West Side Residents, Transportation Officials Discuss 34th Street Bus Lane Project Updated October 22, 2010 2:57pm

Transitway representatives and 34th Street residents between Ninth and Tenth Avenues try to hash out a solution for the controversial plan. (DNAinfo/Tara Kyle)

By Tara Kyle

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

HELL’S KITCHEN — Department of Transportation officials showed West Side residents Thursday night an alternate design for a plan to create dedicated bus lanes along 34th Street.

The 34th Street Transitway project, which would create two bus-only lanes and limit other vehicle traffic to one-way, is intended to ease congestion for cars and pedestrians from the FDR Drive to Twelfth Avenue. But residents from Murray Hill to Hell's Kitchen have complained the plan would limit access for emergency vehicles, home heating oil and grocery deliveries, moving vans and senior citizen drop-offs.

Aerial view of proposed Transitway plans. (Courtesy Department of Transportation)

"We think your motto should be kind of like doctors," one resident of the block between Ninth and Tenth Avenues said at the meeting, held at the New Yorker hotel on Eighth Avenue. "First, do no harm."

The alternate design would place a loading lane between the bus lanes and the sidewalk. This would allow delivery vans short-term access to the block, during a to-be-determined range of off-peak hours.

The loading lane would likely close during the traditional peak hours of 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., in order to avoid excessive congestion on 34th Street. To exit the loading lane and reenter car lanes, delivery trucks would have to pass through the two proposed bus lanes.

Some residents said this proposed concessions didn’t go far enough, because plumbers, cable repairmen and other delivery people often arrive at unpredictable times. The loading lanes could also be problematic for moving vans, which traditionally stop for between four and five hours at a time.

Christine Berthet, transportation committee head for Community Board 4, encouraged residents to provide reports of their delivery needs to the DOT in as much detail as possible.

"If you say we have 50 things happening at 8 a.m., they might give you different hours," she said.

Going forward, the Department of Transportation representatives emphasized that they would continue to incorporate community feedback into their preliminary design, along with input from traffic simulations and an environmental assessment.

"We’re in this process of going from 'oh we have this idea,’ to 'how does this idea actually work?'" DOT representative Will Carry said, "not only for us, but also for you,"