“This plan fails to meet the moment,” Statement from Transportation Alternatives on the Fifth Avenue Redesign

Council District 4, which covers much of Fifth Avenue, has the slowest bus speeds in the entire city.

Fifth Avenue has the highest bike ridership of any street in Manhattan without a bike lane.

The vast majority of those living, working on, and visiting Fifth Avenue arrived via public transit. 

NEW YORK  — Today, City Hall is announcing $400 million for a redesign along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan that expands space for pedestrians but includes no improvements for bus riders and bike riders. Without safe and protected bike infrastructure, this plan will exacerbate conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists with nowhere safe to ride. 

Fifth Avenue currently dedicates much of its streetspace to cars, but the vast majority of those living, working on, and visiting Fifth Avenue arrive via public transit. Council District 4, which covers much of Fifth Avenue, has the slowest bus speeds in the entire city and ranks first for traffic volume at nearly double the citywide average. In April 2025, roughly 31,000 Citi Bike rides began at stations along Fifth Avenue. That's two Citi Bike trips every three minutes all month long.

Bike lanes and busways are good for business. After a protected bike lane was installed on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, sales revenue increased 49%, and after bike lanes were installed on Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn, sales revenue increased 40% in one year and doubled in three years. Bus infrastructure is good for the economy, too: after a car-free busway was installed on Fordham Road in the Bronx, sales revenue increased 71% — three times the borough-wide rate.

Statement from Ben Furnas, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives: 

“Fifth Avenue deserves to be an iconic, people-first street that behooves the greatest city in the world, but this plan fails to meet the moment. DOT presented a great plan back in 2021 that would have included a busway, an expanded sidewalk, and a protected bike lane — but today’s announcement dedicates hundreds of millions of dollars to an inadequate design that leaves bus riders in the lurch and will put pedestrians and bicyclists in unnecessary conflict. 

“This new pedestrian space can only be safe and clear with a protected bike lane that keeps bikes off the sidewalks, and bus riders can only travel quickly and efficiently along Fifth Avenue with a dedicated busway. 

“Instead, this shortsighted ‘vision’ snubs bus riders, pedestrians, and people on bikes alike. There’s no doubt that if this plan moves forward unchanged, after years of capital construction and hundreds of millions of dollars we’ll be left with a street with increased conflicts between people walking and people on bikes, bus riders trapped in congestion they didn’t create, and a gap in the protected bike lane network between Central Park and downtown. 

“New York City deserves better and Midtown deserves better. ” 

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