The city should consider banning cars on major thoroughfares like 34th and 42nd Sts. after the success of the 14th Street busway, Council Speaker Corey Johnson said Monday.
“I think the 14th Street Busway is very exciting,” Johnson said on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show. “We should look at it on 34th St., on 42nd St., on these major thoroughfares.”
Johnson admitted he was skeptical that diverting most car traffic from 14th St. wouldn’t create “parking lots” on nearby blocks. “I was wrong,” he said.
Average bus speeds on 14th St. are up about 30% since officials banned cars from most of the busy crosstown Manhattan corridor. The new restrictions that began Oct. 3 cut the time of a bus ride along 14th St. between Third and Eighth Aves. to 10.6 minutes, down from 15.1 minutes for a similar trip in September 2018, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Ridership also increased along the street’s M14A and M14D select bus routes — which used to be among the city’s slowest. The two routes served 31,031 riders a day from Oct. 2 through Oct. 11, up from a daily average of around 30,195 in September, MTA data shows.
“People are calling it the miracle on 14th St. — when was the last time you heard anyone rave about getting on a bus and moving across town quickly?” Johnson said. “You could walk cross town faster than taking the 14th St. crosstown bus in the past.”
He said the busway would “hopefully be a model for other places in New York City because again … we need to move people around quickly and give people options so they don’t have to use their private automobiles.”
Mayor de Blasio has said considering similar traffic restrictions on other cross streets was premature before the pilot program ends.
“When it’s concluded we’re going to start to think about what it means for every place else,” the mayor said on WNYC Friday.
