses, as well as 29 express bus routes from other boroughs. During morning and evening rush hours, the majority of people on the roadway are on a bus, yet NYC DOT says they occupy just a quarter of the space thanks to the efficiency of bus service. 

NYC DOT is proposing extending the existing double bus lanes of Madison Avenue, which currently run from 60th Street to 42nd Street, further south to 23rd Street near Madison Square Park. The corridor is also undergoing expansion of automated camera enforcement mounted on M2 and M4 buses to ensure speedy and efficient bus service for the corridor. 

Extending the bus lanes will quicken the commutes for New Yorkers traveling from across the city. When NYC DOT implemented similar lanes on Fifth Avenue, speeds on local routes increased between six percent to 12 percent and on express routes by 11 percent to 20 percent. 

NYC DOT says it plans to review feedback from the community on each project before moving forward with implementation.