How to Fix NYC’s Streets? GOOD Magazine Turns to the Bronx

Fordham Road and Webster Avenue in the Bronx is one of New York City’s busiest intersections. The junction of the Bx12 and Bx41 Select Bus Service routes, it is crowded with pedestrians, including people going to and from the Fordham Metro-North station. As part of a series examining transportation issues across the nation, GOOD Magazine looked at how the intersection is being tweaked to make it better for bus riders, safer for pedestrians, and less chaotic for drivers.

The video, produced by Doug Patterson, includes interviews with Tri-State Transportation Campaign Executive Director Veronica Vanterpool, Columbia University planning professors Elliott Sclar and Floyd Lapp, and yours truly.

It gives a good overview of the rationale for Select Bus Service and the intersection’s pedestrian improvements, showing how a series of different projects can help transform streets over time.

Called “the worst intersection in New York” by New York Magazine in 2012, the intersection is incredibly busy: About 80,000 people walk through each day. In 2008, DOT identified it as the city’s most dangerous intersection for pedestrians. Over the years, it’s received everything from countdown clocks and retimed signals to pedestrian refuge islands. A “slip lane” on the intersection’s northeast corner, which allowed drivers to make high-speed turns, was replaced with additional pedestrian space. Next door, the city is rebuilding Fordham Plaza, a bus hub and outdoor market above the train station.

Over the years, projects have involved multiple city and state agencies, local elected officials, and community groups working, piece by piece, to reclaim this busy Bronx hub from the automobile.