A cadre of transit advocates gathered with Mayor Zohran Mamdani in the Bronx on Friday when he announced that he is resurrecting a project shelved by his predecessor, Eric Adams, to add bus lanes on Fordham Road.
There was, however, one notable exception from Mamdani’s announcement: Riders Alliance.
The transit advocacy group, which has been leading the charge to build infrastructure that will move buses much faster along the vital cross-Bronx thoroughfare, opted out of the event, held on a stationary bus parked inside the West Farms Bus Depot, over the mayor’s chosen direction for the project. The reasoning was outlined in an internal Riders Alliance email shared with amNewYork on Monday.
In the email, first reported by Streetsblog, Riders Alliance Executive Director Betsy Plum said the Mamdani administration’s pitch to add bus lanes along Fordham Road fell short of the dedicated busway plan the group has long championed.
“We chose not to stand with the mayor today as he made his Fordham announcement because we are concerned that the plan does not go far enough to deliver faster, more reliable buses riders can depend on,” Plum wrote. “Bus riders, and the Bronx, deserve the very best.”
Transit advocates have long sought dedicated busways on Fordham Road to improve bus speeds along the Bronx’s busiest bus corridor. Currently, buses must contend with heavy traffic along the stretch, leaving many traveling as slow as 4 miles per hour during peak periods.
The project was one of several bus and bike lane installations in the Bronx and Brooklyn that Mamdani announced on Friday he was resurrecting after former Mayor Adams altered or shelved them.
Mamdani and his DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn have already announced the revival of several street redesigns derailed by Adams — including the McGuinness Boulevard makeover that became central to an indictment of Adams’ former top aide Ingrid Lewis-Martin.
In her email, Plum described the group’s preferred plan as the city Transportation Department’s “original” vision for accelerating bus speeds on Fordham Road, which it floated under Adams and former Mayor Bill de Blasio before him.
The proposal, she said, was “watered down” by the Adams administration, to the one that Mamdani is now pitching, before the former mayor ultimately put it on ice due to pressure from local business groups.
Plum said Riders Alliance is pushing for busways because offset bus lanes on their own are less effective at boosting speeds.
“The data are clear: offset bus lanes on their own are not a gold-standard approach for delivering much faster buses on Fordham or anywhere else,” she wrote.
When reached for comment, Mamdani spokesperson Sam Raskin referred amNewYork to remarks the mayor made during the news conference, where he said the administration would revisit the plan if it does not yield a desired 20% increase in bus speeds.
“This 20%, it’s going to be our north star through these next few months of planning, through the process of installation, through the process of implementation,” he said. “We are always going to be coming back to what is the best way to actually get to that 20%, we don’t even have to wait until we see failure.”
Plum took credit for Mamdani’s 20% commitment, claiming it was the group’s decision not to attend the event that pushed him in that direction.
“We insisted the mayor make a clear commitment to riders today: at least 20 percent speed improvements on every bus project with a promise to strengthen designs that fall short,” she said. “The mayor included that commitment in his remarks and emphasized the importance of delivering for riders.”
Danny Pearlstein, the group’s spokesperson, said they see Mamdani’s announcement ultimately as a commitment to the 20% improvement.
“He committed to making buses 20% faster, which would be a significant speed improvement,” Pearlstein said. “It’s something that we can hang on to, and that the city can implement iteratively to build trust in communities where it’s been lost.”
