‘It doesn’t work’: Staten Island residents rally against controversial bus lane plan

By Claire Hamlet | Staten Island Advance (TNS)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Staten Island residents, elected officials and community leaders gathered Saturday for a rally, led by Borough President Vito Fossella, to oppose a city plan to expand bus lanes along the Victory Boulevard corridor.

“There’s already no parking. So where would I go?” said Malaynee, a resident of an apartment on Victory Boulevard who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her privacy.

The Department of Transportation plan, presented to Community Boards 1 and 2 last year, would refurbish existing bus lanes on Victory Boulevard between Bay Street in Tompkinsville and Wild Avenue in Travis with red paint and rubber speed bumps. The most contentious element involves installing two new curbside bus lanes — one between Forest Avenue and Eddy Street in Grymes Hill and another between Seneca Avenue and Little Clove Road in front of Clove Lake Park.

The new lanes would eliminate parking from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. toward the Staten Island Ferry and from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the opposite direction.

The parking ban would extend from Bay Street to Little Clove Road, removing an estimated 200 parking spots along a corridor lined with apartment buildings, medical offices, parks and schools.

Resident Antoinnette Donegan explained that a recent graduation ceremony at nearby Notre Dame Academy overwhelmed the area’s already limited parking.

“Do you know that they park on the sidewalk?” Donegan said. “There’s no place to park.”

Retired bus operator James Smith said kids will have to cross four lanes of traffic just to get to local parks.

“They’re creating a major safety issue for all the children and people who want to go to Clove Lakes, Silver Lakes, the skating rink, there’s four baseball fields,” he said.

Several speakers also raised concerns about elderly residents in the apartments on Victory Boulevard, as well as disabled residents, children and parents navigating school drop-off and pick-up amid backed-up traffic.

Fossella said residents feel ignored by the city, and that’s part of why he organized the rally.

“That’s why we do this. So the people in the city take a step back and say, ‘Maybe we should think more about an older person who has to get nursing services at 7 o’clock in the morning. We didn’t think about that,’” the borough president said.

City DOT says changes will bring safety benefits

In a statement to the Advance/SILive.com, New York City Department of Transportation spokesperson Vincent Barone defended the project and said the upgrades would bring safety benefits through traffic calming, create faster connections to the Staten Island Ferry and preserve parking along the corridor during off-hours.

He pointed to 60 severe injuries recorded along the corridor between 2019 and 2023. Two DOT and MTA presentations from June 2025 identified Victory Boulevard as one of the top 10% most dangerous corridors on the Island. The presentations also showed that bus traffic along the stretch can slow to seven miles per hour during the afternoon rush and eight miles per hour during the morning rush.

Barone said the project brings the bus lane “up to current standards” along a corridor that carries 16 bus routes and more than 25,000 daily riders. He said the new curbside bus lanes near Silver Lake Park and Clove Lakes Park are designed to cut wait times and improve service reliability.

‘It doesn’t work’

Community members and elected officials argued that approach doesn’t fit Staten Island — a borough more dependent on cars than the rest of the city.

“The city always neglects us because it thinks it’s cookie-cutter. When it’s good for the Bronx, it’s good for Manhattan, it’s good for everybody. Staten Islanders have 2.3 cars per household,” said Nicholas Siclari, chairman of Community Board 1. “It doesn’t work.”

Barone said the agency began outreach to elected officials and community boards in February 2025, and that the feedback it received included requests for more reliable bus service, improved bus stops and pedestrian safety, as well as concerns about bus lane hours and traffic flow.

That input shaped the final plan, including one adjustment in particular — the agency shortened the eastbound bus lane hours near Notre Dame Academy from three hours in the morning to two hours, in response to concerns from elected officials.

Barone also said that the city DOT had observed vehicles parking in unpainted segments of the bus lane during restricted hours, which the agency said was slowing bus traffic. In Community Board 1, specific changes include adding red paint to upgrade existing bus lanes between Bay Street and Forest Avenue, extending bus lane hours, and installing rubber speed bumps in some locations for traffic calming.

Still, Siclari said the community boards did not get enough input on the project.

“We didn’t get an official vote on it. We didn’t get a real opportunity to speak on it,” Siclari said. “It was disappointing.”

NYC’s plan to expand bus lanes

The Victory Boulevard project is part of New York City’s broader effort to expand bus lanes citywide. The city has aimed to add 10 to 15 miles of bus lanes annually since April 2019, a goal that was raised to 20 miles in 2022.

Local business advocate Joe Torres argued that small employers along the corridor depend heavily on street parking.

“Parking is a critical component of foot traffic,” Torres said.

Fossella urged residents to escalate their concerns and reach out to city offices and agencies, such as the Office of Disabilities and Commissioner of Human Rights.

“The city should put the brakes on this project,” said Fossella. “They failed to adequately understand the negative implications.”

Agnes McBeth, community liaison for the Richmond County District Attorney’s Office, stated that District Attorney Michael McMahon is “vehemently opposed to this project.”

“It’s not just the lack of parking on Victory Boulevard, but also the side streets... this will not work for motorists and pedestrians on Staten Island,” said McBeth.

Fossella said he intends to request an in-person joint meeting between the community boards and the city DOT. He did not rule out legal action if the project moves forward as planned.

“If we have to sue, we’ll sue as well,” he said.

Resident Kevin Squires, who grew up in the apartments along Victory Boulevard, closed out the rally and urged attendees to follow through on their frustration with sustained action.

“So many times we come together at a rally like this, we leave frustrated, and we don’t do our part. We don’t pick up the phone. We don’t scan the QR code. We don’t encourage more people,” Squires said.

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