The 34th Street Transitway will cut Manhattan river-to-river. Between 9th and 10th Avenues alone, there are more than 1,000 apartments where people already feel the negative impacts of DOT’s dedicated bus lanes, precursors to Transitway. These New Yorkers live in well-kept apartment houses with awnings, trees and flower beds – just the kinds of places that make Manhattan livable. Now their community’s at risk because of the Above Ground Subway.
Recently, two West 34th Street neighbors, a resident and a business owner, described the deterioration of their area’s quality of life and business activity due to the bus lanes. They’ve been on the block between 9th and 10th Avenues since the 1970s and 1980s and committed themselves to New York at the time when so many other people moved away because of the city’s fiscal crises and crime. Now they see losing their neighborhood’s hard-won improvements because of the Transitway.
West 34th Street Resident
“I moved here in 1977 when I worked on 34th Street and passed the building where I live now. At the time, the block didn’t have as many stores as it has now and 9th Avenue was ‘iffy.’ There were crack houses and on 10th Avenue were prostitutes.
Improvements started with Manhattan Plaza, the housing development that cleaned up 42nd Street. It included apartments for actors and artists but neighborhood people, too. It brought the first supermarket to the area. As 42nd Street improved with small off-Broadway theaters, 9th Avenue did, too. Our block felt safe.
Living here are mostly working people, couples, some theater people, up-and-coming young professionals, retirees and the elderly. Now we have a winery, pizza shop and the Skylight Diner.
Since DOT installed the bus lanes, our block is totally backed up with traffic. It’s dangerous to cross the street – even with the traffic cop! At our building we can’t load and unload, and we have only one entrance, so where are deliveries supposed to go? We can’t get oil deliveries, either. Everybody gets tickets! And it’s really hard on our elderly people. One of my neighbors, an elderly lady in a wheel chair, was told she had to go to the corner of 9th Avenue to be picked up. She was humiliated!
The Transitway will only make things worse. I’m beginning to feel as though I’m being evicted!”
West 34th Street Business Owner
“My business has been in the neighborhood for 16 years, but I lived here for 40 years and grew up here. Back then there were a lot of walk-up houses and a lot of manufacturing. It was the Garment District, with people pushing carts. There were prostitutes and a lot of drugs.
As things got cleaned up, people moved here. I located my business here because the area was getting better and better. People couldn’t understand, but I was sure it was getting better. Demand got so great that I decided to stay open 24 hours a day.
Now with the bus lanes it’s hard to get service – refrigeration, food deliveries. Food deliveries have to go to 9th Avenue and double-park. Some just skip me because of the harassment.
I’m worried about my business and my community, with all the elderly. The bus lanes not only take up parking spaces, but they make the area more congested. Now it’s hard for people to cross the street. My night business is off 10 percent.”