A Mayor’s Crisis Stirs Hope for Delayed Street Projects

Mayor Eric Adams has stalled plans to build bus and bicycle lanes. With his leadership under threat, the projects’ supporters see an opening.

Ever since Mayor Eric Adams took office, his administration has been known to stall projects that would set aside a greater share of New York City’s crowded streets for pedestrians, bicyclists and bus riders.

These sorts of proposals often draw passionate support from transit advocates and the city’s own urban planners. But in a megalopolis where the use of every inch of public space is fiercely contested, consensus is rarely possible.

Two years ago, the mayor’s chief aide, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, reintroduced cars to an eight-block stretch in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, that had been reserved for pedestrians. Last year, Mr. Adams’s administration watered down a proposal to prioritize bus traffic along Fordham Road in the Bronx. And in July, the mayor, who during his campaign for office vowed to help improve bus service, deflected criticism that he was delaying a major bus-lane project on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

Now, Mr. Adams and some of his closest advisers — those who have not resigned — are trying to run New York while they are at the center of several corruption investigations. And those who have championed changes to the city’s streets are sensing an opportunity.

Transit advocates and some rank-and-file officials in the city’s Department of Transportation are hoping that their policy priorities will have a better chance of navigating City Hall with the Adams administration focused on its own survival.

It’s a surge of opportunistic optimism that gained steam when several seemingly stuck projects lurched forward.