A crowded sidewalk on Ninth Avenue.
Photograph courtesy of DOT
A 16-block stretch of Manhattan’s Ninth Avenue will probably be getting a facelift forward of this summer season’s FIFA World Cup, to accommodate massive crowds anticipated to flood town through the occasion, town Division of Transportation (DOT) introduced.
The DOT will redesign Ninth Avenue between thirty fourth and fiftieth Streets, the place it expects an inflow of revelers to extend visitors as they enter Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The redesign guarantees so as to add extra pedestrian house, widen the road’s protected bike lane, and prolong its painted bus lane to fiftieth Avenue.
“Ninth Avenue will probably be a hub of exercise throughout this summer season’s World Cup, with guests from all over the world and elevated visitors on the Lincoln Tunnel and the Port Authority Bus Terminal,” DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn stated in a March 19 assertion.
“Mayor Mamdani has advised us to suppose large, so with a purpose to be a welcoming and safer place for vacationers and New Yorkers alike, we’ll instantly work to have Ninth Avenue higher accommodate the overwhelming majority of the road’s customers who’re on two ft, two wheels, or who’re driving the bus,” he added.
The DOT has recognized Ninth Avenue, the part of which it’s redesigning runs via Hell’s Kitchen and Midtown, as a precedence hall underneath town’s Imaginative and prescient Zero initiative to cut back visitors accidents and crashes. Over the previous 5 years, one particular person has been killed, and 36 others have been critically injured alongside the stretch, in accordance with the company.
The thoroughfare’s design points embody overcrowding on its slender sidewalks and its buses being slowed by elevated visitors from the Lincoln Tunnel entrance.
DOT discovered that whereas pedestrians and cyclists account for 51% of the road’s utilization, 64% of the house is presently afforded to automotive drivers.
The redesign consists of widening the prevailing sidewalk into “tremendous sidewalks” — including 9 ft of pedestrian house alongside the hall. DOT additionally plans to place in concrete and painted pedestrian islands at eastbound crosswalks and painted curb extensions at crowded corners.
Moreover, DOT will widen the prevailing protected bike lane from 5 to 9 ft, permitting sufficient house for cyclists to move each other. It is going to additionally set up new bike and microbility parking buildings at cross streets.
DOT had beforehand utilized the identical remedy to 4 blocks of Ninth Avenue — between seventeenth and twenty first Streets — in 2023. The Ninth Avenue protected bike lane was the primary DOT-installed within the metropolis’s present community, again in 2007.
Lastly, the scheme consists of extending the red-painted portion of Ninth Avenue’s curbside bus lane — serving the M34A and M11 buses — by 4 blocks, from forty sixth to fiftieth Streets. As soon as work is accomplished, the bus lane will probably be painted purple between forty second and fiftieth Streets.
Pink-painted bus lanes are supposed to be simpler for the NYPD to implement towards drivers who illegally occupy them throughout energetic hours.
The lane will probably be reserved for buses solely between 7-10 a.m. and 4-7 p.m., seven days per week.
Information of the redesign acquired a heat reception from protected streets advocates.
Alexa Sledge, spokesperson for the group Transportation Alternate options, in an announcement referred to as it a “constructive step ahead for anybody who walks, bikes, or rides a motorcycle alongside the hall, and it’s an ideal instance of upgrading avenue house forward of the World Cup.”
“Concrete capability may also be key to remodeling these into true tremendous sidewalks,” she added.
Sara Lind, government director of the advocacy group Open Plans, stated in an announcement that the challenge will make Ninth Avenue “safer and extra nice to traverse.”
“We’re glad the World Cup was an impetus to behave rapidly, however the advantages will probably be felt by New Yorkers for many years to return,” she stated.
Between mid-March and mid-June, DOT will repave Ninth Avenue, construct the concrete islands, and paint new markings. Through the World Cup, it can full lane marking work on non-game days. And the challenge will probably be completed both by late summer season or early fall.
