Advocates for better bus service on Fordham Road are not giving up.
In late May, the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) announced intentions to move forward with offset bus lanes on Fordham Road instead of a busway — a more extreme measure for prioritizing bus service — just days after business leaders against both ideas wrote a letter to Mayor Eric Adams.
Transit advocates, particularly from Riders Alliance, were enraged by what they saw as Adams caving to wealthy critics who live in the suburbs and don’t rely on Bronx bus service.
Now, the activists want to make sure the offset lanes are actually installed — as soon as possible — and that a busway is studied further, Riders Alliance spokesperson Daniel Pearlstein told the Bronx Times.
After launching a petition on June 8 that Pearlstein said garnered more than 1,000 signatures and staging a protest on June 21 in animal and flower costumes mocking the local Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Garden — two of the businesses against the project — advocates are speaking out again on Tuesday.
At an 11 a.m. protest at Fordham Plaza, Riders Alliance will be joined by the MTA Chief Customer Officer Shanifah Rieara, Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, Laborers’ Local 1010, New York Public Interest Research Group Straphangers Campaign, Transportation Alternatives and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
The Bx12, which traverses Fordham Road, is the busiest route in the Bronx, and the second busiest citywide, according to a March 2022 MTA and DOT presentation. The road is a crucial crosstown connector in the Bronx, but it’s riddled with congestion, parking issues and vehicles blocking bus lanes, leaving sluggish bus speeds. The route serves 85,000 riders daily.
In the presentation, the agencies proposed three options to improve bus conditions on Fordham Road: Convert the existing curbside bus lanes to offset lanes, create an eastbound busway from Morris Avenue to…
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