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A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC. Gothamist Listen Live Donate News Construction to kick off on the Bronx's first busway next month By Ramsey Khalifeh Published Jul 30, 2026 at 6:30 a.m. ET
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The city transportation department on Thursday announced it will begin construction on the Bronx’s first-ever “busway” along East Tremont Avenue next month, marking the first step in a push to make the street the borough’s premier thoroughfare for bus riders.
The busway will be similar to the one implemented on 14th Street in Manhattan in 2019, which bans most car traffic and gives priority to buses, trucks and emergency vehicles. The one on Tremont Avenue will run a half-mile in both directions between Third Avenue and Southern Boulevard.
DOT officials said they’ll repaint the road and add signage to implement the plan by the end of the year. But that’s just the start: Under Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new bus plan , a longer section of Tremont Avenue parallel to the Cross-Bronx Expressway will become a “bus rapid transit” corridor with priority lanes and large station-like bus stops.
DOT spokesperson Vincent Barone said public outreach for the greater corridor will begin later this year.
Locals who’ve spent decades commuting in the neighborhood said it’s about time for a boost.
“You got to be patient and just hold it down,” said Image Brown, who often waits for the bus from his home around the corner of the stop on East Tremont and Crotona avenues. “It does get a lot of traffic, you just got to roll with the flow, it's the New York flow.”
And the New York flow is slow for Bronx riders. According to city data, the average rush hour speed of the Bx36 bus — which travels across East Tremont Avenue — is a mere 5 mph.
Brown, 39, said he’s optimistic that Mamdani’s 20% goal to improve bus speeds on Tremont Avenue will work with “little by little” improvements to the strip of road, which is narrower than other priority corridors in the city.
“Other cities got faster transit, faster buses and trains and stuff,” Brown added.
Katherine Abrams, 62, sat down at one of the only bus stops along the corridor with benches and shade. She’s fed up with East Tremont Avenue and the Bx36.
“It’s terrible,” she said. “They come crowded all the time and sometimes they send short buses along the route and they just pick up a lot of people.”
In 2022, the MTA redesigned the Bronx Bus Network after years of delays due to the COVID pandemic. Before that, the Bx40 and Bx42 traveled along the same route as the Bx36 on the stretch of road on East Tremont Avenue.
MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan said the transit agency will review all priority corridors between six months and a year after the implementation of new bus lanes and busways and make adjustments as needed.
Abrams said service was a lot faster before the redesign because it meant she had more bus options along East Tremont Avenue, but believed Mamdani’s busway still “would be better” for the neighborhood.
As for the drivers who might complain about the new road rules, Abrams said they’ll have to deal with it.
“They don’t have a choice if you make it a law,” she said.
Bus speeds on 14th Street increased 24% after the launch of Manhattan’s first busway, according to data from the city’s transportation department. Officials hope the one in the Bronx will have the same effect.
“The 39,000 daily riders of the Bx36 deserve faster bus service that they can rely on, and this long-awaited project will cut down commutes in one of the most congested bus corridors in the Bronx,” Mamdani wrote in a statement.
Ramsey Khalifeh is a transportation reporter on the NYC Accountability desk covering the largest transit system in the country. He was previously a general assignment reporter at Gothamist and worked on the Boston Globe's metro and copy desk. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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